Hacker News Reader

Comment by LeeCyriaca | Hacker News Reader

there are a lot of jokes being made along the lines of "there goes their userbase" but for me personally this is a huge loss.

especially for those of us who have certain kinks, Tumblr to this day has been the only place to ever exist where women could safely express their sexuality.

it allowed us to meet like-minded people, it allowed us to break the taboo and it ended the isolation that many of us felt.

Tumblrs main asset has always been it's community,and I'm deathly afraid this new policy will take all of this away

View on HN

"(...) the only place to ever exist where women could safely express their sexuality."

Some female friends of mine used to like fetlife.com. They say its like facebook, but with... fewer family members and coworkers I guess you could say.

They say its like facebook, but with... fewer family members and coworkers I guess you could say

I'm being mildly sarcastic in tone when I say this: they're probably there, you just haven't found their profiles yet ;)

Which is kind of the interesting thing about Fetlife, one can't approach someone about being on "that" site without outing themselves for being on "that" site as well-since you're not able to see any profiles without logging in (assuming a friend doesn't login and show them around and they spot your face in a profile pic commenting in a group thread or on someone's photos) where others you can't see at all unless that person has added you to their friends list-you're directed to a generic 404 page.

not just for women, a lot of the kink side of tumblr expressed a much healthier attitude and freer mindset towards these topics, and it's a rough thing to see it go away.

I run 3 obscure tumblrs myself (only one of which is sfw) and it's a damn shame to see it go. especially before there is any real viable replacement.

> especially for those of us who have certain kinks, Tumblr to this day has been the only place to ever exist where women could safely express their sexuality.

Long before tumblr there were the alt.sex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt.sex) newsgroups. There have always been dedicated sites for just about any kink since the web existed plus meta ones like fetlife.

This is the new reality of the internet, best get used to it. Free speech is dead.

This seems like the opposite of free speech being dead. A website shut down and you can just... go... make or use another one, anytime you like, without having to worry about it even being illegal.

I also see this as a market opportunity for a startup to adapt / improve on tumblr and fill the void. An unexpected, and permanent content restriction on a major platform is a disruptive event.

Yesterday's BitChute discussion [0] brought up the unfortunate fact that many ostensibly free-speech zone sites such as Voat and Gab just end up being havens for far right bigots and conspiracy theorists. Made me wonder if that toxic stew could be balanced if far left activists brigaded those platforms. With this story, it'd be even more amusing if amateur erotica creators and kink community people migrated from Tumblr to those places as well.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18583211

Interesting thought experiment but based on my understanding of online community behavior I highly doubt erotica creators would go to a place already entrenched with Qanon believers.

I do think they would jump to “the new tumblr” not owned by Verizon that has its own cool culture. Both consumers and creators like building stuff up.

Far Right + Far Left !== somewhere good, you just get Reddit (or WW2). You need sane people to have sane conversations.

Oh, I hardly think it'd be much more than a toxic cesspool. But at least it'd be a multipolar, interesting cesspool.

What an ignorant comment. This isn't a free speech issue. The government isn't censoring down Tumblr. Its owners are.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but if it was that valuable to you, all of you guys should have gotten together and offered to start paying.

The next website you guys find yourselves on, you should really consider paying.

But we were paying. Advertising and data mining are valid payments from a user base.

Those aren't users, those are used. You were the product.

Wow. Damn. Got 'em.

I'm inclined to agree with the general sentiment here—the fact that no one is willing to pay for software is harmful in the long run, because companies find other ways of extracting money, that either harm the product itself or the user.

But, asking users to "get together and offer to start paying money" in exchange that's free is completely unreasonable. Tumblr didn't offer any kind of payment avenue.

You can purchase premium themes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com