For everyone’s information:
The plan for the 17th, when the adult content ban comes in, is to protest.
To do that, we are making as much noise either side of the 17th as possible, and using the site as normal.
On the 17th, dead silence.
People are saying log off but what they really mean is don’t open the site or the app.
But, on the 17th make as much noise as possible on every other platform. Tweet about it and post on facebook and instagram and everywhere else.
What this does is causes a massive dip in ad revenue for one single day. That does not make staff think ‘oh everyone’s gone let’s shut down.’ What it actually makes them think is ‘oh shit people aren’t happy and if people don’t keep using our site we’re out of money and out of jobs.’
A boycott reminds a company that the users (consumers) have the power to make their site (business) worthless with one single coordinated decision.
If you want to join in, here’s what to do:
Do:
- Close all open instances of the app and site on all your devices before the 17th
- Make posts before and after the 17th on tumblr and other platforms, talking about why this ban is bad
- Make posts on other sites during the 17th. Flood the official tumblr staff twitter and facebook with your anger and your opinion
- Come back on the 18th and check in
Don’t:
- Delete the app from your phone (this doesn’t affect their revenue and since it’s off the store at the moment it’ll be hard to get back)
- Delete your account. I mean you can if you want to, but if you keep your account and don’t use it you’re saying to staff that there’s still time to save it. If you delete it’s hard work to come back.
- Open the app or website (including specific blogs)
- Make any posts (turn down/off your queue and make sure nothing is scheduled)
- Go quiet elsewhere. Make it clear that this is just about tumblr, not a mass move away from all social media.
Remember: the execs don’t care about anything but money. Shutting down the site means there’s $0 further income from it. That’s their last possible course of action. If we make it clear we’re not happy, they’ll have to do something or we can do more and more until it becomes too expensive.
Protests take commitment. They’re a defiant action against a business that is doing something wrong. They will try to scare you into not participating, because they’re scared. We hold all the power here, sometimes the execs just need to be reminded of that.
It probably is worth a try.
Tumblr doesn’t consider us its consumers or customers, since we don’t pay for it, but what it does consider us to be are its free content creators who attract more traffic and therefore attract their true customer base, the advertisers.
I doubt anything will change but, again, it is totally worth a try. One little day ignoring tumblr won’t hurt.
Monsters and Stuff 