Tumblr’s unwelcome post-Ides of March gift to its userbase has been unceremoniously returned, as changes that dramatically altered the function of the site’s reblog feature are being reverted — though apparently the site still plans to introduce some kind of future update with more community input.
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The head of the WordPress project on the WP Engine lawsuit, Automattic turning 20, and what’s next for the web.
As mentioned yesterday, Tumblr now has info about opting out of AI data scraping on its help page — it’s available via the “prevent third-party sharing” toggle. For visual artists who are still worried about the prospect of AI tools training on their work, there are less official ways to stop that, too.
The social network failed to hit the growth targets its new owner set in 2019. But were they ever compatible with what Tumblr does best?
A purportedly leaked memo started going around Tumblr last night, suggesting much of the site’s staff is getting moved to other parts of Automattic (its parent company) after it failed to boost its audience. The screenshot has spread to other sites through people including Waxy’s Andy Baio, but I haven’t seen any official confirmation — we pinged Automattic several hours ago and have yet to receive a response.
If any Tumblr employees happen to have more details, our tips are open.
We’ve been running a steadily growing list of alternatives for that formerly bird-associated social network, and now that TikTok has added a text-only option, it’s become part of our inventory of 15 social networks vying for your attention. If you’re wondering where to go next, these are some interesting choices.
It just usually goes a lot better than it did with Substack’s Chris Best. For example, I really enjoyed this episode with Matt Mullenweg, who is the CEO of both Wordpress and Tumblr, which got pretty far down the path of where the rules should come from. Or here’s Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, on how to properly regulate platforms. Maybe more than any podcast Decoder is the place to get all the way into the weeds of what various tradeoffs actually mean!
Post offers a chance to share and comment on new items from a variety of sources, including those behind firewalls, while Substack Notes now lets you write Twitter-like short entries (which may be one of the reasons Elon Musk is so pissed at it).
We’ve added them to our list of Twitter alternatives, which includes others such as Mastodon, Tumblr, and, yes, Facebook.
Tumblr has been using its polls creatively — and it seems the most popular poll option in almost any poll is “vanilla extract.” Okay!
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CEO Matt Mullenweg on why he bets big on small companies
From Tumblr to TikTok, young disabled people are deciding how to represent themselves
