go to settings > to the right, under "Blogs," pick the blog you want to change the settings of > scroll down to visibility settings > turn on "Prevent third-party sharing for [blog url]" > do this for each individual blog you have

A message from a few of the trans staff at Tumblr & Automattic:

We want trans people, and LGBTQ+ people broadly, to feel welcome on Tumblr, in part because we as trans people at Tumblr and Automattic want it to be a space where we ourselves feel included. We want to feel like this is a platform that supports us and fights for our safety. Tumblr is made brighter and more vibrant by your presence, and the LGBTQ+ folks who help run it are fighting all the time for this, for you, internally. 

A few days ago, Matt Mullenweg (the CEO of Automattic, Tumblr’s parent company) responded to a user’s ask about an account suspension in a way that negatively affected Tumblr’s LGBTQ+ community. We believe that Matt's response to this ask and his continued commentary has been unwarranted and harmful. Tumblr staff do not comment on moderation decisions as a matter of policy for a variety of reasons—including the privacy of those involved, and the practicalities of moderating thousands of reports a day. The downside of this policy is that it is very easy for rumors and incorrect information about actions taken by our Trust & Safety team to spread unchecked. Given this, we want to clarify a few different pieces of this situation:

We’re sorry for how this all transpired, and we’re actively fighting to make our voices heard more and prevent something like this from happening again in the future. We know firsthand that having to deal with situations like this as a Tumblr user is difficult, particularly as a member of an already frequently targeted and harassed community. We know it will take time to regain your trust, and we’re going to put in the work to rebuild it.

We appreciate the space we have been given to express our concerns and dissent, and we are thankful that Matt’s (and Automattic’s) strong commitment to freedom of expression has facilitated it.

We will continue to fight to make Tumblr safe for us all.

— This statement was authored by multiple trans employees of Tumblr and Automattic.

i think most of the negative commenters here have no idea how to read corpo-speak when the employees actually care but their bosses are making dumbass decisions. people are acting like the staff who wrote this are oppressors when they're literally saying they are having to fight internally to be heard by the people making decisions.

this basically says, "sorry our CEO is being a dipshit, we really don't like it and we were overruled on decisions that made things worse. now that he's blown this up we can finally do the things higher-ups didn't let us do earlier."

the note about being thankful for "matt's strong commitment to freedom of expression", i'm not sure how sincere it is, but it reads to me like "thanks for not firing us for making this post, and thanks for listening (or being strong-armed into listening) to us when we told you that you're fucking things up and you should let us fix it."

my heart goes out to y'all for dealing with this bullshit, both internally and externally, and i hope you get the changes that you want and deserve to make tumblr a better workplace and a better posting zone. a lot of ppl really don't understand how hard it is to be in a company whose work you believe in when leadership is doing things you disagree with and you have to thread the needle of communicating that while being professional (i.e. compliant with corporate communication guidelines).

Corpo speak professional here. I'm the lawyer that corpo consults when they want to make a corpo speak apology or do some PR management.

In all my career, I have never seen a corporation issue a public statement written by line employees like the post above on an official account. A corporation will always issue an apology or something like this from the highest level - the CEO itself or speaking on behalf of the corporation as a whole, written by their lawyers and/or PR team.

For Tumblr to allow and issue a statement written by employees speaking on behalf of themselves is incredibly rare and frankly shows tumblrs commitment to it's queer staff and users.

That in and of itself should make this be a positive sign

Let me add it here again: I have no idea if the interim CEO informed Matt or not about this post going out, but it was him (Toni Schneider, the interim CEO and Automattic's board of director member) who gave the folks who have written this post the thumbs up to be able to share their thoughts, not Matt Mullenweg.

Given how Matt was still fighting people on twitter barely 10 hours before this post went live, I suspect he either wasn't aware that it was going to be posted, or if he was, he was informed in a "this is going to happen, head's up" way in the last few hours and not asked for permission.

Another idea: Communities on Tumblr

For a while now folks have asked us for better ways to connect with other people who share similar interests. We’re listening, and at Labs we’ve been looking into fulfilling that need, Tumblr style.

Introducing Communities, a new place to connect with others on Tumblr:

Here in Labs, we’re working on big ideas that could transform how Tumblr is used, while keeping that Tumblr vibe alive. You can see one of those ideas above. We’re calling it “Communities”, a new dedicated space on Tumblr for people to share and discuss all the content they love. Communities can cover topics like your favorite show, artist, movie, video game, your school, your board game group, friend group, big or small, whatever you want.

Each Community has their own semi-private safer space away from the regular dashboard where you can interact with other Tumblr users who share the same interests and passions as you. There are moderators and members (you!), rules, and privacy settings. Each community has its own feed of posts from members, separate from your Following and For You feeds. Interactions within community spaces stay there and replies will work more like a traditional comment section. Folks will be able to reblog posts into a community, but not out — at least not yet.

We’re very excited for you to try it, and help define the best path forward. What we have is a prototype to help us validate the idea, but there’s still plenty of questions that need answering. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be reaching out to people across Tumblr, and the internet at large, to try our prototype. Based on the feedback we get, we’ll iterate on the idea to see what resonates best with all of you on Tumblr.

If this sounds interesting, please like, reblog, or reply to this post, and we’ll invite you to beta test this feature when we roll it out to a wider Tumblr audience, as a little perk for following the Labs blog.

Stay tuned for more!

i answered a tumblr survey about this, the survey was primarily about tumblr "premium" services one might be willing to pay for

i think this is great, and it reminds me of lj communities back in the day, but i gave feedback that i thought being a paid feature would hamstring it. delighted to see it in labs for potential general use!

I got that same survey, and also expressed that the concept as a whole needed to be open access, and I was very, very relieved to see this post, as I am hoping others will be if they saw that survey.

I want to point out, though, before anyone gets enraged re: the potential of a "premium" Tumblr- they did ask first this time. They sent a survey out to at least some users, asking for USER input BEFORE they announced or launched a major change. Now they are asking for user input BEFORE the beta is released, and they're asking people to reblog this (or reply, etc) if they might want to test it out.

That is a big deal please pay attention

I know that there are other things folks may want, but there are other avenues to express that. This is Tumblr genuinely trying to craft tools for users, with user input, so that the tool is actually useful to us, instead of dumping random shit on us like Live. That's the kind of consideration and action everyone should WANT to see from Tumblr.

Communities might not have been on your list of things you wanted Tumblr to take care of first, but it's what they're dealing with right now, so take it one thing at a time. Depending on what USER feedback they get, and what changes they decide to implement, this function could be really good for all sorts of users. Small fandom? Find the Community and you don't have to hope the tags are in order or that someone tags the same way. Fandom event (Big Bang, Character/Ship Week, charity auction, etc)? There's a Community available for the folks participating that doesn't require you to download any third party app to talk or socialize or share. For fandom auctions, not having to have everyone switch over to LJ or Dreamwidth to make accounts to list or bid would be huge. Support groups? Writblr, Reptiblr, [whatever]blr, etc etc?

Someone mentioned that "tags" already function as this kind of thing, but no, they don't. If someone doesn't tag it, then that's it. It only gets seen if someone follows them. Reblogs can't be tagged and show up in the tags for others who like the thing, so you have to be following the exact right people to see stuff, which makes it difficult especially for new folks. We have "sideblogs" that you can invite others to, to be able to post, but that gives them at least partial control over the admin function of the blog, so you have to really trust the folks you're adding. A Community wouldn't need to function that way; like how LJ used to be, it could have Community mods, but allow users to post, to form a collection.

This feature has SO MUCH potential to be a really good, useful feature for a lot of people, and Tumblr is giving us, the users, a way to have input on the design to make it that way. Don't pass up the opportunity to have your voice heard.

a bunch of people in the notes had interpreted my post as "the doom is near". Well, yes and no.

I mean, tumblr has been at the brink of closing since... 2018 at last? Maybe even before? So it's not this is a new situation.

So do I think tumblr is going to close next month? No, I don't think so. Could it happen? sure. But I don't think so.

I really hope the changes Staff will do in the next few months will get this site to a better financial situation, but if that don't happen, I don't think Automattic would close the site right away. Instead, they would start moving people to profitable projects and leave tumblr with a skeleton crew, with the site being online but a without much, if any, new developments, bugs that take a long time to be fixed and ... well, less efficient moderation. If we get to that point, what happens after that is terra incognita: Maybe it could close after a while, maybe it could keep like that forever, maybe Automattic finds someone else to sell the site to. The timing? it depends a lot of the whimsy of a handful of rich white dudes. Staff may have three months to get more money in before the company decides to start pulling resources out. Or six. Or two years. It's hard to tell, since it's all mostly about the vibes the top brass feel at each point.

People have GOT to get used to the idea of paying for the sites they use all the time. if it's free, it's usually because they're selling ads and/or your data. In a few cases it's because the site operates as a non-profit, has a legion of volunteers, and works their asses off to get enough donations to cover everything. For small platforms/sites and in rare cases these days, it's because there's One Guy In Kansas paying for the servers and he or a handful of volunteers do all the site upkeep.

The internet is NOT free. Servers cost money. Unless you think everyone should have to keep exchanging their privacy plus the privacy of literally everyone they know so big platforms can stay totally free to users, you will have to accept that you will need to pay to use the websites you like, like this one. There's really no other option for large platforms. Federated setups have all the same drawbacks as Ye Olde Forums do. Including the fact that they are not free either! Someone has to pay for the goddamn servers!

You have to understand that the era of Everything Online Is Free is quickly coming to an end. If a hell of a lot more people don't get on board with the idea of actually paying for the shit they use literally everyday, we're all gonna give up more and more privacy and see more and more intrusive ads. The enshittification will continue to accelerate.

if you like being here on Tumblr dot com but think giving them money is bad unless they do certain things, I dunno what to tell you, other than the site has to still be up for them to make the changes you want. And that once this site is gone, it's extremely unlikely a replacement will come along.

For real, if you've been assuming a New Tumblr to crop up after a few months, you shouldn't be. Because, again, the free and easy money all the tech companies were getting 10-15 years ago is gone. They'll have to have a solid plan for turning a profit or they'll never get a new platform off the ground. And we have ample evidence at this point that it's hard as hell to even break even on a big platform let alone turn a profit.

"What about non-profits?" AO3 is an anomaly being a massive platform successfully running as a non-profit. They have a legion of volunteers and work their asses off fundraising every year to keep the servers up. All their financials are open to the public and people still act they're evil money-grubbing assholes, LOL. The only actual social media platform being run by a non-profit that I know of is Co-host. They're going through growing pains and the features are sparse at the moment. It's worth a look and I hope they do well, but I doubt it'll ever be anywhere as big as Tumblr.

All of this is painful to hear, and encourages me to remind people:

Nothing lasts forever. (And @neil-gaiman will forgive me, I'm sure, for not attaching the currently topically inevitable image...which is more about the eternal verities than the unhappy side effects of capitalism.)

If you've got data posted here—images, text, video, whatever—that you value and you don't want to find one day (who knows when) are suddenly just gone beyond retrieval: Archive it. Start now.

I've been engaged in this for a while. And also have been noodging @petermorwood about this for months, nay years, to get him to store his long weapons threads on his own website. You, too, should be storing your most valuable data in some space or place that doesn't depend on a platform to keep it alive.

Community can't be stored, obviously. The ongoing realtime exchange of serious stuff and goofery here is irreproducible and irreplaceable. No one here wants to lose it. But there's no point in pretending that what we have here is never going to end. People on other platforms have already been deeply hurt by changes that have simply destroyed years of their data without warning (such as over on what used to be Twitter: all image and video data uploaded before 2014 was recently simply made inaccessible overnight, without warning).

If there's stuff here that you value: look around and find a way to to store it away that works for you. Make a plan, and start gradually enacting it. Get proactive about protecting what matters to you... because you cannot depend on platforms, any platforms, to forever stay the way they've always been. Their priorities are not your priorities. They will change, and not necessarily in line with your preferences.

Tl:dr; Don't panic. But start planning.

Build your lifeboats.

Short explanation of what the hell the Luffy tab on top of the dashboard is:

- For some reason the tumblr marketing team decided to make a deal with Netflix to promote the new live action One Piece movie with a site wide tab, instead of like... An ad.

- The Tab started with the name Luffy, the protagonist of the series. It has now changed to Zoro. There's not explanation given but I suspect it's in the order of the One Piece rap

- The tab seems to be very broken, only showing 5-7 posts that were posted months ago. The users who's art and posts have been included were not asked permission to be used in an ad campaign.

- The disclosing of this being an ad has also been suspect, with many only finding out through word of mouth rather than the tab telling it. I'm not a lawyer but I think that's at least skirting a crime.

- The popular reccomendation is to not engage with the tab, because it'll encourage tumblr to pull more stunts like this. Their sponsors will be delighted the more you click, no matter if its out of confusion or not.

This whole thing is a mess and I hate how marketing teams are trying to bypass adblockers by making alternative ads that get people talking. The act of me posting this is what they want and I'm enraged.... Still, uh, I want to spread the info we've gathered as a community. Let me know if you find more or something is incorrect.

Ps. dont attack one piece fans, they didn't know this was gonna happen either. Please dont leave weird comments to the posts in the tab, the OPs are not involved.

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

An open letter to @staff

I already submitted this to Support under "Feedback," but I'm sharing it here too as I don't expect it to get a response, and I feel like putting in out in public may be more effective than sending it off into the void.

The recent post on the Staff blog about changing tumblr to an algorithmic feed features a large amount of misinformation that I feel staff needs to address, openly and honestly, with information on where this data was sourced at the very least.

Claim 1: Algorithms help small creators.

This is false, as algorithms are designed to push content that gets engagement in order to get it more engagement, thereby assuring that the popular remain popular and the small remain small except in instances of extreme luck.

This can already be seen on the tumblr radar, which is a combination of staff picks (usually the same half-dozen fandoms or niche special interests like Lego photography) which already have a ton of engagement, or posts that are getting enough engagement to hit the radar organically. Tumblr has an algorithm that runs like every other socmed algorithm on the planet, and it will decimate the reach of small creators just like every other platform before it.

Claim 2: Only a small portion of users utilize the chronological feed.

You can find a poll by user @darkwood-sleddog here that at the time of writing this, sits at over 40 THOUSAND responses showing that over 96 percent of them use the chronological feed. Claiming otherwise isn't just a misstatement, it's a lie. You are lying to your core userbase and expecting them to accept it as fact. It's not just unethical, it's insulting to people who have been supporting your platform for over a decade.

Claim 3: Tumblr is not easy to use.

This is also 100% false and you ABSOLUTELY know it. Tumblr is EXTREMELY easy to use, the issue is that the documentation, the explanations of features, and often even the stability of the service is subpar. All of this would be very easy for staff to fix, if they would invest in the creation of walkthroughs and clear explanations of how various site features work, as well as finally fixing the search function. Your inability to explain how your service works should not result in completely ignoring the needs and wants of your core long-term userbase. The fact that you're more willing to invest in the very systems that have made every other form of social media so horrifically toxic than in trying to make it easier for people to use the service AS IT WORKS NOW and fixing the parts that don't work as well speaks volumes toward what tumblr staff actually cares about.

You will not get a paycheck if your platform becomes defunct, and the thing that makes it special right now is that it is the ONLY large-scale socmed platform on THE ENTIRE INTERNET with a true chronological feed and no aggressive algorithmic content serving. The recent post from staff indicates that you are going to kill that, and are insisting that it's what we want. It is not. I'd hazard to guess that most of the dev team knows it isn't what we want, but I assume the money people don't care. The user base isn't relevant, just how much money they can bring in.

The CEO stated he wanted this to remain as sort of the last bastion of the Old Internet, and yet here we are, watching you declare you intend to burn it to the ground.

You can do so much better than this.

The CEO is 100% behind the changes. In fact I suspect half of the post from yesterday comes straight from him "correcting" an earlier version of those core values.

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

From the latest update (June 2nd, 2023)

Oh, fuck this. If you're a new user, don't forget to set your dashboard to Following and turn "Based on your likes" and "Best stuff first" off

if you’re a gifmaker, you need to read this

staff has announced that on may 15, they’re forcing everyone to switch to the new beta post editor. this is very, very bad for gifs. @saintalicent made a post detailing the difference between the old and new post editors, but basically the new post editor shoves gifs into a text post and slightly resizes them, lowering the quality of the gifs.

gifmakers are the backbone of this website, and staff needs to be reminded of this. if you’re a gifmaker, please send polite feedback to staff explaining that you don’t want the quality of your gifs to be reduced and that this will negatively affect your experience on this website.

we got them to back off on the gif to mp4 thing last year, and we need them to back off on this. please reblog for visibility.