

Tumblr responds to complaints about censorship - AndrewDucker
http://staff.tumblr.com/post/55906556378/all-weve-heard-from-a-bunch-of-you-who-are

======
epochwolf
So... this doesn't really seem to add anything. They admit to having a Adult
flag which removes the blog from all site listings and from google searches.
This effectively kills the blog. What they don't deny is recently and
massively increasing the scope of the flagging. This is what people are
worried about. People are claiming non-spam nsfw blogs are being flagged.
Blogs that wouldn't have been banned before.

Blocking tags on the mobile app is a separate issue, they don't really have a
choice here. Apple will pull their app if they don't.

~~~
anigbrowl
_They admit to having a Adult flag which removes the blog from all site
listings and from google searches. This effectively kills the blog._

So what? nobody owes you a free search engine listing.

~~~
jlgreco
What does "owing" have to do with anything?

Microsoft doesn't "owe" you a start bar. If your mother complained about it
missing in the initial Windows 8 release would you tell her _" So what? nobody
owes you a start bar."_?

Would you tell people in the 80s _" So what? nobody owes you classic Coca-
Cola."_?

~~~
anigbrowl
_If your mother complained about it missing in the initial Windows 8 release
would you tell her "So what? nobody owes you a start bar."?_

Yes...as a matter of fact that's one reason I have not bothered to upgrade
from Windows 7.

 _Would you tell people in the 80s "So what? nobody owes you classic Coca-
Cola."?_

I'm petty sure I _did_ tell people that. I'm a big believer in voting with
your wallet. Of course, your examples involve things that people pay for,
whereas setting up a Tumblr page is free (thus giving you even less of a claim
on Yahoo's actions.)

~~~
jlgreco
So you would have people vote with their wallets, just so long as they don't
also complain while doing it?

I don't think you would really tell your mother that. Maybe you would tell
your mother to stick with Windows 7 after trying out Windows 8 in the store,
but I do not believe for one second that you would say _anything_ to the
effect of _" Microsoft doesn't owe you that"_ in response to her reacting to
the change.

Vote with your wallets _and_ complain. Why the hell not?

> _" Of course, your examples involve things that people pay for"_

Admittedly yes, in the Windows 8 case (outside of trying it out in the store).
Not so in the New Coke case. Nobody bought a lifetime subscription of Coke.
People were upset because they could no longer buy the old Coke, not because
they were duped into buying New Coke (well, not for more than a few cents
anyway).

Nobody was owed the ability to buy classic Coke. Complain they did though, and
can you really fault them for that? _Really?_

~~~
anigbrowl
_I do not believe for one second that you would say anything to the effect of
"Microsoft doesn't owe you that" in response to her reacting to the change_

Why not? My mother's no idiot; she may not understand the intricacies of her
computer works but she doesn't expect Microsoft to automatically accommodate
her tastes any more than she expects Volvo to keep making her favorite model
from the 80s. If anything she helped instill this attitude in me when I
expressed disappointment about my favorite kids TV shows going away. As a
consumer I don't expect producers to be sentimental about their offerings; if
I think some particular change is foolish then I argue that on economic
grounds (but if it turns out to be the profitable thing to do, then I have to
accept I was wrong).

I mean, there are certainly choices I'd _like_ corporations to make - I'm into
synthesizers, for example, and I really wish that Roland corporation would
start issuing TB-303s again, especially now that their competitors have chosen
to resissue some of their classic designs at affordable prices. But after
analyzing the numbers and potential profit margins, I'm 99% certain that it's
Not Going To Happen no matter how much I and my fellow synth geeks beg for it.
It's not worth the risk involved, and they _don 't owe me_ such a product. (On
the other hand, it _would_ make good economic sesnse for them to reissue
certain classic drum machines...)

 _Not so in the New Coke case. Nobody bought a lifetime subscription of Coke._

They bought bottles and cans of Coke, and when they discovered that they
didn't like the taste of New Coke I presume the they _stopped purchasing it_.
I guarantee that Coke executives paid a great deal more to consumers' behavior
than whatever it was they said.

~~~
jlgreco
When someone voices a complaint, they are not inherently making an implicit
statement about being owed something.

I doubt you would speak to your mother that way because, frankly, it is an
rather anti-social reply. She's not dumb, she knows she is owed nothing. In
the hypothetical complaint she was not claiming to be owed anything. Your quip
is clearing nothing up.

~~~
anigbrowl
I disagree. Complaining about some deficiency on a free blogging platform
sounds exactly like a misplaced expression of entitlement to me.

Maybe it is anti-social, but I don't feel bad about that. I have yet to
receive a coherent answer to my original 'so what' question, about why Tumblr
should enable NSFW content indexing on Google if they (Tumblr) feel that it's
hurting their brand to do so.

~~~
jlgreco
The thing about "so what?" questions is they are rarely real questions.

I like apricots... so what? Taxis are yellow... so what? This T-Mobile
coverage at the airport is shit... so what? Some people are displeased with
recent tumblr changes... so what?

Why would you expect an answer to any of those "questions"?

~~~
anigbrowl
I wouldn't, but that wasn't the sort of question I asked. Instead, I quoted
the specific context, because I was curious about why the parent poster
thought it mattered if adult-flagged blogs got delisted from search engines.
He had phrased his comment in such a way that it seemed like he considered
this a Bad Thing, whereas it seems to me that a) you could still build an
audience without relying on Google and b) it seemed strange to me that the
existence of a blog should be measured only in terms of its readership.

I think this was perfectly clear from the context, and substituting arbitrary
statements about nothing in particular to critique my original question (after
having complained about how I would communicate with my mother or console a
bereft cola drinker) suggests to me that it's you who doesn't have any
particular point to make.

I found some of the other comments disagreeing with my viewpoint more
enlightening, but I'm not clear on what your point is other than having a go
at me.

~~~
jlgreco
Did it occur to you that perhaps he thinks it will negatively impact him?

If that is genuinely what you were not getting, then you have been anything
but clear. _My_ point is that you seem to be engaging in a sort of senseless
anti-social comment sniping. I think that has been pretty clear, though I
admit I could have done more to make my intentions plain.

------
tehwalrus
I'm still waiting for a _real_ porn filter for my tumblr. These changes screw
authors over without letting me actually have the browsing experience I want.

I follow a bunch of blogs which, very occasionally, post something NSFW, which
they tag #NSFW. I want to see most of their posts, but filter out those tagged
ones from my dashboard, whether I view it from my PC or phone. (in a web
browser, it's possible to do this with an unofficial extension, which tumblr
breaks every couple of weeks and then has to be patched. on your phone, you're
stuck seeing the porn on the subway, with people looking over your shoulder.)

this is simple; a text field of blocked tags for each user, and then filter
the input to their dashboard table (or whatever). There is _no_ way to do this
at present. (I've just checked my settings page, and still not there.)

(this doesn't just work for porn; it also lets people filter out stuff on a
topic that they aren't interested in, but see the other stuff from those
users. Twitter also lacks this feature, although many twitter clients do
implement a "tag mute" setting.)

------
hrktb
_The reason you see innocent tags like #gay being blocked on certain platforms
is that they are still frequently returning adult content which our entire app
was close to being banned for._

I guess it's about Apple's no porn policy, but I thought results returned by
search were OK with a 17+ years warning. Or is it for pure browsing clients
only, and platform owners' official app don't get the same privilege ? Am I
missing something ? (not that Apple's policies are consistent or evenly
applied, but still...)

~~~
king_jester
Apple review policies and reviewers are really inconsistent. Their process
isn't transparent in any way and who reviews your app has a lot of leeway for
rejecting your submission, even if its the reviewers mistake.

~~~
csense
Which is a great reason for developers to say "screw Apple" and develop
exclusively for Android.

I don't get why so many developers care so much about iOS.

~~~
lostlogin
Average app price: Android $0.06, iPhone $0.19, iPad $0.50. I'm picking this
might be a part of it. Its just one data point but I've never seen anyone say
that there is more money to be made on Android.
[http://blog.flurry.com/bid/99013/The-History-of-App-
Pricing-...](http://blog.flurry.com/bid/99013/The-History-of-App-Pricing-And-
Why-Most-Apps-Are-Free)

~~~
king_jester
Its true that its hard to sell an app directly on Google Play compared to the
iTunes app store. A lot of devs have switched to in-app purchases or
subscriptions as a way to allow their app to be free, allowing users to engage
with the app before they decide if they want to buy in (the older style of
doing this is a free app and then a premium unlocker app). Ultimately the pay
upfront model hasn't really taken off and Android and probably never will for
most apps.

------
scott_o
While I think its really cool from a programming perspective, from a web
design perspective, that logo was annoying the shit out of me. If you want me
to read your blog, let me read it and stop distracting me.

~~~
olog-hai
You have many options for improving your reading experience, among them:

Evernote Clearly

Readability's Read Now feature

InstaRead

viewtext.org (always extremely slow for me)

------
mullingitover
I'm holding out for the tumblr userbase to protest by marking all their blogs
as nsfw, and watching tumblr completely disappear from web searches.

~~~
eksith
Well, it seems it was a glitch + some misinformation (not helped by the said
glitch), but I already see two problems with that :

1) As with Facebook, people who will hate it will still hang on because a lot
of existing content they've subscribed/favorited/bookmarked etc...

2) Getting the Tumblr userbase to do anything other than whine is like herding
cats into dancing Gangnam Style (I mean real cats, not Psy with superimposed
kitty faces).

If you're unhappy with whatever they're doing, a _better_ option (IMO)would be
to complain even louder until Tumbler actually changes things. Unlike FB,
which is pretty deaf to complaints to begin with and is run by Satan-lite
(Zuckerberg), Tumblr was only recently acquired and Yahoo investors don't want
to sink the boat.

------
littletables
The complaints are not about censorship, they are about being de-indexed.
"Adult" blogs are a separate category of NSFW, so this response doesn't
address the issue - which is specifically regarding "adult" blogs.

In addition to disabling search for adult blogs, Tumblr has enabled robots.txt
(Disallow: /) for all "adult" blogs so they're not findable from the outside
any more either. On top of all this, Tumblr removed its Erotica category,
which was formerly released in January 2010 with much pride on their part.

This all changed sometime early this year, and began to be noticed by sex
bloggers both on and off of Tumblr in mid-May.

------
MrFoof
Yahoo, this is porn we're talking about. Porn on the internet. Yahoo, porn
finds a way.

This is like buying Starbucks and then getting the "brilliant idea" to stop
selling coffee and to instead focus on selling coffee cakes.

------
codezero
I didn't even realize that Tumblr had community editors that curated their
hash tags, is there some place with more information on this, besides this
page?
[http://www.tumblr.com/docs/en/editor_guidelines](http://www.tumblr.com/docs/en/editor_guidelines)

~~~
gmu3
I believe it is only true of a small number of featured tags:
[http://www.tumblr.com/docs/en/featured_tags](http://www.tumblr.com/docs/en/featured_tags)

------
dmoney
From a friend: _" They seem to have rescinded a lot of it, albeit with a
shitty nonapology blaming users: <link to this post>. Some of the tags in
question could never [have] brought up porn, like 'depression'. I call at
least partial bullshit."_

~~~
elliottcarlson
Not sure what the 'depression' tag has to do with any of this - it is not
filtered, it returns results, and it has a PSA at the top of the page as with
other specific keywords due to the nature of the search query.

------
cientifico
Reject to read anything that have a logo in the left side moving all the time.

