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Tumblr Has a Massive Creepshots Problem (vice.com)

Posted by msmash on from the holding-companies-accountable dept.

After Reddit famously banned the creepshots sub-reddit, which shared non-consensual, revealing photos of women, Tumblr now has a slew of users pushing out similar photos across at least dozens of dedicated blogs, a Motherboard investigation has found. From the report: Simply typing 'creepshot' or related terms into Tumblr's built-in search function returns a steady stream of tagged posts, and Google queries easily reveal links to relevant Tumblr blogs. Motherboard found just under 70 Tumblr blogs focused on sharing creepshots, most with a bevy of content. In some cases, the Tumblrs also host 'upskirt' photos or videos, where a camera is deliberately, and stealthily, positioned to look up an unsuspecting person's skirt. Some of the subjects of these images, as well as many of the clothed creepshots, appear to be young, possibly teenagers.

"This is only the tip of the iceberg, there are probably hundreds of these accounts filming in high schools, college campuses, in malls, and on the streets. And Tumblr seems to not care at all about the problem," an anonymous tipster, who first alerted Motherboard to the issue, wrote in an email. One of the most popular creepshot Tumblrs has some 11,000 followers, and one of its posts has over 53,000 interactions linked to it, including reblogs, where the video or picture then appears on the user's own Tumblr, spreading the content further.

6 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Or maybe it's not a tech problem? by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If a group of users who like posting pictures like this just move from one site to another like locusts, it's not really a problem with wherever they land - it's a social and people problem.

    What can you do about it? Nothing at all, that's what. They will just go somewhere else even if you somehow managed to block them from whatever site they are on now.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Or maybe it's not a tech problem? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's not a tech problem, but it is a character problem. The reddit folks didn't ban this because they cared about the victims. They did it because of public pressure.

      Tumblr (and previously reddit) could have taken a stand that the victims' rights outweighed the posters' rights and gained some respect. Could have.

      Of course it doesn't make it go away. But it could remove one "legitimate" (ok, it's Tumblr) source of implied approval.

      If you set the precedent that a forum operator is responsible for all user content, you may not like the result.

      I am old enough to remember the 1990s, a time when the existence of transgendered people was not a topic one could discuss in front of children. If the internet had existed in its current form, Reddit and Tumblr would have faced significant pressure to disallow forums that discussed the existence of transgendered people. Should they have caved to that pressure? I would say "no", because I don't think a forum opperor should have to make sure all user content meets the demands of everyone everywhere. Please don't set the opposite precedent!

      You may think that the moral standards you have are those that people should have for the rest of time. Every generation does, and every generation so far has been wrong. The particular case identified here may be horrible, and I would not blame Tumblr for trying to excise the content from its servers. However, be careful that in your zeal to stop one terrible idea, you don't let them set a precedent that will stop any future social movement from expressing good ideas that happen to be unpopular.

    2. Re:Or maybe it's not a tech problem? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This isn't about censorship and you know it. This is about consent. The subjects of these pictures did not give consent, and it is totally reasonable for a person to expect that such pictures of themselves will not be taken in the absence of consent.

  2. Slashdot has a liberal bias problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Slashdot appears to have a liberal bias problem, because we keep on getting stories about how tech sites are victimizing those poor, helpless, vulnerable women who are also incredibly powerful but that we're apparently harassing out of tech despite the fact that merely looking at a woman is enough to get you fired these days.

    People are posting pictures of people that they took in public. Who cares? Apparently the whining liberals who are constantly on the lookout for things to be outraged over, unable to figure out why the rest of the world hates them.

    1. Re: Slashdot has a liberal bias problem by Millennium · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is why you can't get a date.

    2. Re: Slashdot has a liberal bias problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      ... liberal bias ...

      Let me see; 'liberal' means an ideology tasked 'to tolerate and to protect'. So you're suggesting women prefer intolerant, negligent men. Well, Slashdot doesn't want that sort of woman.

      Oh, you're a uneducated American who doesn't know that 'liberal' is related to Authoritarian (protective, no tolerance) and Anarchist (tolerant, no protection).

      George Orwell was correct: Controlling the words is controlling what people think. Many Americans demonstrate they don't understand any ideology not connected to greed, self-importance and a vague promise of meritocracy.