Tumblr How to Tell if Someone Read
I made the mistake of clicking through to Tumblr's explanation post for their brand new grouping chat feature. It'due south … not bully.
Tumblr is manner behind in the group messaging arena. Twitter has had the feature for years, and many Tumblr users accept been using Discord in increasing numbers to go their group conversation set while still maintaining the anonymity of a screen proper name. So I wasn't surprised to see that Tumblr had finally introduced a grouping feature. They announced this, as they practise many things, by mode of a shiny gif embedded on the top of the dashboard when you log in or refresh.
There is, however, i caveat. They decided to make these group chats public, which is the strangest policy pick I've seen in more than a decade of working for and writing about online communities.
Tumblr'due south well-written post starts out simply fine—it'south in a funny format nigh introducing the announcement as "bad news" and goes on to explain how the chat role works. Anyone can start a chat, chats tin can have upwardly to 100 members, the chat creator can add or remove members. All of this is pretty routine. Then:
The only good news nosotros can requite at this time
Group chats must exist a friendly and welcoming space for everyone. When you create a group chat, you become the sole owner and are responsible for how it is run. Yous solitary can invite new members and have or deny incoming requests to join. Only call back: grouping chats are publicly viewable, and while only members may participate, anyone on Tumblr can run across its contents.
Yep, you read that correct. Group chats are publicly viewable to anyone, even if they're not a member. This is not group chat, which are by nature individual. This is an open up conversationroom, circa AOL 1998, only yous take to be approved to bring together. The idea of a public conversation in and of itself isn't terrible. But there'southward no way this should have been the default, with no option to turn it off and keep the content private and unfindable.
You can click on a new icon in the app and meet a few chats that are automatically suggested based on your other interests. Peradventure.
You can also, in theory, search for them past topic (I have non seen this in action, every bit Tumblr's app search part is, to put it mildly, horrifically, comically bad).
So even if you lot're not an accepted member of the chat, you lot tin see its unabridged contents. For me, this negates the entire purpose of group chats, particularly if they're moderated and information technology's up to a mod to add members. It feels like this was done for that "group chats must be a friendly and welcoming infinite for anybody" pipe dream—the hope that content will somehow be kept free of violation considering it's publicly viewable, and that chat owners volition work to cocky-law.
But look! There'south more! Anyone at all can choose to try and police your chat.
As the possessor of a group chat, yous possess the power to remove any member or message you feel needs to be removed. Even so, you exercise not need to exist the possessor or even a member to report a violation of our hate speech policy or other aspects of our Community Guidelines. Reports will exist properly dealt with by our Trust & Safety team.
Full disclosure: I worked at Tumblr on that incredibly hardworking Trust & Safety team (which is staffed by good and beautiful people). I cannot even begin to imagine the mind-extraordinary amount of reports that will be filed for purely malicious purposes, or considering one person's favorite content is another person'southward hated topic, or because of injure feelings over not existence let into a conversation or getting kicked out of it. It's like Tumblr has created walled gardens (where everything must be clean!) where you tin can peer over the wall at gathered cliques and spy on them even if y'all are unwelcome. What the bodily fresh hell is this?
Wait, there is yetstill more. People y'all've blocked can join chats you're in, and they'll be able to come across your messages. They'll be able to see your chat content without even joining the chat, because everyone tin can view the chats. This raises serious concerns, especially in instances where users have blocked others considering of harassment, stalking, or other unsafe behavior.
Tumblr had me nodding along with group chats until the "they're public!" kicker. (Not to mention, there's still no fashion to privately message more than than one person on the service.) This makes bafflingly little sense, and users take been reacting all twenty-four hours with confusion, anger, laughter, and memes. This was non the fashion to lure anyone back from Discord.
(via Tumblr, image: Tumblr)
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