Today, my 84 year old neighbour said to me, “I quite like mushrooms. They have a good outlook on life.” She then admitted she felt a bit silly to have said that and suggested not many people would understand what she meant.
Please reblog for Ann so I can show her how many people appreciate her wholesome perspective on mushies.
Wow! Thank you so much for all your kind validation of Ann and her mushrooms! Ann and I are completely blown away by the response to this post. She doesn’t have a computer, so I printed off a selection of your messages for her to read. Needless to say, she was more than a little surprised.
Ann is doing well and still enjoying her positive mushrooms. I visited her yesterday and we shared a bit of disgruntled pizza. She keeps telling me how amazed she is by all of you. Your messages are now in an envelope which Ann keeps in a special place so she can look at them whenever she likes.
Thanks for helping me show Ann that her unique thoughts and perspectives are valuable and treasured.
tbh no april fools gag tumblr ever pulls will ever be as good as the lizard election of 2016 staff put more effort into that than the rest of this website combined and it shows
for those of you who werent here in 2016 on april fools that year the entire fucking website was transformed and there was an election for a position that wasnt even ever specified and the candidates were four lizards (or three lizards and a salamander as a scandal would later prove) and it was called decision2016
each lizard had their own 3d models and tumblr blog and campaign and there was also a tumblr blog dedicated to reporting on the election and they made like whole ass news broadcasts with a guy in front of a green screen
you could vote for your favorite candidate and there was a built-in function that let you make and post a campaign poster
in case anyone was wondering the winner of the election was mop. relatable and reliable. #Mop Could
normal ads: i figured out how to make money from home! click here for more info. mobile packages! play this videogame! 🙂
ads on tumblr.com: hhHHhh beans… Wanna car? . $; Asthma && S K I N grape% ｈｏｒｓｅｓ Click More……… Kim Kardashian Adopts Alien Boy? ££€¥₩£#¥ Tragic I̶̻̳̻͠Ń͎͎͔̙̩͚̤̠V̷̨̩̼Ę̳̲̣͢͞S̠͈̤̤̘͢T̛̗̮̺̥͟ ͓̪̬͚̳̕͜͡I̞̥͚N̷̠̦͔̤ ͓͚̱͔͡S͎̹T͎͍̪͠O͏̱̤͓̖͠C̟̟̯̮̫ͅK̬͚̥̟̮S̢͚̫̘͉̟̖̝ ̻̫̻̺T͎O̝̖̱̥̠̰̞D͉̰͚̫̫̝̪̜ͅA͉̥̠̝̘̗̫Ỳ̧̨͇̞̼̘͈
Yall i just got an email from tumblr saying I interacted with accounts made by the IRA …… is this even real????
The internet is wild
Im literally imagining some government worker in russia logging onto tumblr.edu and thinking to themselves “better change my url to ‘black-galaxy-magic’ to stay young n hip and relevant with the youth of america”
sooooo let’s break it down then because the fact that tumblr sent this email is mega important
so to sum up, the email you and a ton of other people got is saying that you were following and sharing posts from russian pro-trump propaganda blogs. i’d ask that you PLEASE reblog this, because it’s super important that everyone who got this email knows why they got it, knows what it means, and hopefully knows what they might be able to do better in the future
Yeah, I got one of Tumblr’s you-may-have-unwittingly-interacted-with-propaganda-blogs emails too. And like everyone else, I kind of shrugged because really, what am I supposed to do about that now? I have search disabled on my blog, and my tags are a mess; there’s no way I could go through and actually find any of the propaganda I may have inadvertently boosted over the seven years I’ve been on this site.
But out of curiosity I looked over Tumblr’s list of IRA-linked blogs. And one username stood out to me. I recognised it because for several months last year it had been showing up constantly in my notifications after I reblogged one of their posts with a response.
When I first saw the post by black-to-the-bones, I wanted to know more about these women. I dug up the original Tweet, ran a reverse Google image search and… well, as you can see from my reblog, there turned out to be quite a lot of information about them on the internet, which I spent the next hour or two collating into my post.
Now, don’t get me wrong here: I am one hundred percent aware that history regularly erases the contributions of women, and especially women of colour. But as you can see from my reply, in this particular case the history of these three women absolutely is not “hidden from us”. The person attempting to hide these women’s history was black-to-the-bones themself.
The original post – which we now know was posted by a state-sponsored propaganda blog – took a legitimate issue, but misrepresented facts to stir up emotion about that issue. The issue was perfectly tailored to resonate with Tumblr’s culture of social justice, and it worked. The vast majority of reblogs of the original post do not include any correction or further information.
Again, don’t get me wrong: anger is important. It’s a necessary part of social justice. But we have clear evidence that bad-faith actors are intentionally fomenting false anger to keep us reacting emotionally rather than thinking rationally. And they are smart about it. They will mix in their attempts to divide and enrage us with innocuous cute videos to gain followers, and legitimate posts about issues. So that when they do post actual misinformation, it slips under our radar.
When propaganda blogs do something like try to smear a Jewish woman as a white supremacist, it’s obvious who their target is, and what their goal is. But I wanted to highlight the black-to-the-bones post above because it’s a subtler, more insidious kind of propaganda. It’s part of a continuum of tactics designed to keep up a constant background noise of outrage.
Because while anger is important, constant anger makes it harder for us to empathise with each other. It makes it harder for us to be constructive, rather than destructive. And ultimately, it just exhausts us and leaves us too apathetic to care.
So getting back to my original question: What are we supposed to do about that now?
Fact. Check. Everything.
Your racist grandparents aren’t the only ones being targeted by fake news. We are being targeted with posts that are specifically designed to appeal to Tumblr’s social justice culture. So if you see a post about an issue that makes you angry, stop before you reblog. Check the source. Google the details. Make sure your anger about legitimate issues isn’t being exploited by malicious actors.
Propaganda like this relies on us reacting to outrage before we stop to think. Be smarter than that. Don’t let yourself be manipulated.
The title says it all really. So if nothing else, please share and reblog this post to raise awareness for those that might be caught out – both artists and followers.
For a TL:DR, please look at the bottom of the post
What is happening?
Right now, there is at least one person actively impersonating multiple artists across tumblr in an effort to scam their followers into paying for fake ‘cheap commissions’.
The scammer will clone a tumblr, usually using a slight change to the url/account name to look like the real deal. They will then message people directly through Tumblr with messages along the lines of “Hey, i’m doing cheap commissions right now. DM me to get one”. Naturally, this is ends up just being a way to take their money without giving anything back in return.
Who does this affect?
Everyone. Simple as that. As long as the scammer in question works unopposed, they are free to spread their influence and continue to scam more people. Even if you haven’t been targeted yet, it does not mean you are safe or immune.
Several artists have already fallen victim to this scammer, and I encourage any artists that have to reblog this post with the details of their affected account(s) and the ones the scammer has set up.
How can we stop this?
Tumblr, like many other social media platforms, seems to care very little about ‘minor’ occurences like this one, and despite reaching out directly to them over a week ago through multiple avenues of contact – they have refused to comment on the situation, provide a recommended response for users, or take action on behalf of those already affected.
Despite this, there are still tools at our disposal that we can use to make this scam more difficult, and to increase its visibility to those within Tumblr staff that are required by policy to take action.
Tumblr has the following to say on the topic of impersonation:
Confusion or Impersonation. Don’t do things that would cause confusion between you or your blog and a person or company, like registering a deliberately confusing URL. Don’t impersonate anyone. While you’re free to ridicule, parody, or marvel at the alien beauty of Benedict Cumberbatch, you can’t pretend to actually be Benedict Cumberbatch.
They then provide a link to this online form that you can fill out if you suspect someone’s identity is being confused. Unfortunately, this can only be filled out if you are the victim of impersonation. In other words, only the artists can fill this out legitimately.
So, what about the followers and users of tumblr whom aren’t being impersonated?
Our most valuable tool in this online platform is the platform itself. It enables us to spread our word near-virally across all the many sub-communities on Tumblr with remarkable efficiency for a user-driven system. We can take advantage of that effect to increase awareness of the situation. Even if you – the one reading this right now – aren’t an artist or don’t know an artist, the act of reblogging this post or sharing it directly with friends improves it’s ‘ranking’ in popularity increasing its chances to be seen by more people.
We don’t need everyone on Tumblr to see the post for it to be effective, just like we don’t need the entirety of the human population of the world to be immune to a disease for that disease to be rendered ineffective or eradicated. If enough people are aware, the likelihood of pulling off a successful scam increases dramatically reducing efficiency to a point that it no longer becomes profitable to continue.
Why should I care?
It disheartens me to say this, but of the many artists I contacted directly over the past week to warn about this issue many of them refused to listen or dodged the responsibility with lines like;
“I’m not being impersonated, so it doesn’t affect me”
“I’m just one person. I can’t make an impact”
“I need to take care of my community. Other people can look after theirs”
This is honestly disappointing that so many artists or art-rebloggers care so little as to intentionally wave the responsibility of keeping their followers and fellow artists safe from this, that they cannot spare 10 seconds of their time to share an informative post.
I’m not here to bash artists, but it is time that everyone takes responsibility for their own communities, and of those around them.
Artists: You have a responsibility to ensure that your followers and fans aren’t being abused by someone who may impersonate you. If they succeed, your reputation will be damaged, and your followers will resent you. Your followers are also almost guaranteed to be following other artists meaning your efforts can spread beyond your own circle of influence, so don’t be naive when you think you have little effect.
Followers: You have just as much responsibility to be aware of those that might try to scam you or your fellow followers. Don’t just sit in silence when you see something wrong: Ignoring the issue only makes it more resilient to our efforts to stop it. You are the vocal majority if you just use your voices to be heard!
TL:DR
A scammer is impersonating artists and scamming money from their followers under the guise of ‘cheap commissions’. If we ignore the issue, it will get worse.
Every single person that reads this can afford to spend just 10 seconds to reblog and share this post. Those 10 seconds can save others from being scammed for hundreds of dollars.
Reblog & Share
Spreading this just in case someone impersonate me. I never had to randomly go and tell to my followers that i’m open for commissions.
Just in case.
i will never dm you about cheap commissions because im stingy as fuck.
but then again if i offer deals, they will be announced on my blog , not personally or with dm’s
I work on a “you come to me for art” kind of thing. If for whatever reason I come to you for stuff I’m doing, well there you go. That ain’t me.
Not sure how true this is, but full disclosure:
I never contact people in order to advertise my commissions. My commissions are strictly advertised through my own personal posts and my commissions page. I don’t send DMs, I don’t send asks, I don’t send submissions or anything like that. I don’t solicit people directly for commissions, and I don’t contact people about flat rates. First off, you have explicitly to fill out an order form before I ever contact you personally about a commission, and it will be via the e-mail you provide on your commission form and not via a social media platform. Second, I haven’t charged flat rates in years; I wouldn’t be able to tell you up front if a commission is going to be cheap to advertise it that way anyways, as I price on an hourly basis. I don’t charge upfront as a result of this. Additionally, I send constant WIP updates to my clients before I EVER have you send even so much as a penny.
So, if you receive solicitation from “me” prior to having filled out one of my order form whether it’s asking if you want a commission or if it’s talking about flat rates/cheap prices, it is NOT me.
Steel Phoenix Studios 