Two Collections of Links

[sqbr]

(I already posted these to sqbr if you follow me there)

Tumblr:

Trans woman gets sick of transphobia on tumblr, tumblr CEO is awful about it

Worldcon:

Report on the leaked emails where the English speaking side of the committee cheerfully created political dossiers of the nominated authors based on their own projected ideas of what censorship the Chinese government might want, without feeling the need to talk to the actual Chinese people on the committee, do any real research, actually read the relevant books etc. There's been some criticism of this report itself being biased/inaccurate but I don't know of anything better with the same info.

Mary Robinette Kowal talks about similar bad behaviour she had seen from Dave McCarthy previously

Results rigged to exclude Chinese authors. This really underlines how ridiculous it is to blame literally everything on Chinese government interference, as some people still insist on doing. In what universe would they exert pressure to have less Chinese authors win awards?

Tangential but feels broadly relevant: How creators and works from New Zealand/Aotearoa were more subtly excluded at the Wellington Worldcon. This isn't equivalent to the outright censorship of the Chengdu Hugos, but it's an example of how this culture of exclusion is not a new thing or just a reaction to a "bad" foreign country.

Comments

[cesy]

Thanks for the links

[cosmicjellyfish]

I would like to come up with a comment more substantive than [puts head in hands], but… yeah. Yeah. Both of these are absolute messes on fire and I’m floored by how the Worldcon reports keep getting worse.

[winterbird]

The Tumblr situation is SUCH a shitshow. I sadly think Matt was not at all well equipped to handle this with any kind of grace, though I also don't think he's intentionally a hideous human being (I mean fuck, I hope I'm wrong). But in trying to sound 'conversational' he's missed the mark with responding with a professional level of apology and just sounds like a guy trying to weasel out of everything while vaguely threatening everyone *and the existence of Tumblr itself.*

Imho he should never have been the one to handle this, it's not his job, and I can't imagine the small skeleton staff that remains on Tumblr after the rest were fired removed and re-allocated were prepared to deal with the absolute explosion that has very understandably resulted from a long-term, known issue of transphobia of the site long long before Automattic even came along and touched it, that Automattic has continued (with some of its moderation staff *actually* being transmisogynistic).

It makes me angry, and it also means we're losing Dashboard Unfucker (idk if you saw the announcement from the person who runs basically the new new X-Kit, but basically she was one of the ones confronted by Matt - though to be fair, the screenshot I saw looked honestly more like an idiotic uneducated man trying his best, receiving a lot of rage for that extremely understandably, given his income, position of power, and the fact that he really should know better than asking a complete stranger for pronoun clarification on another complete stranger).

Tumblr is definitely... like I didn't have 'Tumblr possibly killed over Matt from Automattic being mad that a trans woman very understandably got sick of no one listening to her while also being harrassed repeatedly on Tumblr' on my 2024 bingo list and maybe I should :/

Here's a screenshot of Matt vaguely implying horrifically ironically that the pile-on situation on Tumblr specifically in context of him is terrible, and that if this continues Tumblr will be completely unsustainable as a site (with the implication that it's not worth running).

My guy, you could have just not returned while the fire was this hot, and insisted that the staff actually get on the transmisogyny issue instead :/ I just keep thinking of the John Green situation which, while radically different because John Green stayed in his lane the entire time, does reflect that pile-on culture overall on Tumblr *is terrible* and that the longer this blows up for, the more it becomes scorched earth for everyone involved.

[anghraine]

I missed your earlier post but saw this one and fuck the CEO is awful. Tumblr has seemed a lesser evil for awhile, but I'm honestly not sure any more. I cold turkey quit Twitter a couple of days after Elon's acquisition because he was already doing something repugnant and I couldn't really square it with myself morally, and I'm kind of feeling similarly about Tumblr over the last week. But it's a lot more regrettable.

Worldcon/the Hugos is just a hellscape. They're coming to my state in the USA in 2025 and I'd considered going, but not any more.

[sqbr]

Yeah I'll really miss tumblr if it dies and/or I feel the need to leave :(

[sqbr]

Yeah he has been such a self sabotaging asshole dumbass :(

[sqbr]

Yeah the bar was already low and they just kept digging!

[sqbr]

You're welcome!