Rising From the Ashes

Dear Tumblr

Thank you for censoring literally every post, picture, and video that showed up in my dashboard with little black bars. I get it. I see what you did there. But I’m not signing your idiotic petition to “stop the internet censoring law!” to get my normal dashboard back. You know why? For a solid decade now, we have been pirating music, movies, and tv shows without any real legal response. We took advantage of the anonymity and ease of access on the internet for instant gratification, and in the process, we infringed on the (very real, very legal) copyright laws that exist in this country. I don’t blame corporations for finally throwing their hands up and saying, “FINE. If you can’t play by the rules, you don’t get to play at all.” It’s not a “censorship law.” It’s not going to be abused by anonymous “bad authority figures” to enforce a police state or crack down on dissenting political/ideological opinions. It’s the end result of what happens when you trample on OTHER people’s rights to have their work copyrighted, recognized, and paid for. 

This law isn’t going to take away our rights or freedoms. It was never our “right” to steal other people’s work, even if at times we felt it was. It was THEIR right to be paid for their work, and WE took that away from them. 

So Tumblr: thank you for your blatant disregard of my opinion in this matter. Thank you for deciding FOR ME what was the appropriate action for me to take, instead of giving me a way to opt out of your “censor campaign” in a manner I saw fitting (see: declining to sign your petition). Thank you for showing me how one-sided your public and supposedly objective forum really is. I will no longer need your services, such as they were.

Mucho love,

Karen