When it comes to cyberbullying, Tumblr is known for being one of the worst social media sites. The site hosts pages dedicated to trashing pretty much anyone you can think of, and bullies have plenty of options when it comes to anonymously hating on others.
We wanted to find out just how bad bullying was on Tumblr so we decided to conduct an experiment. Here’s how it went down.
how to report a tumblr account
First, we found a popular Tumblr page that bullies Taylor Swift. Taylor is one of the most frequently bullied celebrities on the site, so it seemed like an appropriate test subject. All of Taylor’s posts were marked as “public” so anyone could access them without having to sign up for an account or follow her.
We created a second, anonymous Tumblr account and began following this person’s posts. As the posts appeared in our dashboard, we took screenshots. We waited one hour and then reported all of the bullying posts collected during this time. We also included a few non-bullying, “innocent” posts to see what would happen.
What is Tumblr and how does it work?
Tumblr is a micro-blogging platform. This means that anyone can post whatever they want on their “dashboard” and those posts will appear in the dashboards of those who subscribe to it. If someone takes a screenshot of your post, then that person has access to your account’s password because Tumblr encrypts all information as plain text.
Tumblr also “blogs” posts over time, so even if you delete a post from your blog it will still exist on their servers. You can’t selectively erase individual posts from Tumblr because they do not have an option for deleting multiple posts across multiple accounts. Instead, the only way to get rid of them is to completely empty your blog and start fresh.
How to report a blog post or image for bullying or abuse
There are two ways to report blogging content on Tumblr. You can report posts that contain ” illicit porn” or other content that violates their community guidelines . You can also file a copyright claim if someone is stealing your work and re-posting it without crediting you as the creator. Once this happens, Tumblr will suspend the user’s account and delete all of their content.
What will happen when you report something
When you report a blog post, Tumblr promises to delete the entire blog and all of it’s posts. Unfortunately, this is not true . They will delete the offending post but leave all other posts untouched. Even if someone has been bullying you non-stop for years they only have to delete one offending post in order to continue blogging without interruption.
How to get Tumblr to delete an entire blog
The only way for Tumblr to delete an account is if they receive proper documentation of why it should be deleted. If you are being cyberbullied on the site, then you must print out an official report and mail it into their headquarters along with a copy of your photo ID. You can find the correct mailing address here .
What to do if someone has hacked your Tumblr account/How to get them out of your dashboard. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do in this situation. If someone is actively using your blog then it’s best to try and come up with a plan that will limit their access (see: How to get Tumblr to delete an entire blog). If you do not wish for the person who hacked your blog to continue using it, then you can always create a “safer” blog that they won’t be able to access (see: How to make a secret Tumblr account ).
Conclusion
Reporting a blog post on Tumblr is extremely easy. However, the only way for someone to delete their entire account and start over with a clean slate is to mail in a request that includes your photo ID. This may seem like an inconvenience, but I’m sure this won’t be a problem for most people because no one actually uses Tumblr anyways.
