{D-Q Editorial} Tumblr/Verizon’s Betrayal of User Communities

dialogue-queered:

No right is absolute. Freedom of expression, for instance, is limited (generally) by injunctions against hate speech. Paedophilia is off-limits for most of us. Gratuitous violence offends many whatever the genders or sexualities or settings involved. More generally, mere sexual sensation does little for most of us.

But, then, there is the large grey zone where pornography intersects with art, where people learn how to live, grow and even express joy, and overcome negative life-scripts like internalised homophobia, not only in their hearts and minds, but also in and through bodies (and the examples of others’ bodies). In short, there are myriad forms of joyful, human expression in the grey zone. Thus, not surprisingly, debates over censorship are especially difficult and need to be worked through slowly, ethically, dialogically.

How did tumblr/Verizon choose to handle the grey zone in its user communities, and difficult discussions over censorship? They chose alarmism and confrontation with ridiculous algorithms that flagged desert scenes and exquisite works of art because of ‘skin tones’. They chose ‘top-down’ fiat – Trump-like, thuggish – rather than sustained, genuine engagement and dialogue with user communities over an adequate period of time. They failed to undertake a dialogue that actually valued the many, diverse investments of users (and the positive spin for tumblr they generate in so many fora). In short, I submit, tumblr betrayed all its user communities. For, be warned, if they go after creative expression in the arts and erotica today, it will surely be your political commitments or activism, or your ways of living, that they will go after when ‘opinion’ and profits make those seem ‘unwholesome’ in the future.

The internet, spruikers claimed, would empower communities globally with transnational exchanges and sensibilities. But, in reality, sites like tumblr are not global, they are boringly provincial. Tumblr has never come to grips with having a transnational user community; its moralities and concepts of censorship bear the provincial mark of US centre-right, prudery -  inappropriate outside that setting. Its capitalist ethos is boringly simple-minded: profits. It has not discovered the diverse, transnational social settings that make it profits possible or the obligations that go with that (like genuine engagement with users).

Tumblr/Verizon has stumbled badly. It risks deepening the betrayal of their user communities unless they radically rethink both tactics and strategy. And that damages ‘the brand’ long-term.