I got fired from Tumblr
No, it’s not for what you think.
Tumblr began a big crackdown on pornographic material in their blogs (real, perceived, and otherwise) back in 2018. With that, they also changed their terms of service (TOS) to prevent any future issues.
I, being the blogger who uses free photo stock from Pixabay, felt safe from any possible harassment from the MGMT. After all, I started on the site way back in ’15 to hone my writing skills and potentially get feedback to help grow my craft.
In early December, I decided to just pop in and drop a few likes to support a few artists that I follow when I was unable to access my account. I sent in an email, and here’s the reply:
“Hello,
Thank you for contacting us.
We’ve terminated your Tumblr account for spam or using your blog with the primary purpose of affiliate marketing and deceptive means to generate traffic/revenue. Per the policies you agreed to when creating your account, Tumblr prohibits such activity.
Unfortunately we can’t restore accounts that have been terminated for violating several of our Terms of Service or Community Guidelines.”
Firstly, I don’t remember that being an issue when I started back in 2015. I’ve almost always signed my blogs with my website at the bottom. It was meant for readers who discovered me to see my other works. That’s not deceptive, that’s promoting my own work. How the hell am I supposed to grow as an artist if I’m not allowed to share my other work?
Secondly, why didn’t I get a warning sometime in the LAST 230 POSTS THAT I’VE MADE?!?
If they would have warned me, I would have stopped signing it as such, but they decided to just straight up terminate the blog. It’s a good thing I saved everything because whatever was on that blog is gone with yesterday’s garbage pick up, never to be seen again.
It’s unfortunate that the website/app that helped me build my confidence as a writer had decided I’m no longer worthy of contributing based on a website sign-off. It did sting quite a bit. My wife said, “Well, you got a lot from it. Take it as a sign to move on.” She’s right, but where to?
Since 2018, I’ve been posting on Medium, which is a site that has a ton of writers on it from Anthony Bourdain (rest in peace), Wil Wheaton, and Katie Couric to everyday people such as myself offering up their advice on stuff to observations on life. This is now my new home.
Writing is, to me, an intimate art in which it requires the reader to engage their cerebral cortex to absorb the emotion and lesson from the piece. You can’t do that on Instasnap, otherwise there would be thousands of people doing the Tom Clancy Challenge. That would be the challenge to read the books rather than play the video games……
So, in the meantime, I’ll be cleaning up my website to remove Tumblr as they did unto me. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
***This blog is now a Tumblr-free zone***
Cheyingoglas.com
