Community Labels were announced by Tumblr.com’s staff account on the 27th of September, 2022. Cited as a desire for users to “be able to fully express themselves while also having control over what they encounter on their dashboards”, this move is just one step of many that the social media platform has taken to regulate the presence of NSFW – an internet colloquialism that stands for ‘not safe for work’ – content, from fanart, images, GIFs, fan-fiction and more. This encapsulates a broad range of subject matter deemed hazardous for underage persons to interact with, including but not limited to violence, substance use and sexual themes. The set-up of this function coincides with all Tumblr blogs – both newly-made and existing – being set to ‘default’, in which all mature content is hidden unless these settings are manually adjusted. Indeed, it is an effective idea; Community Labels would, in theory, allow minors and adults to coexist in the same space without the eventuation of crossover, the consequences of which range from questionably moral to borderline unlawful.

In theory.

There is no doubt that Tumblr staff had the best of intentions in launching what is effectively a ‘child lock’ system. However, what has resulted from the rollout of Labels does not align with the intended purpose as outlined above. Across the platform, thousands of creators are experiencing what can only be described as a ‘weaponising’ of Community Labels; one of the key functions of this program allows other users to report content as ‘missing a Community Label’, and the subsequent application of these supposed ‘missing’ Labels is swift and often devastating. In a community that relies so heavily on engagement, the impact of labelling by its very nature prevents the uninformed user from viewing content that is often lovingly crafted over hours on end, ultimately intended for a wider audience to see and appreciate.

There are two major design flaws in Tumblr’s approach to a Community Labels system: one, that a large proportion of users are unaware of the platform’s decision to conceal labelled content as a default blog setting; and two, that there appears to be virtually no discrimination when it comes to the application of Labels to reported content. Most new arrivals to the platform are uninformed of the default setting, raising questions as to whether or not Staff have appropriately informed users of this change. But what is more concerning is the manner in which reported content is dealt with.

It has become custom for individuals to target content creators – due to a range of reasons, but often personal and inflammatory in nature – by mass-reporting their work. It seems that, due to the speed and inaccuracy in which Labels are applied, a certain threshold reached results in an automatic Label being added. Because of this, engagement with work that is key to facilitating the growth and development of fan spaces online is nosediving and content creators are reporting decreases in engagement across the site.

Community Labels have become the newest form of cyber harassment on Tumblr.com. While the system is suitable in its conceptual form, in practice it has been shown to actively harm the very communities it claims to be protecting. So, what should be done about this?

Here are some suggestions:

1. The default setting should only be applied to accounts that are under 18.
2. The default setting should be applied across all accounts, but this should blur posts rather than conceal them completely for users who are above 18 years of age.
3. More advertisement of this change should be made available to users, new and existing – pop-ups in account settings, inboxes, DMs, whatever can be reasonably effected to achieve this.
4. Remove the ability for other users to suggest Community Labels, or ban accounts who mass-report content across a period of time from accessing this function.

These are but some changes that could be made, and are by no means an exhaustive list of potential responses to this rising issue. But something must be done.

We, the content creators, the backbone of fandom spaces in the modern age, have had enough. It is already difficult to navigate social media as a person who puts their effort and hard work out for the public’s judgement; we do not also need to contend with this new form of persecution and censorship. 

We submit this petition as a request to Tumblr.com to review their Community Labels system and effect change that protects one of – if not the – major attractions of this platform.