“Hello,
We've terminated your Tumblr account. As per the policies you agreed to when creating a Tumblr account, we do not allow inappropriate content involving minors.
Creating new blogs or accounts with this same subject matter or content will result in immediate account termination.
Please note that the possession and distribution of child pornography is not only a violation of Tumblr's policies, but it is also a very serious crime, and convicted offenders may face severe penalties, including fines and incarceration.
Tumblr Trust & Safety”
This is the text of the standard message that Tumblr maps received upon having their account terminated. I faced it too, and more than one time. It appeared because Tumblr antis often reported absolutely innocent map positivity posts for sexual exploitation of minors. But doesn't Tumblr have to check these reports? Yes, but they never did it. Instead they wrote this short note and terminated your account.
Actual child pornography also existed on Tumblr, separately from the map community. I have encountered these accounts several times, usually through callout posts. I reported them, first to Tumblr, then to FBI. I stopped reporting to Tumblr when I realized they give these accounts similar treatment, they delete them and pretend the issue never existed. But many people, those who never were at the other end of the problem, have no idea how broken and malfunctioning Tumblr report system is and keep reporting accounts to Tumblr.
And this is why the problem of child pornography on Tumblr will never be resolved as long as the site operates by the same principles. Ill-intending individuals will keep abusing the system, staff will keep blindly banning everything, map accounts, art accounts, legal porn accounts included. I don't know why this is happening and what kind of profit they are gaining from child abuse, I'd like to believe it's just bad management, but we're entering the sphere where the boundary between ignorance and malice is blurry.
I have some hopes for Automattic buying Tumblr. But it looks like they're going to preserve the ridiculous legal porn ban, so a large part of their filtering system will also be preoccupied with hunting down safe and consensual materials. We need a place that draws a distinct line between things that victimize real human beings and things that can be hurtful and offensive in the eye of the beholder, but do not carry any inherent harm. But that seems to be a general problem in the modern society.
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