So i sent a letter to tumblr...

So i sent a letter to tumblr…

… asking about their stance on “promoting bad health”. I’m done arguing with confused kids on the road to killing themselves, so this is my last action on the matter, hoping to see tumblr make some positive steps towards checking up on what they allow on their site.

Subject: “Dangerous Blogging; Promoting Bad Health”

Hi there,

I’ve just been looking through your content policy and ToS in hope of finding somewhere that states tumblr does not allow its site to be used to condone bad health, people hurting themselves, or potentially accidentally killing themselves.

I would like to think “libelous, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harassing, hateful, offensive or otherwise violates any law or right of any third party”, taken from your ToS would somewhat cover it, but not sure it does.

Let me get to my point…

If someone was to report a tumblr blog for posting things like “let’s all cut ourselves” and constantly encourages people to do so, I imagine that would fall in breech of your ToS somewhere, right? Promoting self-harm I’m sure is more than “frowned upon” by law so one would imagine this would not be tolerated.

Now… on this presumption, I would like to ask why 100’s (if not 1000’s) of your blogs are allowed to have underweight, malnourished, ill teenagers (and in some cases adults) promoting diets that would put someone in hospital after a couple of weeks. There are blogs on your site that have people who are already dangerously thin posting pictures of themselves and others with rake-thin bodies complaining about how they need to lose more weight, along with posting some SCARY vital statistics, followed by statements of how they have been starving themselves and ending up in hospital as a result… all while telling others “this is how to look good… this is what YOU need to do”.

To take us back to the “let’s all cut ourselves” analogy that I’m sure you would not like on your site; That’s not even as bad as half of these people mentally and physically hurting themselves through practical starvation. Flesh wounds might leave cuts and scars, but not eating can kill someone… especially those on your site who are young enough to get emerged in this on-going problem.

Now I fully understand that this is a problem for the internet as a whole, not just tumblr… but on YOUR site I would at least like some kind of acknowledgement that this kind of behaviour will not be tolerated and those blogs that are blatantly harmful to many many people will be at least examined and possibly removed. If you are unaware of this, I would like to guide you to blogs that regularly speak of “thinspiration” or “thinspo”, as it’s called. Where some people admittedly just want to be thin, which is fine… but many many others push this to limits that are extremely harmful… and these are the blogs I’m referring to.

Thanks for your time,

Carl Connor (http://carlconnor.tumblr.com/)

I have no expectations… but I can hope.

***edit: And by the way, feel free to reblog this letter to your followers. If enough people are aware of the problem and get in touch with tumblr, they’ll have to listen.***