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Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Tumblr owner Automattic, is supposed to be on sabbatical. Instead, he\u2019s arguing with Tumblr users over an individual content moderation decision, which has sparked communitywide outcry and accusations of transphobia.<\/p>\n
Over the last few days, the situation escalated to the point that Mullenweg has engaged with the user in question on other platforms<\/a> and shared private details about her account in public.<\/p>\n The controversy began when a user with the blog name predstrogen was banned. Before the ban, she was frustrated with Tumblr because the platform failed to take action when she reported that she was being targeted with transmisogynistic harassment. This led her to post that she hopes that the CEO \u201cdies a forever painful death involving a car covered in hammers that explodes more than a few times and hammers go flying everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Mullenweg, predstrogen was banned for posts that threatened violence against Tumblr staff, and specifically cited the \u201cforever painful death\u201d post. He also claimed that her clothed transition photos were not what yielded adult content violations.<\/p>\n \u201cWe 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,\u201d he wrote on his blog, photomatt<\/a>. He added, \u201cTumblr has a number of LGBT+ including trans people on staff, and they see things from the inside fully, and they\u2019re not protesting this case.\u201d<\/p>\n Some users said that Mullenweg was overreacting, as the language is so cartoonish that it couldn\u2019t be taken seriously. But Mullenweg took the post as a threat.<\/p>\n \u201cThreats of violence are never okay. Threats of violence are not protected speech,\u201d he wrote on his blog. \u201cWe will work with police and FBI where appropriate, though to be clear predstrogen\u2019s case hasn\u2019t warranted that so far. I\u2019m referring to what we may potentially do for other threats.\u201d<\/p>\n Tumblr did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n Mullenweg took the debate off platform to X, where he commented<\/a> on a post from the user who was banned on Tumblr. Then, on one of his Tumblr posts<\/a>, Mullenweg shared numerous of her side blog names, which is not public information (Tumblr users often make empty side blogs with no content in order to squat on URLs).<\/p>\n \u201cOn the adult content mistagging, I added context to say it has nothing to do with clothed transition photos, she had 20+ other blogs and multiple accounts with names so explicit I can\u2019t post them here without a mature tag,\u201d Mullenweg wrote, then listing some of the accounts by name.<\/p>\n Aside from Elon Musk since he took over Twitter (now X), it\u2019s uncommon to see the CEOs of social platforms commenting directly on individual content moderation decisions. It\u2019s even more uncommon for those CEOs to share private information about that user\u2019s account.<\/p>\n Bluesky faced a similar situation last year, but it played out in an opposite manner<\/a>. One user said that they hoped a prominent Black user would get pushed off of \u201csomewhere real high.\u201d In that case, Bluesky\u2019s team decided it wasn\u2019t a legitimate death threat, which strained the burgeoning platform\u2019s relationship with its Black users.<\/p>\n \u201cWisely or not, many people use violent imagery when they\u2019re arguing or venting,\u201d Bluesky CEO Jay Graber posted<\/a> at the time. \u201cWe debated whether a \u2018death threat\u2019 needs to be specific and direct in order to cause harm, and what it would mean for people\u2019s ability to engage in heated discussions on Bluesky if we prohibited this kind of speech.\u201d<\/p>\n When juxtaposed, these two moderation decisions show the difficulty that platforms have in making decisions about certain types of speech. While Bluesky deemed that getting shoved from \u201csomewhere real high\u201d is hyperbolic, Tumblr decided that \u201ca forever painful death involving a car covered in hammers that explodes more than a few times and hammers go flying everywhere\u201d is a sound threat.<\/p>\n Tumblr is in an extended downward spiral. Tumblr was acquired by Yahoo (now TechCrunch\u2019s parent company) for $1 billion in 2013, but the platform struggled to the point that Automattic bought Tumblr for just $3 million in 2019. Last year, Mullenweg said that the platform loses $30 million each year, and later, he reassigned<\/a> the majority of Tumblr\u2019s staff to other projects inside of Automattic. But no one on the trust and safety team was reassigned, so these moderation decisions likely weren\u2019t impacted by the company shake-up. However, Tumblr has a bad track record for content moderation decisions, especially those involving trans people.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did have an external contract moderator last year that was making transphobic moderation (and also selling moderation, criminally),\u201d Mullenweg wrote on his blog. \u201cAs 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).\u201d<\/p>\n Mullenweg pinned a post to his Tumblr titled \u201cMy Beliefs and Principles<\/a>,\u201d where he addresses the claims that he is transphobic. He is currently on sabbatical until May.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n