Tumblr on Monday announced an update to its hate speech policy, announcing on its blog that it would start cutting down on the reach of posts considered hate speech by removing all reblogs of terminated content. Tumblr says it’s specifically targeting speech from Nazis and other white supremacist groups, which it says still be amplified on its platform through reblogs even after the original post was removed for violating its hate speech policies.
“Many of you have called on us to further reevaluate how we deal with hate speech, particularly hate speech from Nazis or other white supremacist groups. Today we’re letting you know that we heard you, and we are taking further action,” Tumblr, which is now owned by WordPress creator Automattic, writes. “In our own research, and from your helpful reports, we found that much of the existing hate speech stemmed from blogs that have actually already been terminated. While their original posts were deleted upon blog termination, the content of those posts still lived on in reblogs.”
