I got an email yesterday from a friend of mine on YouTube, who told me that there were total strangers posting hateful things about her on Tumblr. These are people she's never spoken to before and didn't know existed, until the hate started going viral.
I got onto the Tumblr page and found they were also stalking another friend of mine, without her knowledge.
The page also has people jumping on there, telling other Tumblr users as young as 13, that they "need to" and "had better" kill themselves.
Why did these Tumblrs want my two friends and these teenagers to kill themselves?
Because these butthurt wastes of life (The Tumblr trolls) hated that my two friends made some cool CGI videos, using a freeware called MikuMikuDance.
Yeah for real. Videos of CGI girls dancing makes trolls wish you were dead.
And I should know, I love that software.
But after I started getting "not too bad" with it in 2010-11, a bunch of strangers went after me, hacked me, posted a hate shrine against me on ED, stalked me, stalked my family, sent me death threats and even hacked my Facebook, so they could tag my entire friends and family in sick porn pictures in my name.
I've been where my friends have been before, with sick bastards trying to ruin my life.
So I went ahead and used Tumblr's "contact us" feature to report the two Tumblr pages.
This is what "Danii" from Tumblr support says:
| from: | Tumblr Support | ||
| reply-to: | Tumblr Support |
Danii (Tumblr Support)
Apr 10 08:29 pm (EDT)
We realize this content may be very upsetting. However, sometimes content posted by a blogger may be mean-spirited or upsetting but does not violate the law. In order to maintain freedom of expression, we won't remove that material right now.
I strongly suggest you add that user to your Ignore list at http://tumblr.com/ignore. This way, the blogger can't see your posts on his/her Dashboard, and you won't see the blogger listed in post notes or Dashboard notifications. You also won't get Asks or Fan Mail from users you've ignored.
Keep in mind that we don’t notify bloggers that you’ve ignored them, although they may realize it once they stop hearing from you altogether.
Thank you for taking the time to share your concern with us.
No, Danii. This is NOT acceptable. You have failed to do your job.
The TOS agreement for Tumblr expressly says that you are not to use the site to harass, belittle or post hate against anybody for any reason. Yet that is just what these people have done.
And yet the Tumblr team didn't think that this was worth their time.
That it's "freedom of expression" for total strangers to name-call and ask people to kill themselves.... over a CGI.
This complacent attitude, when suicides are on the rise due to cyber stalking and harassment, is NOT acceptable.
What would it take, Danii? A few more suicides from the harassment? A lawsuit against Tumblr? Would you like it if people trolled you like this?
How much is too much?
At what point as a society did we start to mollycoddle and accept stalking, slander, harassment and threats as "innocent bullying"?
This is as bad as when a cop ignores a spouse who's been beaten, and says 'Meh, domestic dispute" and refuses to take into custody the criminal.
Should I be surprised? After all, we have so many news stations, cheering rapists and lamenting over their spoiled careers while at the same time, shaming rape victims and making it out like the attack is all their fault. If this is how our society treats violent, even deadly crimes, I shouldn't be surprised when a company like Tumblr openly supports cyber harassment.
We are in a society that accepts people being bullied as "Well you better learn how to deal with it, ya PANSY!" when strangers are spreading rumors and being malicious to people they have never met.
Enough.
I hereby urge people to drop Tumblr like the bad habit it is. If you have tweens/teens order them to do the same.
Flood their inbox with your concern over this blind acceptance of hate.
We need to make a change.
Koriander, thank you for documenting your sad experience and Tumblr's poor response. I've included your story along with others in a post about Yahoo & Tumblr: Marissa Mayer-Hatred Still In Vogue At Yahoo-Part 3
ReplyDeleteI am very grateful to you for adding this to your post. I just finished reading your article, and I must say that it was very informative. I shared this on my Facebook page, as a good majority of my followers have experienced non stop harassment on Tumblr, and nobody from Tumblr has yet to step in and say "Stop" despite their very clear TOS policy. A Terms of Service policy means nothing, if the people behind it refuse to back it up, and seeing as how my issue with the site is now nearly a year old, it really speaks ill of the character of the company.
DeleteI want to thank you so much for taking the time to write that article.