Slick4048 - Untitled

A message from a few of the trans staff at Tumblr & Automattic:

We want trans people, and LGBTQ+ people broadly, to feel welcome on Tumblr, in part because we as trans people at Tumblr and Automattic want it to be a space where we ourselves feel included. We want to feel like this is a platform that supports us and fights for our safety. Tumblr is made brighter and more vibrant by your presence, and the LGBTQ+ folks who help run it are fighting all the time for this, for you, internally. 

A few days ago, Matt Mullenweg (the CEO of Automattic, Tumblr’s parent company) responded to a user’s ask about an account suspension in a way that negatively affected Tumblr’s LGBTQ+ community. We believe that Matt's response to this ask and his continued commentary has been unwarranted and harmful. Tumblr staff do not comment on moderation decisions as a matter of policy for a variety of reasons—including the privacy of those involved, and the practicalities of moderating thousands of reports a day. The downside of this policy is that it is very easy for rumors and incorrect information about actions taken by our Trust & Safety team to spread unchecked. Given this, we want to clarify a few different pieces of this situation:

The reality of predstrogen's suspension was not accurately conveyed, and made it seem like we were reaching for opportunities to ban trans feminine people on the platform. This is not the case. The example comment shared in the post linked above does not meet our definition of a realistic threat of violence, and was not the deciding factor in the account suspension.

Matt thereafter failed to recognize the harm to the community as a result of this suspension. Matt does not speak on behalf of the LGBTQ+ people who help run Tumblr or Automattic, and we were not consulted in the construction of a response to these events.

Last year, the "mature" and "sexual themes" community labels were erroneously applied to some users' posts. An outside team of contractors tasked with applying community labels to posts were responsible for this larger trend of mislabeling trans-related content. When our Trust & Safety team discovered this issue (thanks largely to reports from the community), we removed the contracted team’s ability to apply community labels and added more oversight to ensure it does not happen again. In the Staff post about this, LGBTQ+ staff pushed to be more transparent but were overruled by leadership. The termination of a contractor mentioned in the original ask response was for an unrelated incident which was incorrectly attributed to this case. We regret that the mislabeling ever happened, and the negative impact it has had on the trans community on Tumblr. 

Transition timelines are not against our community guidelines, and weren’t a factor considered by the moderation team when discussing suspensions and subsequent appeals. We do not take action against content that is related to transitioning or trans bodies unless it includes violations of the Community Guidelines.

When it comes to the experience of trans folks on Tumblr encountering transphobic content, and interacting with bigoted users, we understand and share your frustrations. Tumblr’s policies, and Automattic’s policies, are written to ensure freedom of speech and expression. We prohibit harassment as defined in our Community Guidelines, but we know that this policy falls short of protecting users from the wider scope of harmful speech often used against LGBTQ+ and other marginalized people.

Going forward, Tumblr is taking the following actions:

Prioritizing anti-harassment features that will empower users to more effectively protect themselves from harassment.

Building more internal tooling for us as Staff to proactively identify and mitigate instances of harassment.

Reviewing which of the tags frequently used by the trans community are blocked, and working to make them available next week.

We’re sorry for how this all transpired, and we’re actively fighting to make our voices heard more and prevent something like this from happening again in the future. We know firsthand that having to deal with situations like this as a Tumblr user is difficult, particularly as a member of an already frequently targeted and harassed community. We know it will take time to regain your trust, and we’re going to put in the work to rebuild it.

We appreciate the space we have been given to express our concerns and dissent, and we are thankful that Matt’s (and Automattic’s) strong commitment to freedom of expression has facilitated it.

We will continue to fight to make Tumblr safe for us all.

— This statement was authored by multiple trans employees of Tumblr and Automattic.

Can’t really choose for a Vote like this but these always could use more data, so here I go reblogging.

Fuck it, pitting two bad bitches against each other

I'm too afraid to tag either of them in this

everyone forgot about this wholesome video so i dug through the deep files of the internet cause it needs to be seen again

you can click on this button once daily to help palestine and support other causes in the middle east for free. it takes literally 5 seconds and could help save lives so please take the time to click and share this link.

This is so beautiful and took a lot of patience!!! ✊

Hey Cirilee, this might be kinda out of the blue but…Do you happen know where intergalacticinterference went? Like, I see art they commissioned of their pretty cool characters…But that’s all that I can find. It always cool to see the stuff they commissioned pop up but I can’t find their account or any possible posts they’ve made anymore.

Like, a year ago they were very active from what I can tell…Commissioned a pretty decent amount of art, decent to me at any rate…I’ve never been in the position to be able to commission art, but now that’s all that I can find with my current ability to search through Tumblr.

Like, is it weird that I’m worrying about this? Over someone I don’t think I’ve actually interacted with…

huh! no, youre right that's definitely weird, that they just disappeared like that - it happens often enough on the internet, but its still kinda sad when it happens

sadly, i don't know where they went - they DMd me about wanting to commission me again last december, but i was in a bad funk back then and didn't reply for way too long :c ! (my commissions were closed during that time anyways but still ;o;)

@ all of you does anyone else know where they went?

these are the pieces they commissioned me to draw:

i love lux levine, their OC was a perfect match for fred :')

I finished Outlaw Star, an anime from the 1990s I cannot in good conscience actually recommend as worth your time

unless you’re really starved for content about buff catgirls with quirky personalities, in which case may I introduce you to Aisha ClanClan - strength and stomach of Goku Dragonballz, unearned confidence and LACK OF INDOOR VOICE of Peridot Stevenuniverse, wrapped up in a package that honest-to-god goes “nyah”

…who, it goes without saying, was enough for me!

but idk if the rest is worth your time, after 22 years of better standards in animation and character writing.

also she can turn into a weretiger

Thursday the 20th

HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE Let’s say it’s 6.15pm and you’re going home (alone of course), after an unusually hard day on the job. You’re really tired, upset and frustrated. Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to drag out into your arm and up into your jaw. You are only about five miles from the hospital nearest your home. Unfortunately you don’t know if you’ll be able to make it that far. You have been trained in CPR, but the guy that taught the course did not tell you how to perform it on yourself..!! NOW HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE… Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, without help, the person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness. However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest. A breath and a cough must be repeated about every two seconds without let-up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again. Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can perhaps buy precious time to get themselves to a phone and dial 911. Rather than sharing another joke please contribute by broadcasting this which can save a person’s life! Be prepared and become part of the solution. Get your free next-of-kin notification card today. Click here: https://www.InCaseOfEmergencyCard.com/