“Whoever reflects upon the way in which man can be raised to his greatest splendor and power will grasp first of all that he must place himself outside morality.”

—F. Nietzsche, The Will to Power, §897 (edited excerpt).

Hans Erni

“Maternity”

lithograph on paper mounted to artist’s board, pencil 

Tumblr, you are dead to me

Tumblr, you are dead to me

Important note to all original content providers!

Check you archives for posts flagged as sensitive! I found 30 photos flagged that I am having reviewed. The photos were of an empty hallway, a cat, birds. trees, flowers, sculptures, clouds, smoke, the sun, and shadows. You don’t want your site flagged for deletion because of a stupid bot program.

And. When I go to my archive. Almost all of it is gone!

Is 17 December today?

Good morning! I am absolutely shocked finding that years and years of work/photos I posted on my site, not having any indecent subject, just dissapeared… Definitely, this is unfair. I am surprised and - honestly - disappointed :((((.

yama-bato

The blanket application and treatment against nudity and adult content in relation to Tumblr’s recent being caught-out for its years of negligence over its rampant child pornography issue is a really disgusting and thoughtless action of association. So many users (including users who largely or exclusively post adult content) over so many years have sought administrative support in addressing the issue of child pornography on this site, only to be met with lack of real decisive and thoughtful action on the subject. Now that it has become a financial concern (due to its being removed from the app store), action arrives in the form of a tactless and inconsiderate purge of all adult content. This purge draws an unreasonable association between general nudity and child pornography through its blanket treatment. It makes the assumption that there is a clean and clear division in content and values between blogs that exclusively post pornographic content and those that abstain completely. Such a division is non-existent as many blogs observably and commonly have played with a curation that accommodates both adult content and non-adult content as well as everything that falls in between. 

This ban, if it’s anything like the measures and procedures shared by Facebook and Instagram, will certainly be a strict and indiscriminate one as it relates to the moderation of nudity that may also appear in artistic and cultural artefacts, imagery and photography (and those images that drift between art, the candid and the everyday which include nudity, which, through their dissemination and transmission have become cultural and aesthetic artefacts), and it will not be surprising when masses of these artefacts, artworks, photographs and images are erased without any further consideration. This ban is a clumsy and heavy-handed panic of corporate and financial concern masquerading as a caring and progressive project of ethical betterment. The ban’s authors absolve themselves of responsibility by applying this blanket-treatment, while failing to take responsibility and be held accountable for their own years of negligence on the issue, for their wilful accommodation of the issue. Perhaps, in the years of the issue being addressed by its users (who have certainly shown greater and more sincere dedication to the upholding of a morally-guided online community), the issue could have been addressed more thoughtfully and a more sophisticated solution could have been designed by those corporate administrators who only noticed the grave importance of the issue when their wallets started burning. 

n. portland

(rchorneau)

n. portland

(rchorneau)

n. portland

(rchorneau)

n. portland

(rchorneau)

n. portland

(rchorneau)

n. portland

(rchorneau)

n. portland

(rchorneau)