Capitalism is a starvation construct dressed up as economic policy.
Raise wages. Tax corporations. Tax the rich.
Reaganomics at work
The last day of 2023 is 123123 (12/31/23)
#SAGAFTRAstrong #WGAstrong
They aren’t the only industry, but certainly one of the most visible.
No one can afford to live while corporations are making record profits.
An open letter to @staff
I already submitted this to Support under "Feedback," but I'm sharing it here too as I don't expect it to get a response, and I feel like putting in out in public may be more effective than sending it off into the void.
The recent post on the Staff blog about changing tumblr to an algorithmic feed features a large amount of misinformation that I feel staff needs to address, openly and honestly, with information on where this data was sourced at the very least.
Claim 1: Algorithms help small creators.
This is false, as algorithms are designed to push content that gets engagement in order to get it more engagement, thereby assuring that the popular remain popular and the small remain small except in instances of extreme luck.
This can already be seen on the tumblr radar, which is a combination of staff picks (usually the same half-dozen fandoms or niche special interests like Lego photography) which already have a ton of engagement, or posts that are getting enough engagement to hit the radar organically. Tumblr has an algorithm that runs like every other socmed algorithm on the planet, and it will decimate the reach of small creators just like every other platform before it.
Claim 2: Only a small portion of users utilize the chronological feed.
You can find a poll by user @darkwood-sleddog here that at the time of writing this, sits at over 40 THOUSAND responses showing that over 96 percent of them use the chronological feed. Claiming otherwise isn't just a misstatement, it's a lie. You are lying to your core userbase and expecting them to accept it as fact. It's not just unethical, it's insulting to people who have been supporting your platform for over a decade.
Claim 3: Tumblr is not easy to use.
This is also 100% false and you ABSOLUTELY know it. Tumblr is EXTREMELY easy to use, the issue is that the documentation, the explanations of features, and often even the stability of the service is subpar. All of this would be very easy for staff to fix, if they would invest in the creation of walkthroughs and clear explanations of how various site features work, as well as finally fixing the search function. Your inability to explain how your service works should not result in completely ignoring the needs and wants of your core long-term userbase. The fact that you're more willing to invest in the very systems that have made every other form of social media so horrifically toxic than in trying to make it easier for people to use the service AS IT WORKS NOW and fixing the parts that don't work as well speaks volumes toward what tumblr staff actually cares about.
You will not get a paycheck if your platform becomes defunct, and the thing that makes it special right now is that it is the ONLY large-scale socmed platform on THE ENTIRE INTERNET with a true chronological feed and no aggressive algorithmic content serving. The recent post from staff indicates that you are going to kill that, and are insisting that it's what we want. It is not. I'd hazard to guess that most of the dev team knows it isn't what we want, but I assume the money people don't care. The user base isn't relevant, just how much money they can bring in.
The CEO stated he wanted this to remain as sort of the last bastion of the Old Internet, and yet here we are, watching you declare you intend to burn it to the ground.
You can do so much better than this.
The CEO is 100% behind the changes. In fact I suspect half of the post from yesterday comes straight from him "correcting" an earlier version of those core values.
48hr tumblr blackout proposal
tumblr mobile has seadily become near unusable these past few updates. not just from a user experience perspective (which is important enough in itself) but also from an accessibility perspective.
examples include the new way the image viewer works (if you can call it "working"), the tumblr live button replacing the profile button, and that newly created blogs will be forced to have their main dashboard tab be the 'for you' page.
the demands of the protest would be along the lines of:
- reverse the recent image viewer update
- scrap the new users 'for you' page default setting
- let us turn off tumblr live indefinitely
- increase efforts against spam / porn bots
- make reporting abuse and hate speech as easy as reporting as reporting spam
- let us go nuts show nuts again... for real this time
- commit to improving usability and accessibility, and listening to users!
- (suggestions welcome!)
to protest against these usability issues, and inspired by the recent reddit blackout, i propose a 48 hour blackout (where you don't use tumblr at all). preferably of both mobile and web (since web has problems too) but mobile is the focus here.
I suggest the 48 hours between the 30th of June to the end of the 1st of July.
this marks the end of pride month (for the "queerest place on the internet") and the start of disability month (since accessibility is a massive issue here).
tumblr office is in San Francisco, USA, so the times and dates will be calculated using their time zone (PDT).
you can find out the times and dates for your timezone here.
i can't afford to blaze this post so please spread it around as much as possible! protests only work if significant numbers show up!
tumblr rejected the blaze campaigns for this post because they know it would hurt them. let's make this an indefinite blackout - it's the best way to get results.
(so the blackout would be from June 30th onwards)
@one-time-i-dreamt @i-am-a-fish @lizluvscupcakes tagging some larger blogs to hopefully get the word out more
yeah ok fuck it. vive la révolution.
sure, why not
ruh roh, it gets worse
I’m not a Redditor so I could be wrong. But this looks pretty fucking bad
nudityandnerdery