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Tumblr CEO Transphobic Moderation Controversy depicting the company's logo and the PFP of the CEO.

Tumblr CEO Transphobic Moderation Controversy

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Updated Feb 23, 2024 at 11:47AM EST by Zach.

Added Feb 21, 2024 at 04:07AM EST by sakshi.

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About

Tumblr CEO Transphobic Moderation Controversy refers to criticism levied against WordPress co-founder and Tumblr CEO Matt Mullenweg, whose online handle is PhotoMatt, for banning the Tumblr account Predstrogen and, according to some users, for allegedly encouraging content moderation with an anti-trans tilt on the website. Matt issued several public responses to the questions posed by disgruntled Tumblr users in February 2024 and cited a post in which Predstrogen describes him dying in a car explosion involving hammers that "go flying everywhere" as the reason for Predstrogen's ban. The incident led to numerous Tumblr users sharing memes about cars and hammers and discussing the various times they believe Tumblr demonstrated anti-trans moderation practices.

Background

Various Tumblr users expressed their discontent with Tumblr's moderation policies leading up to February 2024, with many accusing Tumblr of censoring specifically transgender bloggers and mislabeling their content as explicit material. Tumblr[6] user @unlettered-heathen posted one example of such moderation on August 3rd, 2023, gathering over 77,000 notes in six months (seen below).


transmortifried ayyyyy guess who got her navel pierced today 1 transmortifried Hello transmortifried, We've reviewed your classification appeal and after careful review, we have determined that your post is considered adult under our Community Guidelines. Don't worry, this post hasn't been deleted, it is just hidden from public view. For more information about what is considered adult content, please see our FAQ support post or our Help Center. Thank you, Tumblr Trust & Safety tumblr yeah okay it's a pattern 60 29th Street # 343 San Francisco, CA 94110. Email settings zenonym Follow and now they killed my blog! you f------! #rb #ARE YOU F------ SERIOUS #GOD IM SORRY

On February 20th, 2024, Tumblr[1][2][3] CEO Matt Mullenweg posted a series of responses to questions about content moderation practices on Tumblr, notably stating that he was addressing it due to "mass misinformation."

Many of the questions posed to him revolved around the banning of the Tumblr account Predstrogen, operated by a trans woman (shown below).


photomatt Follow cowgirl-cow-girl asked: You gonna do anything or make any statement about the rampant transmisogyny on this hellsite, especially in cases like predstrogen recently? Or yall gonna stay silent and keep letting/making us get pushed off of it. : I have a number of asks about this, so this is to address all of them, I won't do each individually. We generally do not comment on individual cases, but because there seems to be mass misinformation around this, I will make an exception and comment on predstrogen. First, Tumblr has a number of LGBT+ including trans people on staff, and they see things from the inside fully, and they're not protesting this case. Why do we wrongly have a transphobe reputation? We did have an external contract moderator last year that was making transphobic moderation (and also selling moderation, criminally). As soon as we were aware that person was fired, and we later terminated the entire relationship with that contracting firm and have brought almost everything in-house (at great cost). I have previously commented on this publicly, several times. I am not aware of any Automattician (people who work at Automattic and Tumblr) who has made any transphobic moderation actions. If it's reported it is investigated immediately, if anything were found that person would be terminated for cause immediately. In predstrogen's case in addition to some mistagged sexually explicit posts, which on its own wouldn't be that bad, we have documented cases of harassment against other users. Most importantly, and why she is banned from Tumblr for life, is she made threats of violence against Tumblr staff. That is never okay. Threats of violence is not protected speech. We will work with police and FBI where appropriate. I just got a death threat yesterday from someone mad about predstrogen, and that account was immediately terminated. So regardless of whether you still think Tumblr staff is somehow a bunch of transphobes, know that threats of violence or death are still not acceptable and will result in immediate and serious action. Know that when you rile people up, they can do dumb things with possibly permanent consequences. (2 hours later update: I have changed instances of the pronoun "they" or "their" to "the account" because I am unaware of pronoun preference in this instance and don't want to misgender anyone. Thank you for the people who reported this as an issue. Update 2: "She" is apparently better, the post now says that. Sorry for the mistake.) Here's one (of many!) examples of the harassment violations, this one targets me but there are others targeting other users on the site. predstrogen predstrogen predstrogen i hope photomatt dies forever a painful death involving a car covered in hammers that explodes more than a few times and hammers go flying everywhere how long until deathwishes against the ceo get me banned or flagged. right now im p----- off enough that i want to find out The second part seems to indicate she wanted to be suspended, I'm unaware of why, perhaps to create this sort of uproar. #transgender #tumblr #ama #automattic #predstrogen
photomatt✔✔ Follow puppydragonbite asked: all you ever do is drop the ban hammer on trans women you don't like, while casually ignoring the harassment they face because of your ineptitude, well done you mis- erable bag of lies AHBARINGWEN IST #ama #moderation #tumblr THER SE Community guideline violations, including mistagging, harassment of other users, and threats of violence, all three of which were repeated in predstrogen's case, were the reasons for the suspension, not her identity. There are obviously tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of trans men and women on this site-why would our accused transphobia be applied to just this one user? The most parsimonious explanation is that it was because of the stated community guideline violations, not her identity as a trans woman. photomatt✔✔ Follow changelingrain asked: it's been four hours and nothing you've said has made this decision look better, congratulations on the successful transmisogyny! you have, to be clear, f----- it. I am genuinely sorry. I wanted to respond to what seemed like big concerns, and what I believe to be fully false accusation of transmisogyny. My responses seem to have just stoked the flames, and made people madder and more dug in on their perception of Tumblr staff, and now a lot of that is directed at me personally. For those who think my responses made it worse than if we had just never commented at all, which is the standard policy, I have failed you, failed in what I was trying to communicate, and I am sorry.


In the post, Matt denied that Tumblr has an anti-trans bias in its content moderation, saying that Predstrogen was banned for issuing a threat against him. The threat was a post by Predstrogen in which she wrote, "I hope photomatt dies forever a painful death involving a car covered in hammers that explodes more than a few times and hammers go flying everywhere" (seen below).


predstrogen predstrogen predstrogen i hope photomatt dies forever a painful death involving a car covered in hammers that explodes more than a few times and hammers go flying everywhere how long until deathwishes against the ceo get me banned or flagged. right now im p----- off enough that i want to find out

In an email correspondence with Know Your Meme on February 21st, 2024, Mullenweg stated that the account was not suspended for a single threat. Mullenweg listed the reasons for Predstrogen's suspension as follows:

* Mis-tagging adult content against Tumblr's community guidelines, repeatedly.
* Harassment of numerous other Tumblr users, not just me.
* Multiple threats of violence, not just the one I shared.

Mullenweg also acknowledged that his sharing one example of Predstrogen's "multiple threats of violence" may have confused readers and that he considers the phrase "I hope photomatt dies forever a painful death" a "very scary thing to read."

Predstrogen / Rita's Response

On February 22nd, 2024, the person behind the username Predstrogen posted images of herself to her X / Twitter handle @mAD_h0PZ. The photos were titled, "Literally too much for Tumblr to handle."

Tumblr CEO Matt Mullenweg responded[9] to Rita's post, saying "When will you be honest with your followers? That repeated adult violations were not pictures like this, but likely ones on your other accounts." Mullenweg went on to list various Tumblr handles purportedly attributed to Predstrogen, many of which had explicit usernames. Mullenweg has since deleted his reply (seen below, left).

Rita responded to Mullenweg (seen below, right),[10] writing, "a man worth $400,000,000 followed me to another website to publicly out me as owner of the tumblr username 'showersharts' on my selfies over internet drama," adding, "for the record, half of these were blank and were just funny urls I had on a sideblog in case I wanted to change to it. even then, the man said I was banned for harassment, not sexual content. hes backtracking and seeking me out."


Rita, Tumblr Fugitive @mAD_h0....1d literally too much for tumblr to handle 5 MIC 1722 Matt Mullenweg @photomatt 179 2.2K Follow Replying to @mAD_hOPZ When will you be honest with your followers? That the repeated adult content violations were not pictures like this, but likely ones on your other accounts (actual names): irishbigcockgirl, burgerfootjob, furryvore-burps, bredstrogen, cumburp, doggirlballsack, hungqueen, bigtittycockgf, bigcocktittygf, girltaint, muskmommy, girlballsack, showersharts, sapiosexual-breeder, catgirlhairball, catgirlcondom, catgirlcumsock, catgirlballsack, cumspangler 12:45 22 Feb 24 · 2,404 Views Rita, Tumblr Fugitive @mAD_hØPZ - 19h a man worth $400,000,000 followed me to another website to publicly out me as owner of the tumblr username "showersharts" on my selfies over internet drama when he banned me 3 times in a week and mentioned calling the cops incredible x.com/photomatt/stat... This post is unavailable. 13 131 Rita, Tumblr Fugitive @mAD_hØPZ 1K ₁310K 9:57 AM Feb 22, 2024 26.5K Views In predstrogen's case in addition to some mistagged sexually explicit posts, which on its own wouldn't be that bad, we have 口企 for the record, half of these were blank and were just funny urls i had on a sideblog in case i wanted to change to it. even then, the man said i was banned for harrassment, not sexual content. hes backtracking and seeking me out. avewy and cyprederone broke no rules either :

Online Reactions

On February 20th, 2024, Tumblr[4] user Elerium posted a screenshot supposedly showing PhotoMatt direct messaging people who responded to the aforementioned posts addressing Tumblr moderation. The post gathered over 6,000 notes in a day (seen below, left). Elerium also claimed that Matt messaged "dozens" of other people.

Also on February 20th, Tumblr user stratomod[5] shared an example of Tumblr's allegedly biased anti-trans moderation practices, with the thread gathering over 190,000 notes in a day (seen below, right).


it almost goes without saying but for posterity's sake i want people to remember that during @photomatt's meltdown last night he dmed dozens and dozens of people (near exclusively trans women, For Some Inexplicable Reason), sometimes less than a Minute after they left a reply, responded to a post of his, or even just Made Their Own Post about it. photomatt ↓x photomatt Co-founder WordPress; CEO Automattic; Currently running Tumblr Not following each other Not sure the point you're trying to make. That we should continue to serve customers that make threats of violence against staff and harass other users? oh my god you really are having a meltdown about this aren't you. this is so like. pure intimidation tactics at their most blatant and obvious. why else would you sit on your namesearch, refreshing and refreshing and Instantly jumping into our dms the second we participated in the conversation. that isn't normal, not for a ceo and not for like, Anyone Else for that matter. matt spent a lot of his little episode making sure everyone knew he didn't think he was a transmisogynist. that was very important to him, that he defended himself from that. congratulations bud you f----- it dancing-coyote: holycrapitsbags: .....….....…......................…... chavisory: (via queenfrau) funnytwittertweets: ……………………………….………………………………………….. This content has been removed for violating Tumblr's Community Guidelines. [Tweet by Gillian Branstetter reads "If enforcing gender norms requires a constant state of surveillance and censorship then they probably aren't as biological or innate as you think they are] This post is now a work of political art that is just A+ February 202024 "Why does this site have a reputation for transphobia?" - The site's literal owner, two hours ago

Also on February 20th, 2024, Tumblr[6] user Problemnyatic posted a meme showing Mr. Krabs from SpongeBob SquarePants saying, "We used to kill people with hammers for saying things like that." The meme was in reference to Predstrogen's car-hammer-explosion post and gathered over 12,000 notes in a day (seen below, left).

Later on February 20th, Tumblr[7] user blackjack-void posted an Oh That's Real Nice meme commenting on the controversy that gathered over 12,000 notes in a day (seen below, right)


3 with We used to kill people hammers.. for saying things like that so do I send this to photomatt 3 Posted 1 day ago 12,239 notes oh thats thats the ceo of tumblr banning several trans women from the platform for and threatening them with violence and legal action for complaining about the complete lack of effort or moderation to try and stop the targeted harrassment campaigns on tumblr and misgendering the trans woman who he banned for life twice in the process

Search Interest

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External References

[1] Tumblr – PhotoMatt

[2] Tumblr – PhotoMatt

[3] Tumblr – PhotoMatt

[4]  Tumblr – elerium

[5] Tumblr – stratomod

[6] Tumblr – problemnyatic

[7] Tumblr – blackjack-void

[8] Tumblr – unlettered-heathen

[9] X – photomatt

[10] X – mAD_h0PZ

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Top Comments

Jill
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Jill Moderator

in reply to tino768

It should be noted this is more "straw that broke the camel's back" situation. People on Tumblr noticed that a lot of trans fem accounts were slowly banned for the stated reason of containing "explicit content" when there was no clear indication of it (many believe it was transition photos they saw as such) and ban appeals were ignored. Meanwhile, actual porn accounts would remain up, as well as users that sent transphobic harassment asks. This is in addition to numerous other more generic things like mods removing posts that straight faced criticized them or the company.

That's the backdrop to the post in question.

Matt cites as a "threat of violence" a post that reads:
"i hope photomatt dies forever a painful death involving a car covered in hammers that explodes more than a few times and hammers go flying everywhere."

Many find this absurd senario an odd thing to view as a real threat of violence.

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tino768
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tino768

Sounds like someone was banned for saying shitty things, what's the big deal? And note to any trans people reading this, if this kind of behavior is your SOP you people really need to take a step back and reevaluate your approach because why would anyone wanna treat you people as normal when you keep doing THIS psychotic bullshit?

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