I’ve been seeing a post spreading around like wildfire encouraging people to post like hell on the day the recently-announced NSFW ban will go into effect.
FYI, this will achieve nothing because the recent changes are primarily caused by the recent republican-backed FOSTA-SESTA laws. This is a political issue so American users can only really do one thing: vote.
But FOSTA-SESTA creates an exception to Section 230 that means website publishers would be responsible if third parties are found to be posting ads for prostitution — including consensual sex work — on their platforms. The goal of this is supposed to be that policing online prostitution rings gets easier. What FOSTA-SESTA has actually done, however, is create confusion and immediate repercussions among a range of internet sites as they grapple with the ruling’s sweeping language.
In the immediate aftermath of SESTA’s passage on March 21, 2018, numerous websites took action to censor or ban parts of their platforms in response — not because those parts of the sites actually were promoting ads for prostitutes, but because policing them against the outside possibility that they might was just too hard.
All of this bodes poorly for the internet as a whole. After all, as many opponents of the bill have pointed out, the law doesn’t appear to do anything concrete to target illegal sex trafficking directly, and instead threatens to “increase violence against the most marginalized.” But it does make it a lot easier to censor free speech on small websites — as evidenced by the immediate ramifications the law has had across the internet.
Facebook yesterday announced its policy on sexual solicitation. Which is ludicrously overzealous, bans the discussion of anything related to sex, including incredibly vague language like “I’m looking for a good time tonight”.
The reason they’re so overzealous isn’t because they’re screaming “somebody think of the children”
It’s because if they miss *one* ad, they can be sued. They know algorithms for this suck, so they’ve decided to overcompensate for that and effectively ban talking about sex.
Now, it’s not 100% because of these laws (trying to attract advertising money is obviously at play here) but they are the primary—and overlooked—cause.
It’s easy to think as politics as something that doesn’t affect your life, or only in very intangible, remote, hard-to-grasp ways, especially if you’re not a minority.
Don’t forget to vote. (And to join the efforts against voter suppression if you can.)
The plan for the 17th, when the adult content ban comes in, is to protest.
To do that, we are making as much noise either side of the 17th as possible, and using the site as normal.
On the 17th, dead silence.
People are saying log off but what they really mean is don’t open the site or the app.
But, on the 17th make as much noise as possible on every other platform. Tweet about it and post on facebook and instagram and everywhere else.
What this does is causes a massive dip in ad revenue for one single day. That does not make staff think ‘oh everyone’s gone let’s shut down.’ What it actually makes them think is ‘oh shit people aren’t happy and if people don’t keep using our site we’re out of money and out of jobs.’
A boycott reminds a company that the users (consumers) have the power to make their site (business) worthless with one single coordinated decision.
If you want to join in, here’s what to do:
Do:
Close all open instances of the app and site on all your devices before the 17th
Make posts before and after the 17th on tumblr and other platforms, talking about why this ban is bad
Make posts on other sites during the 17th. Flood the official tumblr staff twitter and facebook with your anger and your opinion
Come back on the 18th and check in
Don’t:
Delete the app from your phone (this doesn’t affect their revenue and since it’s off the store at the moment it’ll be hard to get back)
Delete your account. I mean you can if you want to, but if you keep your account and don’t use it you’re saying to staff that there’s still time to save it. If you delete it’s hard work to come back.
Open the app or website (including specific blogs)
Make any posts (turn down/off your queue and make sure nothing is scheduled)
Go quiet elsewhere. Make it clear that this is just about tumblr, not a mass move away from all social media.
Remember: the execs don’t care about anything but money. Shutting down the site means there’s $0 further income from it. That’s their last possible course of action. If we make it clear we’re not happy, they’ll have to do something or we can do more and more until it becomes too expensive.
Protests take commitment. They’re a defiant action against a business that is doing something wrong. They will try to scare you into not participating, because they’re scared. We hold all the power here, sometimes the execs just need to be reminded of that.
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