When reading the final chapter of Nigel Warburton’s Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction, where he discusses the dangerous websites supporting and encouraging eating disorders and self harm, I was instantly reminded of finding the dark side of Tumblr. Warburton talks about how these and pornography websites can be easily stumbled upon by children or young people. Remembering when I had found the Tumblr blogs where there was a special lingo for, I knew that Warburton’s concerns were real. While I found horror in seeing girls starving themselves, others may have found dangerous inspiration. However, even though I would never want someone to develop or relapse into an eating disorder, I believe that those blogs have their place and should be protected speech. While researching for this blog, I found blogs where people expressed their struggles with their blogs getting taken down for their pro-eating disorder content. These bloggers explained how this helps nothing and actually harms them, because that blog was their outlet and safe place and having their blog removed was like someone had taken that away from them. One blogger expressed how knowing that other people were going through the same problems with eating disorders, she was able to feel less alone and that that was why she found it wrong for her blog to be taken down. Unfortunately, a lot of the people living with eating disorders are in their teenage years, so having a place where they can express themselves and feel as though they are not alone is important. I know of other blogs on Tumblr who share memes about their depression, and just like those with eating disorders, they are just searching for a community so that they do not feel alone and to possibly share some memes that may be dark, but amusing to those going through those things. People on this website use the Internet, that can be dangerous, as a way to share what they are going through and connect with people going through similar things.
One thing I found decent about the blog I found over a year ago was that at the bottom of their posts, they would tag it telling others to “stay safe” or something to that effect. Many of the eating disorder blogs I have found have at least once expressed how they would never wish an eating disorder on another person, know it is not very good for them either, and want others to stay safe and careful.
Tumblr, the website itself, practices censorship though. People can report blogs they believe have inappropriate/dangerous content, which from what I have found, seems to happen often. Tumblr tries to protect people on their website from harmful content and nudity/porn. There are a few different images that can appear over posts that contain content that violates Tumblr’s policy like:
This is restrictive of people’s expression. However, when reading through Tumblr’s Community Guidelines, they seemed interested in restricting some speech, like gore and harm towards minors that I do not want to go looking for. I believe people should be able to express themselves on Tumblr (and other social media platforms) and not have it restricted as strongly. I also hope that people understand there are people there not to promote eating disorders or self harm or suicide, but just want to express themselves to feel less alone. In my research, I also found there are certain phrases that can cause pop ups like this:
which shows that Tumblr is aware of people’s mental health and wants people to seek help when they need it. Most social medias today seem to be feeling responsible to police and restrict the people’s potentially harmful speech on their platforms. I understand some of their decisions and others I think can be harmful, like with blogs of people who just want to feel less alone.
What are some of your thoughts on the readings? Should websites or even the government censor what can and cannot be posted/blogged/reblogged on websites? Warburton said on page 81, “The future of free speech must be tied to the ways in which individuals are permitted by governments to use the Internet (and to the practical limits governments have in exercising control over how their citizens do this).” Do you agree with him or disagree? What are your websites of choice and have you noticed changes in policy?
I had a similar moment when on Tumblr a couple of years ago where I was scrolling through and discovered that there were whole blogs/communities set up around self harming. I was really shocked because, like you, I had no idea that this was a thing that even existed and found it triggering/upsetting. We also talked about this topic a bit in my Sociology of Deviancy class and about whether policing this kind of content hurts the people more than just letting it be. While it may be an unpopular opinion, I'm all for websites strictly policing this kind of topic (self harm/eating disorders/minor abuse situations). 1) A lot of the community that surrounds these blogs actually encourage people to self harm and often give tips on how to do it "better," 2) If you don't know the specific language for that community (ie for the eating disorder community referring to "Anna" as a person is actually referring to Anorexia) it means you can't block those specific tags or phrases which means you will still see the content and could potentially harm yourself in the process.
ReplyDeleteI understand that these blogs are seen as a way for people who have these problems to feel "safe" or supported, but I think that's coming from a mindset that isn't fully in their best interest, and while it's a super hard decision to make I think banning those types of blogs is better in the long run. I would feel so uncomfortable knowing that these blogs exist and are essentially promoting this type of dangerous behavior and doing nothing about it. While Tumblr is far from a perfect website, they do seem to be on the right path by bringing up a list of resources when you try to tag specific posts with things like "suicide" or "cutting," and by doing this and taking the blogs down I think (personally) it's an acceptable form of censorship because it's stopping the harm of others. Their free speech is actually physically harming them.
Really great post, Sarah!
While I can understand why Tumblr would want to remove content related to self-harming from their website (if not for ethical, then for legal reasons), I doubt that the censorship of speech is going to prevent people who intentionally seek out information on cutting or other forms of self-harm from hurting themselves. Ultimately, someone who has the inclination to hurt themselves can do so without the assistance of online strangers. It may also be worth considering that if all online posts and perspectives related to self-harm are algorithmically purged for having relevant keywords, then the positive and useful posts that mention the topic shall also be erased. Human moderators could potentially solve this issue by permitting helpful posts while excluding harmful posts; even then, it's unlikely that anyone will be able to predict what impact posts may have.
ReplyDeleteTumblr has gone through a wide array of changes in the past few years. Tumblr used to be a huge source of pornographic content, but since they have banned the Tumblr executives have banned that from their site, they aren't allowed to use that anymore on their website. The thing about Tumblr that makes it different from other social media is that the user can make themselves anonymous. It's much less about who is posting the content, but rather about the content that they post. I think that it makes users more inclined to say things that they normally wouldn't say than if their name was attached to it. Very few of the people who actually use the service attach their real name or face to the account. I think that this is one of the reasons for the dark side of tumblr that you point out.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting and relevant topic, Sarah! I vividly remember being in Instagram before it was the picture sharing giant it is today and stumbling across the same type of pro-eating-disorder content that you're describing. At the time, I did not suffer from an ED, but I was a young teenager and was really susceptible to it. While it didn't cause me to spiral, it did make me very anxious and concerned about my body. And it's easy for me to believe that if someone else were reading the same content and were recovering from an ED that this would cause them to relapse. In this case, I very much understand banning this content. However, there is also something to be said about the importance of those who are in the process of recovery being able to share their triumphs and struggles, as this could be very helpful to their journey. But this is obviously very hard to police on the internet.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, I remember I was on Pinterest a few months ago and shared a poem (not mine, just one that was circulating the site) that briefly mentioned the struggle of grappling with self worth and suicide. I thought the poem was thoughtfully done and, in my opinion, falling under the category of recovering through art rather than glorifying the topic. I was surprised to see a message the next day from Pinterest that it had been flagged and I was being reached out to in fear that I was struggling with these issues. This really stuck with me because even though I was not struggling at the time, there is no clear line between art and recovery and content that might glorify these topics and/or cause someone who is struggling to feel more isolated and vulnerable.
I think it's tricky because having more government control would mean that the government decides what is allowed, inevitably leading to censoring anti-government posts. I would hope that the creators of Tumblr would have some control over what is posted and delete what isn't good for their image/their users. People don't need more tips on how to get skinny, it's already everywhere in our culture and a more extreme version of it, a platform that supports those behaviors, is the last thing society needs exposure to. Hopefully people would recognize that and not go to that for advice. And hopefully people are leaving comments advising against it. I also hope that users aren't very affected. When I see a meme, I laugh and then move on with my life. I hope when people see that post they just scoff, comment on it warning against it, and then move on. I know it's harder for people who have gone through eating disorders, but maybe they can post their life story to the page and stop others instead of regressing. Ultimately though, no one needs cynical "thinspiration" and it should be taken down by Tumblr so there is more room for lighthearted stuff.
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