Equaldex BLOG

Tumblr excludes the ’Gay & Lesbian’ category from Directory recommendations

When I (@danlev) asked Marco Arment, Tumblr’s lead developer, about this issue, he responded:

A handful [of categories] don’t support [recommendations] because of potential social implications. Like creepy guys nominating women they like as “Erotica”.

When I told him that Tumblr is leaving out LGBT people, he replied:

I didn’t want immature people to nominate their non-LGBTQ friends/enemies into it. Didn’t want to cheapen/ruin the category.

But Tumblr already has a notice in place to prevent this. Upon nomination of a blog, you must check a box to agree that the blog “is about [category], and I understand that if it blatantly isn’t, my account may be suspended.” If this notice is in place for all categories, why does it not suffice for the Gay & Lesbian category?

You don’t discontinue a system because of potential misuse, you build solutions to the misuse.

Tumblr is discriminating against LGBT people: Not only are the Gay & Lesbian community excluded from a feature, but Tumblr is preemptively classifying the ‘LGBTQ’ label as an attack.

Only 5 categories are excluded: Erotica, Gay & Lesbian, Germany, Sexuality, Staff. Obviously, Sexuality and Erotica could have legal issues, especially with nominating a 13 year-old girl. The Staff category is obviously doesn’t need that functionality.

What you can do: Reblog, tweet about it, and voice your opinion to Tumblr’s Community Ambassador: Marc LaFountain (support@tumblr.com).