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Tumblr Blocked Archivists Just Before Starting the NSFW Content Purge (techdirt.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: By now, of course, you're aware that the Verizon-owned Tumblr (which was bought by Yahoo, which was bought by Verizon and merged into "Oath" with AOL and other no longer relevant properties) has suddenly decided that nothing sexy is allowed on its servers. This took many by surprise because apparently a huge percentage of Tumblr was used by people to post somewhat racy content. Knowing that a bunch of content was about to disappear, the famed Archive Team sprung into action -- as they've done many times in the past. They set out to archive as much of the content on Tumblr that was set to be disappeared down the memory hole as possible... and it turns out that Verizon decided as a final "fuck you" to cut them off. Jason Scott, the mastermind behind the Archive Team announced over the weekend that Verizon appeared to be blocking their IPs. Thankfully, it didn't take long for the Archive Team to get past the blocks. Scott tweeted on Sunday: "why look at that the archiving of tumblr restarted how did that happen must be a bug surely a crack team of activist archivists didn't see an ip block as a small setback and then turned everything up to 11."
Good idea.
Let the dictators write the history books.
You might be surprised how valuable tumblr might be to future historians and anthropologists.
The bullshit, and moronic things that people do with cameras and the like, are a valuable window in the the currently modern era. That it was uncensored, uncurated, and unabashed-- means it is of the MOST value to such future generations of historians-- It is free from the associated biases those practices append.
If a website is publicly accessible 24/7, how can you make a case for unauthorized access?
In the old days, the internet was built on protocols. "Social media" mostly meant things like Usenet and IRC, and people hosted websites by spinning up an Apache instance that spoke HTTP and would serve their content to anyone who asked. And so there was never that big of a stink about censorship-by-nonprovision-of-services, since anyone could run an IRC server. Communities themselves were responsible for their own infrastructure. Don't like a particular IRC client? Use a different one. Don't like the folks who run a particular IRC server? Run your own.
But now that "I have apache running on a linux box in my basement hosting my blog" has given way to these "services", where communication platforms usually involve a for-profit company running all the infrastructure themselves in an opaque way. Aside from all the other issues that come from a corporate advertising-supported model, people are now learning that you can't trust these companies. The people I know who use tumblr as a primary means of communication are all going "gee, I wonder who else we can trust? We thought we could trust these folks."
But ... this isn't inevitable, and there's no reason that the next big thing in social networking can't be designed as an open protocol, with no central point of control -- a system where people may choose to provide the infrastructure required to power their Facegram or Instabook or whatever themselves, or (more likely) hire someone replaceable to do it for them. Open protocols can't be sold out and can't be owned.
Hardware capability is through the roof now. My smartphone has more storage, more processing power, and more bandwidth than the machines hosting IRC servers not that many years ago. There are no technical barriers to crowd-hosted social media.
It's only a "problem" if you assume that selling your body for sex is somehow worse than selling your body for manual labor (getting paid to dig ditches or run network cables) or selling your intellectual ability
It's not. It's the same thing. In a free society consenting adults can sell whatever they have.
Of course on this site "free society" and "libertarian" are the insults.
I don't respond to or upvote ACs
If this is about improving the working conditions of adult actors, then you can totally count me in. I've been for improved and free health care and social security not just for actors but also for sex workers during all my adult life so far. I also think there should be better mental health care for such professions (and paid leave, if necessary), because this kind of work is stressful.
What I don't get is why consuming porn makes you "greedy" and what makes this "a problem". As I've said, this view is irrational and based on silly old taboos and religious superstitions. Adult actors are mostly in it for money, not for fun, these jobs pay way more than you could ever earn in any low wage job, but also come with a high level of distress and social stigmatization because of silly taboos. So your comparison to low wage jobs is puzzling. Now if your opinion is that it's better if adult actors would work at McDonald's and therefore the working conditions at McDonald's ought to be improved, I'd say, okay, that's an opinion one could have although I still don't see the point of it.
Everybody should get a high enough salary to make a decent living under decent working conditions in any profession, so I'd focus on improving both kind of jobs.
so you think that we can kill the demand by eliminating the supply? If so, i have a bridge to sell you! There is a reason that someone who sells their body for sex is one of the oldest professions in history, reducing the supply will only increase the demand as every other type of prohibition has always done.
Some people will always want to sell their bodies for sex as well, you should try talking to a sex worker, it may suprise you what their thoughts are on the matter. We definitly shouldnt be trying to make their minds up for them because the thing is that the majority of the consenting adults who perform in that industry could easily get other jobs and quite a few of them do have jobs and still do sex work because they like it and why not get paid for doing something you like.
As for your argument about their psyche, are you a doctor? do you think its fair to paint everyone with the same brush? After all, how can you say that some events are bad for their psyche when they believe they are in it voluntarily? EVERY event in our lives marks our psyche and you have just determined that those specific actions are bad, based on no evidence and without having any form of communication with those people at all, instead you believe that your ideals are the best ideals and everyone else should have to follow them instead of being their own individual and making their own individual choices. Yet you have the gall to talk about exploitation in the same breath as you talk about exploiting the rest of us to fulfill your fantasy world.
For the record, I sit in the legalize sex work camp, where people who want to do it can freely do it with the protections that every other kind of work gets. This also allows to reduce the stigma so that the people who don't want to do it can easily get out by going to the authorities. Much like how labor laws made it harder to exploit the worker, the same kind of protections should be made available for those who do and don't want to work in the sex work industry.
Tumblr was popular, but the thing is that there are many places to go from there. Pornhub is accepting all comers with open arms. People are interested in running their own sites with Amazon LightSail and WordPress, as you control the site, and can back it up, or use a WP extension to do that job for you.
It is understandable to have a "family friendly" ethic, but I am pretty sure that the exodus from Tumblr to other sites will cost them more revenue than the "G" rated stance they have taken will bring in. Had Tumblr been "G" rated from the start, it would be a different story.
That's your opinion. Mine is different, I see a clear distiction between those two, as I expressed above. So let's agree to differ.
That's fine for you, it that case I recommend you do not sell your body for sex.
But that doesn't mean it isn't fine for other people who have different views.
I'd agree with the analogy if tumblr had created all the content in the first place, content which made them famous on the web, then they decided to remove it from the web.
That's not the case here though. Users created the content, and that content was what made the site famous. Then the company unilaterally decided to pull the users' content off the web, which they're allowed to do since it's their servers hosting it. Verizon doesn't own that content though, the users who uploaded it to tumblr did. As such, Verizon doesn't have the right to selectively block archive.org from accessing that content. The copyright holder has control over distribution, not Verizon. So Verizon has no right to discriminate against who can view the artworks (unless the copyright holders ceded that right to them - I dunno what tumblr's TOS say).
So the more appropriate analogy here would be an art studio allowed people to hang their artwork on the walls of their building for the public to view. This became quite popular, making the building famous and a popular destination for tourists, and also making it quite valuable. Then suddenly the studio decides that it wants to remove some of that artwork (which it has the right to do since it's their building). Prior to the date of removal, the door is never locked. The public is still allowed to come in and view/make copies of the artwork. But when a photographer arrives to take photos of all the artwork to be removed, the studio blocks him (and only him) from entry.