We’ve heard from a bunch of you that Safe Mode was filtering posts from the LGBTQ+ community even though they were completely innocuous and totally safe-for-work. Please know that was never our intention, and we appreciate you letting us know so quickly—and forcefully! We’re deeply sorry. Tumblr will always be a place where everyone is welcome and protected, so we want to explain what happened.
The major issue was some Tumblrs had marked themselves as Adult/NSFW (now Explicit) as a courtesy to their fellow users, and their perfectly safe posts were getting marked sensitive unintentionally. That should never have happened. We’re sorry.
We’re making some changes that should improve things:
Changes to self-marked blogs
What was happening: Because we consider Explicit blogs to be predominantly sensitive content, we were automatically marking all their posts as sensitive. That was too broad.
What we fixed: Now each post is classified individually. As they should be.
Changes to reblog chains
What was happening: If an Explicit Tumblr reblogged a safe post, we were marking that reblog as sensitive. This was even happening to text posts. Which is silly.
What we fixed: We changed the logic so that if the OP is safe, all its reblogs will also be safe.
Changes to photosets
What’s (still) happening: When you make a photo post, a computer algorithm classifies the image as safe or sensitive. It’s a machine so it’s not perfect. And the chances go up with photosets because there are multiple images. But out of an abundance of caution we keep posts marked sensitive until the OP requests a human review (by tapping the appeal button on their posts).
What we’re working on: We plan to have photosets analyzed as a whole group, rather than as individual images. That should reduce the number of mistakes the machine makes.
Safe Mode is supposed to make sure people aren’t surprised by things may not want to see—specifically, nudity. It might take some time to get it perfect, but we’re committed to getting there with your help. Our algorithms will keep getting smarter as you give feedback on misclassified posts, and as you share your concerns and suggestions.
If you want to live in a “Children of the Corn”-style bubble of innocence and purity, well, to me, that’s a startling approach to adolescence, but every generation’s got to find its own way to reject the one before, so: do as you will. But you can’t bring the bubble to the party, kids. Fandom, established media-style fandom, was by and for adults before some of your parents were born now. You don’t get to show up and demand that everyone suddenly change their ways because you’re a minor and you want to enjoy the benefits of adult creative activity without the bits that make you uncomfortable. If you think you’re old enough to be roaming the Internet unsupervised, then you also think you’re old enough to be working out your limits by experience, like everybody else, like I did when I was underage and lying about it online. If you’re not old enough to be roaming the Internet unsupervised and you’re doing it anyway, then that’s on your parents, not on fandom.
If you were only reading fic rated G on AO3, if you had the various safe modes on other media enabled, you would be encountering very little disturbing material, anyway (at least in the crude way people tend to define “disturbing” these days; some of the most frankly horrifying art I have ever engaged with would have been rated PG at most under present systems, but none of that kind of work ever seems to draw your protests). In the end, what you really want is to be able to seek out the edges of your little world, but be able to blame other people when you don’t like what you find. Sorry. Adolescence is when you get to stop expecting others to pad your world for you and start experiencing the actual consequences of the risks you take, including feeling appalled and revolted at what other people think and feel.
Now, ironically, fandom’s actually a fairly good place for such risk-taking, as, for the most part, you control whether you engage and you can choose the level of your engagement. You can leave a site, blacklist something, stop reading an author, walk away from your computer. Are there actual people (as opposed to works of art, which cannot engage with you unless you engage with them) who will take advantage of you in fandom? Of course there are. Unfortunately, such people are everywhere. They will be there however “innocent” and “wholesome” the environment appears to be, superficially. That’s evil for you. There are abusers in elementary school. There are abusers in scout troops. There are abusers in houses of worship. Shutting down adult creative activity because you happen to be in the vicinity isn’t going to change any of that. It may help you avoid some of those icky feelings that you get when you think about sex (and you live in a rape culture, those feelings are actually understandable, even if your coping techniques are terrible), but no one, except maybe your parents, has a moral imperative to help you avoid those.
In the end, you’re not my kid and you’re not my intended audience. I’m under no obligation to imagine only healthy, wholesome relationships between people for your benefit. Until you’re old enough to understand that the world is not exclusively made up of people whose responsibility it is to protect you from your own decisions, yes, you’re too young for established media fandom. Fandom shouldn’t be “friendly” to you.
What she says: I’m fine
What she means: I love you so much and I want to declare it to the world but public extreme expressions of love short of marriage proposals are looked down upon or made fun of by society and I’m worried people are going to judge me but I’m content being by your side because there’s nothing I love more
you: I love you me, and intellectual: I love you unconditionally and the fact that I see myself as more intuitive does not change that at all, and, in fact, sometimes enhances my love for you
Did you know that I will climb nearly 90 degree angles to announce my deep love for you from the top of the highest mountains. Because I crave that affection.
Me, on a date: how do you feel about wholesome memes? My date: I love them so much as it is my deepest desire to have that kind of connection with someone Me: *pulling breadsticks out of my purse* I stole these from Olive Garden and want to share them with you
Come one guys join in on this In case you haven’t noticed this whole meme is already a wholesome version of a past meme, the “what will be the first meme of 2015” meme So this meme is a meme of itself
I came out here to have a good time and I’m honestly feeling so loved and supported right now.
this kind of wholesome subversion of memes looks like a lot of
fun
jewishbookwyrm: i have made a wholesome meme tumblr: you fixed a really bad trend is what you did. look at it. it’s got love and support.
are we doing loving memes?
friends, we might be
“Tumblr a pit of hate and despair” factoid is incorrect. Wholesome Georg, who posts support and friendship from a cave is representative adn should be counted.
maybe the real wholesome memes were the friends we made along the way
Tag yourself I’m wholesome subversion of memes
2017 but every time I love and support my friends it gets faster
I awake in the morning
mind: refreshed
heart: open
friends: online
I am forcibly removed from loneliness and isolation.
Here come dat love
i am a frend
and wen i spy
a frend of mine
who wants to cri
i do not walk
awa or shrug
i hold them clos
i giv a hug
here come that boy
o i hope ur havin a good day
me: *takes a deep breath*
me: i lo-
everyone who has spent five seconds around me ever: yes, you love your friends, we know, you love them so much, they’re the light of your life, you love them so much, you just love your friends, we KNOW, you love your friends you fucking love your friends ok we know, we get it, YOU LOVE YOUR FRIENDS. WE GET IT. AND WE LOVE YOU TOO.
another weird thing about beer is that it has weird masculinity connections to it. “ya i’ll get a beer, i don’t want none of them girly drinks” Jimothy, you’re drinking wheat juice with a 5% alcohol content and my mixed, fruity, “girly” drink is 40% alcohol and tastes great
O.KAY *CRACKS KNUCKLES* I AM ABOUT TO GIVE YOU AN EDUCATION
BEER IS TRADITIONALLY A WOMAN’S DRINK, IT IS THE MOST FEMALE OF ALL OF THE DRINKS. FOR THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF YEARS, BEER WAS MADE AT HOME BY WOMEN, TO BE CONSUMED BY WOMEN AND CHILDREN–IT WAS ACTUALLY A SOURCE OF NUTRIENTS FOR MANY HOUSEHOLDS. WOMEN CREATED THE CRAFT OF BEER, AND FOR MOST OF HUMAN HISTORY THAT IS WHO YOU’D BUY IT FROM: MANY WOMEN MADE ADDITIONAL INCOME BY BREWING AND SELLING BEER FROM HOME. IT WASN’T UNTIL THE ERA OF INDUSTRIALIZATION THAT BEER BEGAN TO BE BREWED IN FACTORIES. AND ONCE BEER WAS BEING BREWED ON A LARGE SCALE, IT MADE TO START MARKETING IT TO ALL THE MALE FACTORY WORKERS WHO SUDDENLY HAD EXTRA INCOME. HENCE AN AGGRESSIVE MARKETING CAMPAIGN TO RE-BRAND BEER, A DRINK INTRINSICALLY TIED WITH WOMEN’S HISTORY, AS A ‘MASCULINE’ BEVERAGE.
EVEN BETTER, FEMALE BREWSTERS WERE THE ORIGINAL WICKED OLD WITCH. THE TROPES WE COMMONLY ASSOCIATE WITH STEREOTYPICAL WITCHES ARE ACTUALLY BASED ON THE TRADITIONAL BREWSTER. CAULDRONS & HOT STEAMING POTIONS = BEER BREWING. THE WITCH’S HAT: BELIEVE IT OR NOT POINTY HATS WERE ACTUALLY WORN BY BREWSTERS WHEN SELLING THEIR PRODUCT AT MARKETS: THE ENORMOUS HEADGEAR HELPED THEM STAND OUT, AND CLEARLY TOLD EVERYONE ‘YO MOTHERFUCKA GET YOUR BEER HERE’.
CATS AS FAMILIARS: CATS WERE COMMONLY USED TO PREVENT RODENTS FROM GETTING INTO THE WHEAT. EVEN THE BROOMSTICK IS RELATED TO BEER: A BUNDLE OF TWIGS RESEMBLING A BROOM WAS USED AS AD FOR ALEHOUSES
so basically, beer is the ultimate woman’s and witch’s drink
REBLOG ME
fuck u guys, i didn’t spend 20 min fact checking for 3 notes
I am impressed at this much knowledge
Beer is gross imo, but the knowledge is greatly appreciated.
It’s just another example of “Men like this thing, so they shove all the women out and claim women were never there in the first place”, right up there with computer work and doctors.
my post has strayed deeply from its 3am complaints about beer Mood but i’m into this insight on the history of women & beer
Tumblr backup 