Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Tumblr proprietor Automattic, is meant to be on sabbatical. As an alternative, he’s arguing with Tumblr customers over a person content material moderation choice, which has sparked communitywide outcry and accusations of transphobia.

Over the previous few days, the state of affairs escalated to the purpose that Mullenweg has engaged with the person in query on different platforms and shared non-public particulars about her account in public.

The controversy started when a person with the weblog identify predstrogen was banned. Earlier than the ban, she was pissed off with Tumblr as a result of the platform didn’t take motion when she reported that she was being focused with transmisogynistic harassment. She additionally claimed her account had been suspended for posting clothed photographs of herself after getting gender affirming surgical procedure. This led her to publish that she hopes that the CEO “dies a eternally painful demise involving a automotive coated in hammers that explodes various occasions and hammers go flying in all places.”

In accordance with Mullenweg, predstrogen was banned for posts that threatened violence towards Tumblr workers, and particularly cited the “eternally painful demise” publish. He additionally claimed that her clothed transition photographs weren’t what yielded grownup content material violations.

“We usually don’t touch upon particular person circumstances, however as a result of there appears to be mass misinformation round this, I’ll make an exception and touch upon predstrogen,” he wrote on his weblog, photomatt. He added, “Tumblr has various LGBT+ together with trans folks on workers, they usually see issues from the within absolutely, they usually’re not protesting this case.”

Some customers stated that Mullenweg was overreacting, because the language is so cartoonish that it couldn’t be taken significantly. However Mullenweg took the publish as a menace.

“Threats of violence are by no means okay. Threats of violence are usually not protected speech,” he wrote on his weblog. “We are going to work with police and FBI the place applicable, although to be clear predstrogen’s case hasn’t warranted that thus far. I’m referring to what we could probably do for different threats.”

Tumblr didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Mullenweg took the controversy off platform to X, the place he commented on a publish from the person who was banned on Tumblr. Then, on certainly one of his Tumblr posts, Mullenweg shared quite a few of her facet weblog names, which isn’t public info (Tumblr customers typically make empty facet blogs with no content material so as to squat on URLs).

“On the grownup content material mistagging, I added context to say it has nothing to do with clothed transition photographs, she had 20+ different blogs and a number of accounts with names so specific I can’t publish them right here and not using a mature tag,” Mullenweg wrote, then itemizing a few of the accounts by identify.

Except for Elon Musk since he took over Twitter (now X), it’s unusual to see the CEOs of social platforms commenting immediately on particular person content material moderation selections. It’s much more unusual for these CEOs to share non-public details about that person’s account.

Bluesky confronted an analogous state of affairs final yr, nevertheless it performed out in an reverse method. One person stated that they hoped a distinguished Black person would get pushed off of “someplace actual excessive.” In that case, Bluesky’s staff determined it wasn’t a reputable demise menace, which strained the burgeoning platform’s relationship with its Black customers.

“Correctly or not, many individuals use violent imagery after they’re arguing or venting,” Bluesky CEO Jay Graber posted on the time. “We debated whether or not a ‘demise menace’ must be particular and direct so as to trigger hurt, and what it will imply for folks’s means to have interaction in heated discussions on Bluesky if we prohibited this type of speech.”

When juxtaposed, these two moderation selections present the problem that platforms have in making selections about sure forms of speech. Whereas Bluesky deemed that getting shoved from “someplace actual excessive” is hyperbolic, Tumblr determined that “a eternally painful demise involving a automotive coated in hammers that explodes various occasions and hammers go flying in all places” is a sound menace.

Tumblr is in an prolonged downward spiral. Tumblr was acquired by Yahoo (now TechCrunch’s guardian firm) for $1 billion in 2013, however the platform struggled to the purpose that Automattic purchased Tumblr for simply $3 million in 2019. Final yr, Mullenweg stated that the platform loses $30 million every year, and later, he reassigned nearly all of Tumblr’s workers to different initiatives within Automattic. However nobody on the belief and security staff was reassigned, so these moderation selections seemingly weren’t impacted by the corporate shake-up. Nonetheless, Tumblr has a nasty observe report for content material moderation selections, particularly these involving trans folks.

“We did have an exterior contract moderator final yr that was making transphobic moderation (and likewise promoting moderation, criminally),” Mullenweg wrote on his weblog. “As quickly as we had been conscious that individual was fired, and we later terminated the whole relationship with that contracting agency and have introduced nearly all the things in-house (at nice value).”

Mullenweg pinned a publish to his Tumblr titled “My Beliefs and Ideas,” the place he addresses the claims that he’s transphobic. He’s at present on sabbatical till Might.