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.
Tumblrs! Sherlock’s very own Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, happening on right here at 11am EST on Monday, July 9th. We’re launching the #SummerofSherlock before the opening of The Game Is Now later this year.
Sherlocked report #9. Had a lovely time at the cocktail party. Our group got to speak to Sue Vertue and I asked in a sly way about S5 by asking whether it was up to the BBC to commission another series and she said no, the beeb would love to have more series made as, (my words not hers) it’s quite a money spinner for them. It really is down to Mark and Steven getting time to write it first of all. She said that hopefully she’d like to get them together early next year to discuss things like what the plot would be etc. Then they’d have to write a draft plot line and see if primarily Ben and Martin would be up for doing it with that plot. Then she’d have to send Mark and Steven away on holiday together to write as it worked so well for s4. Then they’d have to sort out the logistics of Ben n Martins schedules. Ben has been working pretty much non stop for a year and Martins not far behind in the constant workloads. So in short she herself is hopeful that a S5 will happen but even if she pushed them to write super speed they have Dracula to get through its first season first and then they’d have to work out when B & M could film. She said that they hope that Dracula will film next year for a possible 2019 release (they’ve not started writing it properly at all, just a draft plot.) So Sherlocked wouldn’t be able to start to film at the earliest until a few months after Dracula has wrapped. So I’m figuring that would mean a very late 2019 or mid 2020 release at its best possible. I’m so sorry I can’t relay any better news than that, but at least we know now that the BBC and Hartswood are both keen to do it. Let’s face it, the Sherlock fandom is used to long hiatuses! !
the back flips I assume that went down to make this acronym work?
thank you for not separating them and for in fact making them inseparable… and for giving him a magnifying glass . thanks
Assuming NASA is anything like NOAA/NWS, they *likely* already had the acronym name figured out because they wanted to call that sensor SHERLOC and WATSON. Also, this will be on the Mars 2020 rover, which as of now doesn’t yet have a name, but since it’ll be launched in 2020 and is going to Mars, well, Mars 2020 rover. (NASA is only so creative, y’all.)
BUT. Because this IS going to go to Mars, it’ll be roving around a planet that we really don’t know a lot about, seeing things that have NEVER been seen before, and just being all magical. I’m not sure what the life cycle of this rover will be (as in the past, rovers have exceeded NASA’s life expectancy forecast), but what I do know is that when this rover is shut down/’dies,’ it’ll be on MARS FOREVER. And, when humans, the first ones going to Mars, greet it, it’ll still BE THERE and this rover, and likely this sensor (since it is looking for organic materials using two types of spectrometery: raman and luminescence) might be a contributing factor to how humanity even GETS to Mars, and maybe even SURVIVES on Mars.
*cries* I just love space so muccccchhhh.
Amazing. JUST last night, I wondered, if the world ends, how the hell do we make sure Sherlock & Watson last forever? Only way would be to send them into space…then THIS!
Sherlock Fandom Archive 