Thank you for your note.

Can you tell me why the previous blog was removed yesterday — and no, it wasn’t taken down by the creator — by tumblr, but the new one is allowed to stay up?

The blog’s sole purpose is to try to humiliate and hurt another human being, just as the prior one that was removed was. That’s not freedom of speech (and I’m sure you know, only the U.S. government is bound by the laws of freedom of speech covered in the First Amendment, NOT private companies), it’s hate speech, and hate speech is less and less tolerated in this world. At least, by people who are actually interested in expression and actual discourse, and not providing a platform for destruction and obsessive stalking.

I would really like to know what boundaries any person must cross after creating a blog whose only intent — specifically laid out in black and white on the blog itself!— is to hurt another human being before it is seen as being inappropriate.

This is not about petty mean-spiritedness. This is a person who is nearly criminal in their actions in stalking and slander and is aiming their actions at a specific individual.

I am a little disturbed that a company that caters to children and teens (and yes, you do) believes the only rules that apply are the rules of law. Rules of conduct are important — otherwise you wouldn’t have set them down on your website — but apparently only apply as the company sees fit. I’m amazed that a person can willfully violate them not suffer any consequences.

I eagerly await your reply.

Have a lovely evening.

We realize this content may be very upsetting, but we also highly value freedom of expression and freedom of speech.

Sometimes content posted by a blogger may be mean-spirited or upsetting but does not violate the law. In order to maintain freedom of expression, we cannot remove that material.

You can and should stop viewing content from an offending blogger. If you use Tumblr, you can also Block a blogger at http://tumblr.com/block. This prevents you from seeing content from that blogger on your Dashboard and prevents that blogger from sending you messages via Tumblr.

Thank you for taking the time to share your concern with us.

Best Regards,

Mathieu

Good day,
 
First, I would like to thank you for your actions yesterday, removing a blog that was created solely to harass another tumblr user. The creator of the harassing blog has returned with yet another blog, doing the exact same thing. (I suppose they think they are being more clever with their harassment, since the person they are trying to defame and hurt is only mentioned in their tags. There is no doubt, however, that this is the same person, with the same motivations, with the same IP address.)
 
The blog in question is http://thesearenotdrawings.tumblr.com/
 
I am not sure what can be done about a person who is so intent on obsesively stalking and slandering another tumblr user, but surely there are steps that can be taken to minimize this person’s ability to use or access tumblr.
 
I believe this person is violating these terms of service:
 
Identity Theft and Privacy. Users that misleadingly appropriate the identity of another person are not permitted. Users may not post other people’s personally identifying or confidential information, including but not limited to credit card numbers, Social Security Numbers, and driver’s and other license numbers. You may not post information such as other people’s passwords, usernames, phone numbers, addresses and e-mail addresses unless already publicly accessible on the Web.

Hate Content, Defamation, and Libel. Hate speech and other objectionable content that is unlawful, defamatory, and fraudulent. Note that an allegation of defamatory expression, in and of itself, does not establish defamation. The truth or falsehood of a bit of expression is a key element in establishing defamation, and we are not in a position to make that sort of fact-based judgment. That said, if we have reason to believe that a particular statement is defamatory (a court order, for example), we will remove that statement.

Thank you for your attention and consideration.

Tumblr has decided to only occasionally enforce their terms of service, and I am setting out to record the whys and wherefores of that.

I don’t have high hopes they will explain themselves, but until they do, I’ll be emailing them everyday, and recording their responses here.