#things Facebook will censor

[dosesofcommonsense]

#truth #common sense #msm is the enemy #leo tolstoy #things Facebook will censor

[orthopoogle]

“You should just be happy for them!” is, like, the most condescending thing you can say to someone who experienced a pregnancy/baby loss when they find out someone else is pregnant and is reacting a certain type of way about it. Like obviously it’s unreasonable to be a dick to someone just for getting pregnant, but I was upset for months after my miscarriage when I saw pregnancy announcements on Facebook or encountered babies at church or sat in the waiting room at my OBGYN’s office with a bunch of heavily pregnant women. No amount of someone virtue signaling to me about how I should just “have joy” for these women would have made me magically happy for them or helped me feel better about my own situation. I couldn’t help how I felt! I wasn’t wishing anything bad on these women and of course wanted their pregnancies to be healthy and boring, but I couldn’t force myself to be glad for them, either! Emotions and responses to trauma just don’t work that way, y’all, and feelings of jealousy and getting “triggered” at pregnancy-related content are very common among women who experience pregnancy loss for various reasons. As long as they’re not being assholes to others over it, let them sort their emotions out at their own pace.

#like really the only thing I felt responsible for was not taking it out on anyone #like I wasn’t all over Facebook or on here telling pregnant women or women who had babies to censor themselves #if something really bothered me it was my job to unfollow/blacklist

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Canonical enshittification

This is the Facebook playbook: you lure in publishers by promising them a traffic funnel ("post excerpts and links and we'll show them to people, including people who never asked to see them"), and then the rug-pull: "Post everything here, don't link to your own site. Become a commodity supplier to our platform. Abandon all your own ways of making money. Become entirely subject to the whims of our recommendation system."

Next will be: "We block links to other sites because they might be malicious."

Then some kind of "pivot to video."

Probably not video (though who knows?) but some other feature that a major rival has, which Twitter will attempt to defraud its captive, commodified suppliers into financing an entry into.

In case you were wondering, yes, this is canonical enshittification. Lure in business customers (publishers) by offering surpluses (algorithmic recommendation and an ensuing traffic funnel). Lock them in (by capturing their audience and blocking interop and logged-out reading).

Then rug the publishers, clawing back all the surpluses you gave them and more, draining them of all available capital and any margins they have, until they die or bite the bullet and leave.

I would also give good odds on this leading to a revivification of the "Pay us tens of thousands of dollars a month for a platinum checkmark and we'll actually show what you post to the people who asked to see it."

That will be pitched as the answer to publishers' complaints about not wanting to turn themselves into commodity Twitter inputs. It will be priced at the same (or more) as the revenues publishers expect to lose from being commodified, making it a wash.

All of this seems to me to be an "unfair and deceptive business practice" under Sec 5 of the FTC Act.

If I sign up to follow you because I want to see what you post, and Twitter shadowbans your posts unless they are formatted to maximize your dependence on Twitter, they have deceived me, and are being unfair to you.

This is *very* analogous to the Net Neutrality debate, where a platform blocks or deprioritizes the things its users ask to see, based on whether the suppliers of those things are its competitors.

I've written about how an end-to-end principle for social media could be enforced under Sec 5 of the FTCA, how it would address this kind of sleazy practice, how it would be easy to administer, and wouldn't form a barrier to entry for new market entrants:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

#enshittification #dilbert stark #rug pulls #end to end #fraud #ftc act

[justaholeinmysoul]

Seriously some of yall advise people to NOT WATCH THE NEWS OR GET INFORMED ON TWITTER BC BAD IMAGES TW BAD STUFF?!? what the fuck you're adults grow the fuck up?! One thing is: there is graphic footage be aware BUT some people here are like hey catie, 24 yo, DO NOT WATCH THE NEWS OR LOOK AT TWEETS OF PEOPLE PERHAPS DOCUMENTING HAPPENINGS OR ASKING FOR HELP BC U MAY END UP TRIGGERED

#i am shocked honestly how do you survive irl how much do u wanna shield yourself from the world #this only encourage fake news bc you redirect ADULTS to only read shitposts on tumblr or twitter threads or Facebook of 3rd parties #also blurring is a thing at least in my country #idk maybe I'm too insensitive but tbh you'll eventually face terrible shit irl you can't always run away #and there's difference between exploitative and disrespectful news and documentation #imagine if everyone in Europe censored the war bc kids die tw do not look WTF you have to look at history ugly gore and shit u must #I feel like that there's protecting yourself and turn off the tv and there's looking away and being ignorant and often people are the 2nd

[cheshire-j]

PLEASE READ BECAUSE THIS WILL AFFECT YOU IF THIS PASSES

The US Government is trying to pass a bill that will censor the Internet under the guise of protecting kids! And it has bipartisan support.

This bill is called KOSA, Kids Online Safety Act. This basically gives government the power to censor anything they deem as "inappropriate" or "harm content" to kids. And if you want unrestricted access to the Internet, the bill stated you will need to prove you are a user over the age of 18, which means you will likely need to give your ID in order to access the web. And there is no guarantee listed that your ID will be safe alongside the rest of your data online, if this passes (think how well Instagram and Facebook and how well they've protected data i.e sold it to Russians).

This bill also includes censoring history as well as websites that could be medically helpful, in ADDITION to restricting or out right banning certain apps and websites like;

- Tumblr

-TikTok

-Wattpad

-Ao3 (Archive of our own)

- Medical Information: for things like Mental Health, Sex Ed, medication

And more

The bill is set for markup on July 27 2023 at 10:00 am.

Also, if this passes it'll be the start of quickly passing other internet acts like the EARN IT ACT and the RESTRICT ACT.

Please call and or email your representatives and senators. You can find the needed contact information on Congress.gov. This is a abuse of power and a violation of our 1st amendment rights to freedom of speech, choice, and press, as well as the 4th amendment that prohibits unlawful searches and seizures, and a violation of privacy.

SIDE NOTE: While I agree that there needs to be protections for kids online, KOSA, as well as the other bad internet bills, is not it. And if protecting kids is really the concern, then why not focus sights on implementing regulations that holds the people who intend to harm kids accountable?

#politics #kosa #bad internet bills #fandom spaces #fanfiction #earn it act #restrict act #wattpad #archive of our own #ao3 fanfic #please read #takeaction #free speech #privacy

[mochaxswirl]

ABOUT THE KOSA BILL. PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO READ THIS.

please help us stop the kosa bill. I may not know much about how exactly to stop it but in the posts ive reblogged recently there are a lot of recourses.

this bill will be reviewed in march, likely the 13-16th. (I updated this)

if you cannot donate or call anyone, help spread information and awareness.

the kosa bill will censor lgbtq spaces on the internet, restrict minor’s internet access, and prevent us from interacting with most if not all social media websites. it’s almost guaranteed that parents will see our activity online. this is not okay for some minors. we won’t be able to see anything related to lgbtq and things related to the racist treatment of many people historically.

please spread awareness about this. warn the people you know. donate. sign petitions. call and or email your senators. follow blogs that provide resources such as @stopkosa and @anti-kosa-bill-links. anything you can. we cannot let this happen. no good will come out of it.

this affects anything and everything.

social media: tumblr, twitter, facebook, tiktok, youtube, instagram, and even more.

“games”: genshin impact, gacha, character.ai (not really a game), and even more.

this cannot happen.

we don’t want to be shut out from the world.

#important #kosa bill #kosa act #stop kosa #kosa #help #privacy #lgbtqiia+ #lgbtq #lgbtq rights #black lives matter #blm #i stand AGAINST the kosa bill #character.ai #character ai #tumblr #TikTok #YouTube #instagram #social media #Gacha #gacha life 2 #gacha club #all of these apps will be affected by the kosa bill #serious #serious post #reblog #repost #internet freedom #internet

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

(Warning for rape mentions, this one’s a little heavy)

🚩

(So I can find it later)

AITA for hardblocking my former friend and did I overreact over a roleplay blog?

Basically, I found a roleplay on Tumblr while I was scrolling through some NSFW tags. The post I first saw that drew me to it was tame sexual fantasies in comparison to what I found on the rest of the blog.

Basically it was a rape-fetish blog, which on its own is none of my business but I was reading a few of their posts and something stuck out about them.

They kept talking about one specific person they want to rape, and at first I didn’t think much of it, but the details got creepier as I read. It weirdly seemed like they were describing me, or at least that the descriptions were very similar to me.

The girl they fantasized about had the same hair colour and length as me (as far as I could tell), was about my height (they were described as short and I am short), even things down to a shirt I happen to own, and a recent post described her smelling like a specific new perfume, a scent that I just so happen to have bought and tried a few days before the date on that post.

I tried to shake it off as nothing but the name was all too much. They censored the name a a letter then a bunch of asterisks (for example S*****) and the letter they used and the number of asterisks lined up way too perfectly for my own actual name.

Then I found an old post on the account that was a rant about how the user had themselves been sexually assaulted and then described the attack in fair detail.

That stuck out because somebody I thought was a friend had gone through an assault like that, very similar (as far as I knew) to how it was described.

I blocked and reported the account, then I blocked them on everything, from Tumblr to Facebook. They’ve been trying to contact me since but I’ve ignored every attempt.

Maybe I overreacted and am seeing patterns that really aren’t there? As far as I know that blog has been deleted off Tumblr, or at least I hope it has. I know that people can be into different things, and that being raped can make you want to take that control back, but now I’m paranoid that what if this actually happens, they act out these fantasies? I want to believe they wouldn’t, they’re not like that, but I can’t. I can’t contact the police because they haven’t actually done anything, and in my area you need reasons for restraining orders and all that stuff. Rape victims aren’t taken seriously where I’m from.

Should I have heard them out? AITA for overreacting?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole #rape cw

[sir-yeehaw-paws]

The forced sanitization of the internet has become so annoying. You haven't been able to share news articles on Facebook in Canada since late 2023 (and yes, its FACEBOOK I get it, but a lot of families do still use it as a primary means of communication, and small businesses use it). Some people get around this by taking screenshots of news, and posting the caps, but this whole mindset of everything in sight needing to appeal to advertizers is depressing as fuck.

I don't have a TikTok account, but the whole thing where you have to physically get aroudn 'bad topics' with ridiculous censorship, or sites bending and caving to implementing a stern 'no NSFW' policy that, I'll point out DOESN'T WORK (so what was the point?) so that it can be more viable to running ads, (half of which are bots with explicit porn: becasue it doesn't matter what is actually being advertized, as long as the persons paid for that ad space) proves that these factors aren't about "protecting the innocence" of anyone, but for money.

Which sure duh obviously but it's a little pathetic that people can't do proper research or get information about topics, without having to use god knows how many work arounds, because "this word is considered unsafe, this word is too controversial, this that." And now when you DO try to use Google, your first set of results are going to be sponsored ads, or search terms, and the amount of hits you'll get decreases.

I was taught how to do effective research in University. Methods that are now oudated, because ads rule the internet. Forget artistic freedom, forget human desires, forget anything that used to make the internet even semi-manageable; as long as it caters to ads, it's allowed.

There's some arguments too that people throw "to many hissy fits" about not being allowed NSFW. That it's not needed, that you can "go ten mintues without porn" blah blah blah.

Sure, you can do that. But the fact that there's no real place for minors to go and have their own place online, and that previously "17+ ONLY" sites (which tumblr was, btw) all caved to the pressure of "protect them so we can make money!" is just sad.

And it's not just porn that gets censored, by the by. It's anything deemed "inapporiate" which is also how lots of NEWS gets butchered and censored. Because you see goddamned news articles with "so and so unalived themselves" or whatever the hell it is. And YouTubers have to report on current events with "Mr. Person of this Article *bleeped* himself on the 2nd of March." etc. Because they will get demonitized otherswise. Censorship takes out context and shoves eveything under an umbrella.

So now you're watching a news report, with censored 'bad words' before a three minute ad roll interrupts that video, at some ridiculous mid-sentence moment, to show you an image of some mobile game with naked women shooting ppl in the head. All things that aren't supposed to be allowed but are accepted because it's ads.

But heaven's forbid you post an art piece with visible naked breasts, what would the children think!?

#blah blah blah this is nothing NEW by the by it's just something that kinda rotaes in my head on a daily basis #nate rambles #wow there's way too many typos in this

[youtherthyf]

censoring info on suicide, mental illness, abuse, racial discrimination, and violence doesn't "protect minors" from anything it only makes it harder for children(or adults for that matter) struggling with those things to get access to useful resources. enables abusers and fascists to run undisputed while people calling them out get the hammer, and gives more power to state entities to in act censorship on the web of any subject state attorneys don't want people knowing about(like the genocide in palestine, history of violence against minority groups and lgbt folk, the attorney's own criminal connections, ect.). enforced through even more intrusive spyware anyone supporting this bill is either a fascist who wants the internet censored or an idiot who doesn't know how the internet functions outside of facebook. this doesn't only affect americans, we are affected too because most big sites are american run, go to stopkosa.com and send your complaint to help stop it

#palestine #free palestine #gaza #free gaza #israel #jerusalem #colonialism #social justice #imperialism #palestine resources #stop kosa #kosa #kosa bill #kids online safety act #lgbtq

[passer-domesticus-official]

Now that the TikTok ban has been signed into law, I felt obligated to give my two cents.

This is nothing less than a crystal clear infringement on our right to free speech. Through TikTok, the flaws within the American government have been revealed to millions of young people across the country, especially after October 7th. When you have a large group of people, especially a group as influential as the next generation, all collectively speaking out against an inherently corrupt institution, the first thing that institution would need to do to preserve itself is take away the platform on which that group speaks, and that is exactly what this ban will do. The US government is cracking down on tiktok not just because it wants to silence the youth of America, but because it needs to in order to preserve its authority.

But why does this ban apply to tiktok specifically??? If they want to silence opposition, why not get rid of social media as a whole???

Here’s the thing, they don’t even need to do that. X and Meta are run by corporate billionaires, both of which are on the same side as the US government and have already been censoring their platforms. Facebook, Instagram, and X are already on their side in this, so why ban them when you can focus on the outlier? The foreign run company that isn’t a slave to the federal government? And that’s exactly what they’re doing. They’re banning TikTok because we have nowhere else to run.

Additionally, the vast majority of Americans were against this bill, and yet it still made it through congress, and got signed by the president. There is nothing that could show us that the federal government’s interests have moved beyond those of the people’s more clearly than this. They do not care. Our senators , our representatives, our president, none of them care about the people anymore, and so long as this system of government exists, they never will, which is why nothing in America, nothing in the world will change unless we can put aside the imaginary differences we’ve set up for ourselves and come together against the collective enemy of the capitalist system.

#socialism #politics #political #tiktok #tiktok ban #congress #senate #censorship #free speech

[ilovenatasharomanoff2-0]

PLEASE READ

I don't usually post things like this, but this is kid of important to please read until the end.

The Kosa bill (Kids online safety act) was brought into the Senate today at 10am. If you don't know, this bill will cause websites that include features of Lgbtq content, race, political views, and history to be censored. Apps such as Tumblr, Wattpad, A03, Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook, etc. Will one be censored having to put a form of id in to use that app. But if you're able to access it because you're over 18, you can't say anything that the government seems as 'harmful' to younger kids. And two they will be completely wiped. So deleted. That would mostly be Tumblr, Wattpad and a03.

This bill is insane because it censors off thing's children need to learn and it would share what they do on their devices to their parents. YOu can't learn about religon be because it's censord off, yiu can't learn how to get out of an abusive household because it's censored off. And you can't even use the internet to find out history...?

It is unsure if the bill has passed or not yet. If it did, it will go into hearing in September. I think we are only on stage 2 or 3 of getting the pill passes and passing it is stage 5 so we still have stime to stop it.

2 senators did speak out against it though today which is super good. That means we are making progress to stopping the bill. I'll update when I find out if it's going onto the higher floors.

if you want to stop this CALL YOUR SENATORS AND SIGN PETITIONS!! I have done both and they are the easiest thing ever I promise. I'm going to put the @ of a tiktoker who has a linktree to this bill where you can sign petitions and call senators.

Please call senators, please. Don't say you're too scared because you're going to be talking with an intern okay? There are many scripts out there as well that can help you say what you need to say.

@omarsbigsister

PLEASE REBLOG AND SHARE WITH OTHER PEOPLE!!

#natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff smut #natasha romanoff x female #natasha x y/n #natasha romanov #natasha romanoff incorrect quotes #marvel #jjk #jjk x reader #aot #stop kosa #minecraft #disney #anime

[kitsune-pop]

so, I see plenty of posts talking about using words like faggot and tranny and other reclaimed words, then getting into arguments with young, sub-21 people about the use of them. and like, I def get it, it's annoying as hell having someone try and dictate what you can and cannot say or do in your personal life, but then I see people get REAL aggressive and exclusionary towards those young people. and like, you gotta look at it from their perspective

and I'm going to lump anyone under the age of 21 as minor because like, if you can't go to a bar to get real life queer experience how tf are you supposed to learn

most minor queers are coming from a non-queer background. best case scenario they have a supportive family and some queer friends at school. but, these are not queer life experiences. schools have so many rules in place to stifle queer kids from being able to express themselves, and some even have rules that allow peers and faculty to actively discriminate against queer kids. it's hard, even in a more progressive school, to get real life queer experiences that aren't watered down to be more palatable for cishet peers

social media is even worse. you're not even allowed to say cis on twitter anymore, using things like faggot or tranny or dyke isn't allowed on facebook or instagram even if you're in your own community in these spaces. and these are the places most minors are getting any kind of social experiences in their lives. they are constantly being told that there's "good" and "bad" queers, that you do t want to be cringe, or otherwise unpalatable to the cishet people in these spaces. if a minor is constantly told that certain words are bad, and people who use these words are bad, of course they're going to think they're defending queers by attacking people who use these words

I came out as trans three years ago. I used facebook for my social media at first. and in trying to find community on that site, the best I got was a couple of trans lesbian groups. since rejoining tumblr, I've discovered I'm a puppygirl, a furry, a bratty bottom. I'm clicker trained, into omegaverse, poly and a faggot tranny. and that's entirely due to the comparatively minimal queer censorship on this site (and even this site censors queer stuff way too much, just not as aggressively as other social media sites)

so like, if a minor stumbles across your blog and seems horrified, that's likely because they've been exclusively exposed to cishet palatable queerness, and not real life queers. rather than arguing with them and demeaning them, we should attempt to educate them. and like, of course there's gonna be annoying ones who don't want to learn, and that's on them, but we should be more welcoming and understanding of minors who probably have never interacted with a deep-queer rather than a palatable one

#silly millie speaks #transgirl #mtf girl #transgender #nonbinary #queer #lgbtq #lesbian #lgbtq community #lgbtqia

[angelsaxis]

13 were shot. Ten are dead and three have non fatal wounds. The white supremacists who commit these atrocities are always radicalized online now, but everyone and their mother will pretend like this was an isolated event that has no bearing on the prevalence of white supremacy in society and no connection to online radicalization.

Even the way people are radicalized is approached in an extreme way that I'm convinced is meant to purposely frustrate any attempts to do something about white radicalization online. Everyone thinks a white kid just suddenly dives into these mysterious white supremacist circles and comes out a little bit later willing to murder Black people because of the color of our skin.

It starts with All those 4chan sites and subreddits and that do that """ironic evil""", all those jokes from edgelords where apparently it's okay to dehumanize Black and Jewish people as long as they're being """ironic""" about it. Entire TV shows where Black people and Jews' pain is just a punchline or a gag. These people are desensitized to everything we've suffered through and the real kicker is that lots of y'all on here or twitter or Facebook or fucking Pinterest refuse to just admit that the edgelord humor, the """ironic""" shit, all lead to white supremacist enclaves online where white boys are then exposed to shit like the great replacement and incited to act violently because they believe that Black people Jewish people immigrants and everyone who dares not to be white and Christian is coming to steal their land steal their babies and murder them in their beds.

Because the amount of planning and foresight it takes to attack and murder Black people who live hours away from you is something that's created online. It starts with the dehumanization of Black people for shits and giggles. He attacked Black people in a grocery store in a food desert, knowing that the long term effects wouldn't just be the the deaths of those community members, but also the fear of Black people across the country to even get out of our fucking homes. I'm seeing Black mutuals on here talking about how they don't want to leave their homes until things die down. We're going to try and create nets of solidarity and those attempts are going to be frustrated any number of ways and the shooter knows this because he spent probably a third of his life just going through online treasure troves describing all the ways he could make Black people suffer.

And the worst part is that with the sheer complexity and efficiency of the surveillance state, none of those eyes will be on those white supremacist safe havens. They'll fucking be on Black people regardless of what we're saying, regardless of whether what we're trying to do is politically motivated or not. We're the ones who are silenced and shut down and ignored and actively censored in favor of upholding white supremacy in all its forms. Remember when Black bloggers on here were accused of being Russian spies and had their accounts deactivated, but neo Nazis on this site were and still are able to exist with no problem? Are any of you aware of the sheer number of times a Black blogger is deactivated on this site alone for not being nice in how they talk about racism, but the white supremacists who harass and stalk them are allowed to have as many victims as they want? It's like this on all social media. Twitter, Facebook, probably even fucking Pinterest. It's not difficult to trace or find where white boys go to become raging terrorists but all the energy by the corporations and the state and normal fucking people online is dedicated to silencing Black people in any way possible.

#angel posts #buffalo #racism tw #im fucking tired of this shit

[txttletale]

i mean youre not wrong about reporting/moderation, but you could say that about any website right now, not just AO3. like i assume you would not appreciate if tumblr stopped censoring extreme gore/CP tomorrow? obviously i know thats not equivalent, but its the same general problem, and im not sure what solution youre proposing if moderation is inherently unethical. destroy the internet? let things like extreme gore/CP spread everywhere?

i mean i can say that about any website and in fact did in my post innit. facebook & twitter &c. are in fact infested with vast quantities of CSEM and gore. the problem with content moderation is not just an ethical but a practical one! i study this stuff at a pretty advanced level and it is simply not an easily solvable problem. & i also think your tone here is minimizing the horror of current content moderation. there are literally mass scale trauma factories paying workers in the global south poverty wages to inflict life altering PTSD on themselves--i am just asking people to consider the realities of that before walking around bleating 'just moderate the content lol'

#ask

[mywitchcultblr]

NSFW and the importance of AO3

My biggest concern if Twitter really die is nsfw artist and sex workers. Us NSFW artist has been betrayed time and time again by many platform who used to welcome us then spit us out once the platform is big enough or to bow down to advertisers.

TikTok censorship is beyond ridiculous

Pinterest wouldn't even allow topless art of a woman

Instagram too not that friendly to nsfw artist

Tumblr banned porn post 2018 and wouldn't hesitate to delete your blog

I'm not sure about pillowfort i heard it's allow nsfw but not as free as twitter? Correct me if I'm wrong tho i never use it

Facebook? Nah i wouldn't even bother.

There's Pixiv but it's not accessible for all people

Mastodon is still new and frankly many said that it has a steep learning curve

DeviantArt turned it's back both to both nsfw and sfw artist with their censorship (literally i see more and more artist who have to censor tits, cock, asshole and even pussy) and also their bullshit piece of shit AI generation + stealing from artist for their generator

Sites like Rule 34 and Hentai site are there but they are not really platform to grow your audience as an artist + too many art thief

Patreon I heard implementing more censorship? It's not social media but many artist using it

Poipiku is a Japanese platform and not all people are native Japan speaker

The fucking dystopian corporations like apple and Google ( and purity culture both in fandom and non fandom) keep sanitizing the internet and wiped out nsfw content for profit (it's not for protecting children or blah blah blah it's all for ads) kicking out all nsfw content creators from all platform they touch, forcing us to wander with no home to express ourselves. NSFW artist still have some wiggle room to thrive but I think sex workers have it harder to thrive on a more mainstream platform...

I know there's many sites for sex workers like for camgirl or whatever but mainstream sites that once more accepting of nsfw has been kicking down sex workers down to the curb again and again and again

If Twitter let's say goes down suddenly or gradually goes down and maybe banning nsfw... Artist will lost the last mainstream global platform that allow them to grow an audience as an nsfw artist

This for fandom nsfw artist who are not using site like poipiku and pixiv it left us with only AO3 to store our art

Yes you can post art to AO3 just tag it as art, literally it is the best safe haven for writing + art with it's mission to protect people creation, they even have lawyer and stuff to protect your rights + AO3 is super nsfw friendly literally you can upload anything that is legal within the USA law (that's a lot of things, thank God it's not based on my country Indonesia law or you wouldn't even see gay people kissing)

But AO3 is primarily used for fanfic + it's not a social media and shouldn't ever be a social media, it is an archive to preserve fanwork. It is fanwork library of Alexandria. The downside because it's not a social media and thus doesn't have features like chatting, algorithm and stuff is that it's harder for you to grow like in other social media. Let's say Twitter really gone if i want to post a series of comic/manga

Then i have to post the sfw/censored pages to Tumblr + post the nsfw page to AO3 it'll be a hassle for both me and my readers but it's possible

Still such a hassle and it'll be easier to just post to Twitter or when Tumblr still allowed nsfw

Also original artist will find it harder to gain audience faster on Tumblr and AO3 because both website are primarily for fandom. Like i can draw a sketch of let's say Anakin Skywalker and it'll get more traction than a fully rendered piece of original artwork

I mean it's possible but if you want to get traction easily as an original artist your art have to be godlike to be noticed amongst seas of fanart that the general public sees as more favorable... I mean you can try to build audience with doing fanwork and once you got big you can post more OG art

Still... It's easier to grow as an original artist on Twitter than on Tumblr or other platform...

Look yeah it's fun to see Twitter on fire but if it's really gone it'll be a disaster for nsfw creators/artist especially those who are making money from it to keep the roof above their head. I hope Twitter doesn't die tbh (I only made acc to see nsfw art, if Tumblr didn't ban porn i wouldn't even bother to use it or too many social media) also this situation brought back the reminder of AO3 importance as the safest and biggest archive especially for nsfw writers and fan artist that keep losing places to post their work, express themselves and earn a living

#ao3 #essay #discourse #fanwork #fanfic #fanart #twitter #capitalism #puritanism #pro ao3 #ao3 discourse #social media #writing #censorship #artist

[thebibliosphere]

So I came across your recent publishing on Tumblr's "popular reblogs" Tab, and maybe you won't have an answer to this at all or maybe you've already mentioned this, but I've wondered about this for years.

If an author (or Amazon) puts an ebook on sale for free on Amazon, does purchasing the ebook help the author at all or any more or less than purchasing it at a higher price point at a different time? Is it more done as a promotional tool to drive people to read it and rate/review?

And--if you feel like it--if someone is using Amazon as a reader, what 'best practices' should they consider to benefit the authors they love?

Hello! Thanks for the thoughtful ask.

You are correct in assuming that sometimes authors put works up for free on Amazon as a promotional tool. They do not earn anything from these "sales" but instead hope to gain traction and interest in any future or already existing works in their catalog.

This also helps them as, despite the lack of monetary gain from the individual book, it does boost their sales rankings, which can majorly influence how the Amazon algorithm interacts with their work.

If the book is later re-released for actual sale (sometimes with a different cover/minor edits) and you enjoyed the book, buying it again "for real" can be a really nice gesture, even though a lot of authors likely won't expect it.

As for how to be a good Amazon reader: review, review, review!

Entire author careers can live and die on reviews. Even if you don't write anything, just leaving a star rating can really help how likely we are to get future sales and how the algorithm views us. This is especially true when you are an author writing for a marginalized audience, where the algorithm unofficially suppresses promoting certain things over others. Things I write as a queer romance author are often subjected to a higher level of scrutiny by the censors at Amazon than het-romance authors. So not only do we often get knocked back more often for review during the publishing process, but we can also really struggle to gain traction afterward. Reviews help with this. GoodReads is also owned by Amazon, so posting to GoodReads can be a really good way of boosting our traction.

Also, post about us on social media and tell all your friends! So many of my organic sales come from fans telling friends or posting about my work on Twitter/Tumblr (and I'm sure probably Facebook, but I don't log in there to check, lol.) so please never underestimate the power of word of mouth when it comes to supporting the authors you love.

Most authors also use affiliate links in an attempt to earn back what we lose in fees to Amazon. If the author has direct Amazon links on their website, consider using those instead of just searching them out on the search engine, as they are likely using an affiliate link, and every penny we can claw back from Amazon really helps.

You can also "follow" our profiles on Amazon to keep up to date with any new work as soon as it launches, so if, for whatever reason, you don't see our social media posts, you'll always know when we post new works because you'll get an email notification. Pre-orders can also help us get onto New Release/Bestseller lists, which also massively boosts our traction with the algorithm and also promotes us to a wider range of readers who might otherwise never see us, so if you're able, pre-ordering can really help too!

You'd be right if that sounds like a lot of algorithm talk. But unfortunately, that's the capitalist hellscape we live in.

Anyway, thanks again for asking. I hope it is helpful!

#amazon #amazon sales rankings #indie author stuff