tumblr mobile has steadily become near unusable these past few updates. not just from a user experience perspective (which is important enough in itself) but also from an accessibility perspective.
examples include the new way the image viewer works (if you can call it "working"), the tumblr live button replacing the profile button, and that newly created blogs will be forced to have their main dashboard tab be the 'for you' page.
reverse the recent image viewer update
scrap the new users 'for you' page default setting
let us turn off tumblr live indefinitely
increase efforts against spam / porn bots
make reporting abuse and hate speech as easy as reporting as reporting spam
let us go nuts show nuts again... for real this time
remove flashing ads, including not accepting blaze campaigns for posts with flashing in them
commit to improving usability and accessibility, and listening to users!
(suggestions welcome!)
to protest against these usability issues, and inspired by the recent reddit blackout, i propose a 48 hour blackout (where you don't use tumblr at all). preferably of both mobile and web (since web has problems too) but mobile is the focus here.
[edit: a 'blackout' is when you don't log in, or interact with the site at all, for [x] amount of time.]
this marks the end of pride month (for the "queerest place on the internet") and the start of disability month (since accessibility is a massive issue here).
tumblr office is in San Francisco, USA, so the times and dates will be calculated using their time zone (PDT).
i can't afford to blaze this post so please spread it around as much as possible! protests only work if significant numbers show up!
all video games should have a “I’m shit at video games but I’m curious about the story and I don’t want to watch a let’s play” mode
When I say “school should be disability accessible”, I don’t just mean we need handicap rails and EAs. Kids should be able to miss a day without failing out of school. You shouldn’t be dismissed from clubs because your attendance record is “spotty” (true story). I once missed an entire week of school because of a terrible, unending migraine. I was expected to keep up with my studies despite the blinding pain that came with working on my computer. When I heard my teachers say that you couldn’t miss exams, I asked what I would have to do to be excused from them. Their response? “Either get a doctor’s note an hour before the exam or death of an immediate family member.”
I cannot express how rigid this expectation was. First of all, with my condition, I wouldn’t have enough warning about my sickness to go to the doctor and request a note. For many people, this is exceptionally difficult, especially with the current shortage of medical professionals. Next, it ignores the fact that my schedule may not line with theirs because of my medical needs. Once, I had to visit a hospital a province away (which I was on the waiting list of for over a year) on the same day as an exam. I begged my mother not to take me because I was so nervous that I would be marked as an automatic fail. I was lucky enough to make it work, but that’s only because of my spectacular support system consisting of family members and wonderful doctors.
Disabilities aren’t always about needing a bus that can accommodate wheelchairs. It’s already difficult enough for many of us to maintain school attendance without the harsh punishments involved for skipping a day. We need to be able to miss school without being punished. Only than can you claim that the school is “accessible”
Some people don’t want to hear this but sometimes accessibility is not sustainable or eco-friendly. Disabled people sometimes need straws, or pre-made meals in plastic containers, or single-use items. Just because you can work with your foods in their least processed and packaged form doesn’t mean everyone else can.
Able-bodied leftists NEED to change the way they talk about service labor.
They'll talk over and over again about treating workers with respect and shit but then treat service work as inherently humiliating or exploitative, as if that inherently reduced those workers to feudal servants or some shit who need to be freed not of capitalist abuses, but of service itself.
"Who would want to service others?!" Well, bitches, if I had the physical capacity for it and the conditions under which service labor exists in a capitalist society weren't so deplorable, I would!
I already do a lot of things for my also physically disabled family that, if I wasn't related to them and they were paying me, would absolutely count as care and service work. I like it! I enjoy servicing others when I'm treated by them with respect and a minimum of reciprocity.
There will ALWAYS be people who'll need service labor from others, no matter how utopic of a communist society. Children, the sick and injured, elderly people, and disabled people will always exist. Even if you try to breed disabled people out, we will keep reappearing over and over again, no matter how many fetal genetic testings you develop and how many of us you sterilize and murder.
What are you gonna do about us in a communist society? Are we supposed to magically become able-bodied and not need accommodations once the revolution arrives? Are you going to kill us so we don't demand Awful labor that you deem too low for anybody to perform? Why do you see service as inherently humiliating and exploitative?
If you feel perfectly ok using devices made with child labor and wearing clothes made by sweatshop workers because "there's no ethical consumption under capitalism", why is that different when disabled people pay for service labor in a capitalist society?
Why are WE different? Why is your need to tweet on a device made with child labor and wear cute clothes made in sweatshops more ethically justifiable than, I don't know... A person who can't leave their house getting FOOD delivered to them? FUCKING FOOD. An actual vital necessity. Why is it that when able-bodied leftists can't escape the unethical nature of capitalism that's ok, but when disabled people can't escape it EVEN HARDER because we LITERALLY HAVE NO CHOICE then we're the enemies of the working class?
Get a fucking grip. Service labor and care labor aren't inherently exploitative, they turn exploitative under exploitative systems, and some people will always need that from others TO SURVIVE. Not to be whimsical lazy parasites, TO SURVIVE.
Service labor is just as noble and beautiful as producing needed material goods or working the land, it's NECESSARY for any and all societies, and just like disabled people have a right to complain when healthcare workers fail us, we have a right to complain when service workers fail us because it's not a fucking whim to us, IT'S JUST AS VITAL AS MEDICAL CARE.
Wishing the people who remove benches in public spaces a very die
This is a good point and all, but the Americans with Disabilities Act has been law for over thirty years, and people still don't install safe wheelchair ramps in their buildings.
Single-family homes still have steps at every entrance as a matter of course (unless they're built by Habitat for Humanity). HOAs (homeowners' associations) forbid and even destroy wheelchair ramps that are added to homes at the homeowners' expense on a regular basis -- which is illegal, but the victim has to have funds to sue their HOA when this happens, and disabled people often do not).
We recently had to find a different specialist for my wheelchair-user spouse, because the office we had been going to, even though the structure was purpose-built as medical offices, only about twelve years ago, had a ramp so badly non-ADA-compliant that trying to use it broke our manual wheelchair. (Fortunately insurance covered a replacement but seriously?)
Most people will be neutral or even nice when they encounter someone using a wheelchair. A minority of people will have all the common courtesy of a honey badger. And virtually no one prepares for wheelchair users before any have shown up... I've had retail-business owners tell me in all seriousness that they've never had a wheelchair-using customer when of course they haven't, because their building isn't accessible.
The reason I’m not an anarchist is that in the centuries before the Americans with disabilities act people could have all installed safe wheelchair ramps in all of their buildings and they didn’t.
If you’re trying to make a system that relies on people being nice I’m not gonna go with it.
so i've been experimenting a while with filtering phrases, and here is a list i've come up with that i use to get posts that trigger my ocd / have compulsive language off my dash! this ends up taking out about 95% of these posts. i'm sharing it here so anyone who also wants to blacklist this stuff can as well.
it is helpful to me as someone with ocd to blacklist these phrases and makes tumblr much more accessible, so i hope it can also help others with ocd and similar mental illnesses (or people who just find this stuff aggravating)
asking for reblog
follows>likes
follows > likes
hit that reblog
ignore for
i know you see this
keep reblogging
must reblog
obligated to reblog
obligated to vote
people can reblog
people reblog
please rb
please reblog
please share
rb after voting
rb for
rb if u vote
rb if you vote
rbs > likes
rbs>likes
rb this
reblog after voting
reblog bait (people use this one as a trigger tag, so this one is better under filtered tags instead of filtered post content)
reblog for (this one tends to catch a lot of non-compulsive posts, but leaving it out allows a lot of compulsive posts onto the dash, so it's a tossup if you want to include it)
reblog for exposure
reblog if u vote
reblog if you vote
reblog it every time
reblogs > likes
reblogs>likes
reblog this
remember to reblog
required by law to
sample size
you will reblog
just filtering the word "reblog" will also work as a catchall for most of these, but will also catch a lot of non-compulsive posts, so this list is meant to minimize that effect.
on desktop/web: settings > account > filtered post content (should be right under filtered tags), at this url
on mobile/app: settings > account settings > content you see > filtered post content (again will be right under filtered tags)
tag posts with compulsive statements as "#reblog bait"
avoid using compulsive statements in posts - according to polls, this makes people less likely to reblog anyway! (poll 1) (poll 2)
if you are able to, avoiding sharing posts with aggressively compulsive statements would help. for example, those "reblog for good luck ignore and you'll never have good luck again" type posts, or things with "rules". i saw a lighthearted tournament with "From now on, if you see a matchup post - even accidentally - you are immediately morally obligated to vote one way or the other. Refusing to vote is strictly forbidden" in the pinned post. this is an example of an ocd unsafe statement. (op of that poll is not malicious though and is currently collecting opinions on whether to remove the statement or just warn for it).
avoid implying that reblogging, following, voting, etc or not doing so carries a moral value.
while reblogging a post may be very small stakes in itself, things like this can trigger compulsions that spiral into more than just reblogging a post. this is why this stuff is important even if it's small-stakes by itself.
you are under no obligation to share this.
tumblr staff have...
allowed false flags of 100% sfw posts made by transfem users (and blacklisted trans-adjacent tags)
taken away basic accessibility features in an effort to tiktok-ify tumblr
pushed tumblr live, a feature users actively dislike which is mostly unused and overrun by spambots, that also collects all of your data
allowed ads that can literally kill people via flashing / strobing lights, even if the person had it filtered, despite user complaints, with the ceo even saying people with epilepsy should "just buy ad free" in response to concern over potential death or serious injury from such ads
STOP GIVING THEM MONEY! stop trying to make crab day or whatever else happen. paying for stuff from the shop is rewarding them for ignoring the userbase continuously and doing things the majority don't want, even if the things they're doing and allowing can cause actual deaths. staff shouldn't be praised and get profit for ignoring their users in exchange for trying to turn tumblr into twitter 2 ft. tiktok. at this point i don't even care for "staff are people 🥺 be nice" arguments, because even when people are being very polite in feedback, they're perfectly fine ignoring it in exchange for implementing changes nobody wants or asked for, all because new users may like it more (and forget anyone who's used the site for years, apparently).
leave bad reviews. don't buy things from the shop. send feedback, even if they never reply. email them and @ the staff, send asks to the wip blog. don't just blindly buy into "we need to support the site, buy xyz shop product", they don't deserve more money for giving a worse product.