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You are here: Home > Forum > A Place of Safety > General Talk > Tumblr Account Terminated Unfairly and Without Explanation
Tumblr Account Terminated Unfairly and Without Explanation  [message #75697] Fri, 19 April 2019 19:22 Go to next message
Ian Fatima is currently offline  Ian Fatima

Getting started

Registered: June 2017
Messages: 18



Tumblr's Disreputable and Oppressive Censorship
 
 
I went on Tumblr in early February. There were three linked blogs altogether, ianfatima.tumblr.com, inafatima2.tumblr.com, and ianfatima3.tumblr.com. They started in February, 2019. The main blog, ianfatima.tumblr.com, was called "An Adonis Collection, and featured tasteful pictures of good-looking young men. The second blog, ianfatima2.tumblr.com, was called "The Famous "Grey Speedo Boy," featured pictures of that renowned college-aged cutie. The third blog, ianfatima3.tumblr.com, was called "A Special Gallery of Superblond Guys," and featured individuals whose hair was unusually beautiful and stunning.

At first there were just a handful of followers. At one point it was 8, then it was 11 and then 14. Eventually it would grow into hundreds. By the time it was nearing 1000 followers, it would add maybe 30 new followers per day! Occasionally a picture would be flagged as "Offensive Content." I appealed each one, and each was quickly approved and posted. I received emails apologizing for the flagging.

During the last few weeks of the account, things had started getting weird. I tried to upload a perfectly innocuous picture of two college aged swimmers wearing speedos, and it was flagged as "adult content." Since it was a tasteful picture, I naturally appealed, but it wasn't approved in a reasonable time, as had always been the case previously. Instead, it languished in "Content Appeal" for most of a week. I was tired of waiting. I did an image search, and found it was a common picture, and had even appeared in other Tumblr blogs, so I decided to delete it from "Content Appeal."

The next several flagged pictures also remained in "Content Appeal" for a long time without getting approved. And the swimmer duo in speedos picture I had deleted from "Content Appeal" RE-APPEARED in "Content Appeal," as though by magic! It had to have been placed back there by a Tumblr employee. In thought that was odd, and I started to suspect that Tumblr was amassing ammunition to use against me, to justify the termination of the account.

By Tuesday, April 2, 2019, the three blogs had a combined following of nearly 1000- followers. There were 742 followers for the main blog, ianfatima.tumblr.com, plus 76 followers for the second blog, ianfatima2.tumblr.com, and 139 followers for the third blog, ianfatima3.tumblr.com. The total number of followers for all three blogs combined was 957!

By that day, the top picture for notes had 319 notes. It was a picture of a pleasant-faced shirtless blond guy around 18 years old, who was wearing a baseball cap.

The next day was Wednesday, April 3, 2019. My email had two emails from Tumblr. The first proclaimed I had 11 new followers. The second email said that content was removed from my Tumblr blog, but made no reference to terminating the account altogether. But when I tried to log in immediately afterwards, the screen read: "Account Terminated."

The account www.ianfatima.tumblr.com was terminated on the basis of the supposedly offensive picture below. Personally, I find the picture completely inoffensive. I would personally define the picture using such terms as "innocuous," "cute," and "funny."

I suspected that many other people would agree with me in my assessment, so I decided to test my theory. I printed out a collection of ten physical photos nine that were successfully posted on Tumblr without any problems and also the one that resulted in the account being terminated. I showed the ten photos to various people, and asked each of them to pick out the supposedly "offensive" picture that got the account terminated. Not one single person succeeded in guessing correctly! They picked out three other pictures, instead! When told which picture was the problem, all the people were essentially dumbfounded. Everyone who saw the supposedly "offensive" picture agreed with me. They also considered the picture to be "innocuous," "cute," and "funny." In all probability, millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of people across America would clearly agree with me and the group I showed the picture to.

Granted, different people have different opinions. So there would certainly be some homophobic individuals who would think or remark upon seeing the picture something like: "Fucking faggots," or "Stupid bunch of girlyboy pansies," or "Ha, ha, lookit the homos!" Nevertheless, individuals feeling such overt hostility would be directing it at the subjects of the picture. They would certainly not be imbecilic enough to define the picture as "kiddie porn!"

The picture is an innocuous picture of three late teenaged gay boys (between ages 17 and 20) voluntarily and playfully posing in the manner of fashion models. Although they are gay and effeminate, the picture contains no sexual content whatsoever, despite your undefendable claim to the contrary.

Attention, Tumblr retards:

Three gay teenagers PREENING for the camera is not a sex act!!!
Three gay teenagers PREENING for the camera is not a sex act!!!
Three gay teenagers PREENING for the camera is not a sex act!!!

One of them is making a funny face and sticking out his tongue, so maybe a better word for their behavior is "clowning." In that case:

Three gay teenagers CLOWNING for the camera is not a sex act!!!
Three gay teenagers CLOWNING for the camera is not a sex act!!!
Three gay teenagers CLOWNING for the camera is not a sex act!!!

Whether their activity is described as PREENING or CLOWNING, in either case, only a mentally deficient individual would define their activity as a sex act. Clearly, the individual that made the determination is mentally deficient, and should be immediately terminated from employment, or moved to a more suitable position, such as in the janitorial department.

Even if it really was an offensive picture (which it is not), then the entire account should not be terminated on the basis of just one misstep. That's lunacy! The only justification for the termination of an account on a "one strike" basis would be if the strike in question involved a patently offensive picture. A patently offensive picture is one which there could not be a divided opinion. Everyone would be in agreement that it was offensive. For example, a picture of a person having sex with an animal, or a picture of an adult having sex with a child, or a picture of two children having sex. There should be both INTENT to violate the policy, and a clear violation within the picture that would stand up in court. When the violation is contestable, and many people would fail to see any violation, then that is extremely unfair to terminate an entire account. There was also no intent to violate any policies.

Additionally, I feel Tumblr needs to be completely blocked from all worldwide operations on the basis of patently discriminatory business practices, until such point as which the patently discriminatory business practices are permanently ended and everyone is treated the same way. The Shariah-law minded blog monitors within the company who are imposing their questionable prudish values on bloggers must be completely purged from the company.  

Tumblr has not demonstrated that it has a fair policy for terminating accounts. Therefore, Tumblr should be banned from conducting business (or at least from deleted accounts) until it has a court-approved system for terminating accounts, one that the judge and everyone else agrees is completely fair. I'm sure the court will agree if this becomes a court case. 

There is a form to contest account termination. I filled it out weeks ago, but they have not gotten back to me.

In the meantime, I'm open to any suggestions for a Tumblr substitute. There are supposedly others places out there, but I'm not familiar with them.

[Updated on: Fri, 19 April 2019 19:25]

Re: Tumblr Account Terminated Unfairly and Without Explanation  [message #75698 is a reply to message #75697] Fri, 19 April 2019 20:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
luvtwinks is currently offline  luvtwinks

Likes it here

Registered: August 2018
Messages: 176



Nothing at all offensive or illegal about those pictures. The first one is just three teens acting like dumbasses for the camera and the second is just attractive shirtless guys. There are much more suggestive photos still on tumblr. Their selection process is obviously flawed.
Re: Tumblr Account Terminated Unfairly and Without Explanation  [message #75699 is a reply to message #75697] Fri, 19 April 2019 21:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13773



OK, I see those pictures as part of the Doctrine of Fair Use in this  context becauise we are using them for educational purposes.

The first, while fine, is always going to get a blog nuked.  The second not, but it will!

tumblr uses low paid people in religiously more conservative countries as their censors. They work cheap and they remove whatever they feel may offend The Flying Spaghetti Monster [may his noodly appendage be praised].

tumblr users can never win. They have never been able to win. Every tumblr I've had over the years where I've posted actively has been nuked. tumblr doesn't give a flying fuck

[Updated on: Fri, 19 April 2019 21:08]




Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: Tumblr Account Terminated Unfairly and Without Explanation  [message #75700 is a reply to message #75699] Fri, 19 April 2019 23:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Teddy is currently offline  Teddy

Really getting into it
Location: USA
Registered: October 2006
Messages: 484



Well, I logged in, took the time to read this post and the replies, typed a reply of my own, and clicked the "Post Quick Reply" button, and was immediately kicked off the site and had to log in again. of course my post went away never to be seen again... 

Just rest assured that I replied but I'm not going to type all that out a second time! LOL



“There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is.” - Terry Pratchett
Re: Tumblr Account Terminated Unfairly and Without Explanation  [message #75701 is a reply to message #75700] Sun, 21 April 2019 11:29 Go to previous messageGo to next message
The Composer is currently offline  The Composer

Toe is in the water

Registered: September 2018
Messages: 87



Their site, their rules.
Re: Tumblr Account Terminated Unfairly and Without Explanation  [message #75704 is a reply to message #75701] Mon, 22 April 2019 01:15 Go to previous message
Teddy is currently offline  Teddy

Really getting into it
Location: USA
Registered: October 2006
Messages: 484



Yup, pretty much, but as Tim says, their moderation is inconsistent at best due to the nature of whom they choose as moderators and their moderation of said moderators. Sucks but that's how it is. I gave up on this particular genre of social media long ago. 



“There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is.” - Terry Pratchett
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