An automated moderation error left Tumblr users panicked

Tumblr users were left scrambling on Wednesday after dozens of accounts were banned in the same afternoon by an automated system. Numerous users contacted The Verge about the incident, claiming that the wave of bans disproportionately seemed to impact accounts run by users who identify as trans women, many of whom were given no specific reason for why their accounts were terminated. Screenshots of the email some users received notifying them of the ban state that, “This action was taken as the result of an internally-generated report. Automated means may have been used to identify the content at issue.”

Chenda Ngak, head of communications at Tumblr parent company Automattic, confirmed the bans in a statement to The Verge, but said many were in error and had been reversed. “We continuously work to maintain platform health and adapt our systems to prevent bad actors from spreading harm. In that process, our automated system has incorrectly flagged several users, including, but not limited to, members of the trans community. We’ve disabled that system and restored those users while we improve it. We sincerely apologize to everyone who was affected by this error.”

The wave of bans on Wednesday came just a day after Tumblr reversed a controversial change to its reblogging system earlier this week, which sparked outrage from many of the platform’s users. Some of the users who contacted The Verge suggested that the bans may have been in response to posts voicing opposition to the change, but Ngak stated that, “The reported terminated accounts are not related to the recent discussion about reblogs.” Ngak also added that “there is no evidence that trans users were disproportionately among the sub-200 accounts impacted.”

However, multiple users who contacted The Verge expressed concerns about a history of moderation issues on Tumblr, some involving trans users in particular. In 2024, Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg got into a public spat with a Tumblr user who went by predstrogen and identified as trans. Predstrogen shared frustrated posts about a lack of action from Tumblr in response to alleged harassment she was facing, leading her to eventually post that she hoped Tumblr’s CEO “dies a forever painful death involving a car covered in hammers that explodes more than a few times and hammers go flying everywhere.” Predstrogen’s Tumblr account was banned afterward, but the dispute continued on other social platforms, where Mullenweg shared private account details, including the names of predstrogen’s side blogs on Tumblr.

This also isn’t the first time Tumblr has run into issues with automated content moderation. In 2022, it settled with New York City’s Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) over discrimination allegations stemming from an adult content ban in 2018, which on top of overall accuracy problems reportedly disproportionately affected LGBTQ+ content. The ban had been put in place prior to Automattic’s 2019 acquisition of Tumblr, implemented by its previous owner Verizon. CCHR’s settlement required a review of Tumblr’s moderation algorithms and required Tumblr to make changes to its user appeals process to address algorithmic bias.

Automattic has downscaled plans for Tumblr in recent years. In 2023, after the site missed growth targets, Mullenweg confirmed to The Verge that “the majority” of the platform’s non-support, safety, and moderation staff were being moved to other divisions.