Tumblr Staff: A New Policy Against Self-Harm Blogs

hermionejg:

staff:

One of the great things about Tumblr is that people use it for just about every conceivable kind of expression. People being people, though, that means that Tumblr sometimes gets used for things that are just wrong. We are deeply committed to supporting and defending our users’ freedom of speech,…

I’m really torn about this. On the one hand I’m glad they seem to be taking it seriously. On the other, as my friend said to me yesterday, “It’s fighting the symptom instead of the cause. I find it irritating.” This is a problem that is much bigger than explicitly proana/promia/proselfharm blogs and if anyone thinks this is going to make those blogs go away or magically fix everything or “cure” everyone, they have a seriously skewed idea of what the problem is in the first place. This is too simplistic and it’s frustrating. But at least they’re not totally ignoring it — I guess I just hope they don’t think it excuses them.

Yeah, but, see, it’s not Tumblr’s job to solve the problem entirely, and I don’t think that’s even what they’re trying to do. I’m sure they’d be in FAVOR of treating the cause and not the symptom. But what’s going on is that there’s a symptom appearing on their site, one that is making symptoms worse. It’s spreading the symptom, it’s glamorizing the symptom. And they’re in the rare position where they can actually make a policy that helps contain it.

I wish something, anything, Tumblr could do could stop girls feeling the need to make such blogs. The need will still exist. But there’s no reason for Tumblr to allow itself to become breeding ground for more assault. And that’s what this is, even if it’s on yourself: assault. Attack with an intent to harm.

The blogs even say this. They talk about trying to make your body disappear, about trying to erase yourself, about trying to pound your body into nothing. About the pain and the hurt and the harm you’re inflicting being OK (even in those words) because it will make you perfect on the outside. I spent about an hour rifling through the ones mentioned in the Huffington Post piece and I wanted to reach into the screen and hug each and every girl who was doing it.

Were I the staff of Tumblr, I would feel sickened that something I created was allowing people to make this look alluring and sexy to young, impressionable girls. Self-harm is still harm to a human being, which no social website should be encouraging. And finally treating anorexia and bulimia like the assaults on your body that they are… well, I applaud that. We have to stand up and say “these things are crimes against yourself, and we aren’t going to help you commit them.” It’s what Tumblr can do in this situation. They can’t make it all go away. But they can sure as hell make sure their site isn’t helping it spread.

I largely agree with you, I really do, but the problem is endemic on Tumblr. It’s not limited to those blogs and what has happened on Tumblr is that the definition of that sort of blog has become hazy. A “get fit” blog is sometimes actually a proana/promia blog, some blogs are legitimately a supportive and helpful group for cutters and others might come across as a pro self mutilation blog. They don’t neatly fit into these categories and people use them for different reasons. And they’re not going to go away. So whilst I appreciate this, I also don’t know how practically useful it’s going to be and whether or not it’s going to just be a distraction of social responsibility or whatever. I don’t know. It gets me all confused because my gut tells me that this isn’t the right approach, but I suppose it’s the best one for the time being.

I also found their “joke” about killing yourself or starving yourself super fucking condescending. I think that’s actually the thing that made me most angry about the original post. Because it shows how little understanding they have and how little research they seem to have done. & they could have presented that information in a better and far more tactful way.

God I really don’t know, though. It’s just messier and bigger and will continue to spread whether these blogs are banned or not.

Incidentally, it’s very interesting to me that when a friend emailed in about a serious problem she had with the site she got a really snarky response about free speech and how tumblr could do nothing about it. IDK man. Things are making me queasy.

4:31 PM on Friday 24th February 2012 with 25,873 notes and Comments