Since its founding in 2007, Tumblr has always been a place for wide open, creative self-expression at the heart of community and culture. To borrow from our founder David Karp, we’re proud to have inspired a generation of artists, writers, creators, curators, and crusaders to redefine our culture and to help empower individuality.
Over the past several months, and inspired by our storied past, we’ve given serious thought to who we want to be to our community moving forward and have been hard at work laying the foundation for a better Tumblr. We’ve realized that in order to continue to fulfill our promise and place in culture, especially as it evolves, we must change. Some of that change began with fostering more constructive dialogue among our community members. Today, we’re taking another step by no longer allowing adult content, including explicit sexual content and nudity (with some exceptions).
Let’s first be unequivocal about something that should not be confused with today’s policy change: posting anything that is harmful to minors, including child pornography, is abhorrent and has no place in our community. We’ve always had and always will have a zero tolerance policy for this type of content. To this end, we continuously invest in the enforcement of this policy, including industry-standard machine monitoring, a growing team of human moderators, and user tools that make it easy to report abuse. We also closely partner with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Internet Watch Foundation, two invaluable organizations at the forefront of protecting our children from abuse, and through these partnerships we report violations of this policy to law enforcement authorities. We can never prevent all bad actors from attempting to abuse our platform, but we make it our highest priority to keep the community as safe as possible.
So what is changing?
Posts that contain adult content will no longer be allowed on Tumblr, and we’ve updated our Community Guidelines to reflect this policy change. We recognize Tumblr is also a place to speak freely about topics like art, sex positivity, your relationships, your sexuality, and your personal journey. We want to make sure that we continue to foster this type of diversity of expression in the community, so our new policy strives to strike a balance.
Why are we doing this?
It is our continued, humble aspiration that Tumblr be a safe place for creative expression, self-discovery, and a deep sense of community. As Tumblr continues to grow and evolve, and our understanding of our impact on our world becomes clearer, we have a responsibility to consider that impact across different age groups, demographics, cultures, and mindsets. We spent considerable time weighing the pros and cons of expression in the community that includes adult content. In doing so, it became clear that without this content we have the opportunity to create a place where more people feel comfortable expressing themselves.
Bottom line: There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content. We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community.
So what’s next?
Starting December 17, 2018, we will begin enforcing this new policy. Community members with content that is no longer permitted on Tumblr will get a heads up from us in advance and steps they can take to appeal or preserve their content outside the community if they so choose. All changes won’t happen overnight as something of this complexity takes time.
Another thing, filtering this type of content versus say, a political protest with nudity or the statue of David, is not simple at scale. We’re relying on automated tools to identify adult content and humans to help train and keep our systems in check. We know there will be mistakes, but we’ve done our best to create and enforce a policy that acknowledges the breadth of expression we see in the community.
Most importantly, we’re going to be as transparent as possible with you about the decisions we’re making and resources available to you, including more detailed information, product enhancements, and more content moderators to interface directly with the community and content.
Like you, we love Tumblr and what it’s come to mean for millions of people around the world. Our actions are out of love and hope for our community. We won’t always get this right, especially in the beginning, but we are determined to make your experience a positive one.
Jeff D’Onofrio CEO
Here’s the problem with this, and it is a problem
This is aimed at most NSFW instead of the actual problem which is the bots, pedophilia and other mental/political issues that could be dealt with.
Trying to remove most positive and other wise ok NSFW because YOU lacked the ability and time frame to remove bots and viruses from YOUR platform is YOUR problem and lead to it being our problem and now YOU are punishing the people on here for it.
And the “no shortage of adult sites” statement is absolutely abhorrent that you view it that way. Some people don’t wanna go to those sites. Some people don’t like videos. Some people may want to explore privately or express themselves in ways that they don;’t want to do fully and publicly.
Certain tags and things i can understand removing but reducing it to just talking about sex positivity …isn’t positive. You are TAKING away peoples right to freely express themselves.
Ya know what i also remember from years ago when you yahoos took over the site? There was a big outcry about the possibly blocking of NSFW content, i laughed honestly because some of it was over dramatic.
The weren’t wrong. You are.
Don;t punish people because you and your company didn’t handle and issue that the people on this damn site pointed out for months on end and you didn’t do a damn thing about it.
Ontario NDP MPPs Ian Arthur (Kingston and the Islands) and Peter Tabuns (Toronto–Danforth) called out the Ford government’s climate change announcement as a dangerous scheme, and a favour to the province’s biggest polluters.
Arthur, who is the Official Opposition critic for Environment and Sustainability, addressed the government’s policy announcement in a press conference at Queen’s Park on Thursday.
“This so-called climate plan is Doug Ford’s gift to big polluters,” Arthur said. “Instead of having polluters pay for the damage they are doing, Doug Ford wants to use your money to line their pockets.
“The $400 million Ford has put aside to pay massive corporate polluters could go to actually addressing climate change – or it could go to the schools or hospitals that Ontarians need.
“Instead, people are getting another Conservative scheme cooked up in a backroom – one that will not help the environment or slow climate change.” In his response to the Ford government’s announcement, NDP Energy and Climate Change critic Peter Tabuns said the scheme doesn’t set effective targets for emissions reductions, and has no hope of meeting them.
“The emissions targets Doug Ford has set here are some of the worst in the world,” Tabuns said. “They are nowhere near the Paris Accord targets the international community set to address climate change. In fact, these are in the same league as Russia and China’s targets.
“This Conservative scheme puts us on the road to disaster. At the end of the day, Doug Ford’s insiders win, the environment loses and Ontario families pay for it.”
Hate crimes in Canada increased 47 percent in 2017, primarily targeting Muslims, Jews and black people, according to figures released by the country’s statistical agency on Thursday.
The biggest increase was in crimes targeting Muslims, Statistics Canada reported, in a year that saw a deadly mass shooting in a Quebec mosque, followed by a government motion to study Islamophobia that itself sparked anti-Muslim sentiment.
As Ontario’s Child Advocate Irwin Elman tucked his pink slip into his pocket, and his office staff dumped desk drawers into boxes, I wonder if Doug Ford and his PC party patted themselves on the back for money saved. It appears Ontarians will be drinking their cheap beer at the expense of vulnerable children and youth.
Foster children, Indigenous children, disabled children, abused children — collectively a group most Canadians would wish to protect and champion — have been thrown under the bus in a reprehensible wielding of political power. Last Friday, the Conservatives repealed the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth Act, 2007 as part of their fall economic statement, stripping these children of the one person guaranteed to be in their corner: The Ontario Child Advocate.
Not beholden to any agency or government, the child advocate (a position held by Irwin Elman since 2008) educates youth on their rights and pushes for action on their behalf. Because the office reports to the legislature, it remains independent. Most provinces have one, but now Canada’s most populated province has lost theirs. Although some people may not be familiar with the role of the child advocate, even those who have never had personal contact with the children who might need it would be left scratching their heads as to why kids in jeopardy have been targeted by the PC government.
With Children’s Aid Societies having limited oversight, the Advocate’s office was the one safe place where foster children could turn to report abuse within the system. For youth with mental health issues who have found themselves in the criminal justice system, the child advocate could push for a plan of care so they didn’t end up spiralling in the system. For blindsided parents who’d adopted children with severe special needs, the advocate helped their children receive critical services. The office called for mandatory inquests into the deaths of children in foster care and demanded rights for Indigenous youth. The advocate was the voice for the voiceless. Why did Doug Ford want that silenced?
Lisa Macleod the minster of child services and social services laughed when told about how ontario citizens on ontario disability support program and ontario works felt heightened in their anxiety and depression and suicidal thoughts when waiting to hear what the progressive conservatives were going to do with these programs. Then called the second part of Lisa Gretzky’s question a joke.
It is great to know as a canadian living with mental illness, my illness is seen as funny and a question about my livelihood is a joke.
Drum up fears that the social assistance program than sustains nearly 1 million Ontarians might be gutted. Do this by talking about how it costs taxpayers $10 billion a year, isn’t sustainable, and doesn’t encourage people to work.
In short, terrify the people who can barely survive on what they’re getting now that something much worse is coming their way. Then deliver a series of changes that, at first glance anyway, aren’t as bad as expected, and even include the potential for improvements down the line.
To be sure, Ontario’s social assistance system does not work as well as it should for anybody. But where the rubber always meets the proverbial road is figuring out how to fix it.
The biggest change is redefining disability to more closely align with federal guidelines. Lisa MacLeod, the minister of children, community and social services, says this will provide “clarity.”
Perhaps it will. But the government isn’t doing this to make paper-pushing easier. This change will make it harder for new people to qualify for the Ontario Disability Support Program. And the obvious underlying suggestion is that there are people on the program now who shouldn’t be.
People with “severe disabilities” who can’t work will be treated with “compassion and dignity in our new system,” MacLeod promised. Those who can work will also be treated with dignity and better supported to find jobs, she went on. “If you can work, or if you can’t, we have a plan to help you.”
But part of the plan, clearly, is to move people from one group to another by ruling more injured workers or those suffering mental issues ineligible for disability support. That leaves them with no option but the Ontario Works program, which provides substantially less support. The monthly maximum for a single person on disability is $1,169 compared to just $733 on welfare.
I just can’t with these fuckers. Is everyone taking that in? $733. Where in Ontario can you pay basic rent for 700 bucks, let alone eat or meet any other expenses? But that’s what you’re going to survive on if you’re only 95% disabled in Ontario now. Ontario works is already a joke and now we’re going to expect people who are disabled to live on it too.
The federal government and the provinces must examine “monstrous” allegations of modern-day forced sterilizations of Indigenous women, NDP reconciliation critic Romeo Saganash said Monday before he pressed for answers in the House of Commons.
Coerced sterilization clearly breaches human-rights standards that Canada must fight to uphold, Saganash in an interview Monday, and said that authorities should very carefully read Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted by the UN in 1948.
That international agreement says that “genocide” includes any acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, such as by “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”
Canadians should not tolerate allegations of forced sterilization in their country, Saganash said, and Ottawa must address the issue as victims share their stories.
The Ontario PC Party has passed resolution to no longer recognize gender identity theory, sources tell Global News.
The vote happened Saturday morning, during the party’s three-day convention in Toronto.
The resolution says gender identity theory is “A highly
controversial, unscientific ‘liberal ideology’; and, as such, that an
Ontario PC Government will remove the teaching and promotion of ‘gender
identity theory’ from Ontario schools and its curriculum.”
The vote was adopted as a party policy and is not binding government policy.
The
policy, named Resolution R4, was proposed by Tanya Granic Allen, a
former Ontario PC candidate in the June general election who was ousted
following what the Ontario Liberals called “homophobic” comments in a
2014 video.
The Bigoted Asshole Party passes a motion reconfirming their dedication to being bigoted assholes, while simultaneously reminding the entire world that they wouldn’t know legitimate scientific theory if it stabbed them in the face.
Sadly, this will only endear them to their transphobic conservative fans. Thanks again to all the assholes who voted for the useless Liberals and split the vote in the last election and gave us these assholes for the next four years.
Queer Fiction Writer 