#tumblr PSA

[heywriters]

Everyone who was/is dedicated to tagging Goncharov as "unreality" pls do the same with AI images.

Untagged fake photos are permeating the art, interior design, and now writing prompt areas of tumblr. It gives me uncanny valley ick, so there's probably others who it stresses out more.

Please tag your auto-generated images!

[dragonpyre]

Hey guys, if you're blog looks like this

It doesn't matter if you have anything in your likes. You will be getting reported and blocked by people for thinking your a bot. This is the blogging website. You HAVE to reblog stuff

[xofemeraldstars]

can we pls stop reposting other people's gifs? 🙃🙏

if y'all need a guide on how to use the gif search function then here is a post and you can use it to search the edit tags specifically (this way you aren't getting gif suggestions from posts that have reposted cause yeah that happens too) by searching for bucktommyedit, evanbuckleyedit, tommykinardedit etc or even a gifmaker's specific edits tag if they use one 🙏

[coulsonlives]

PSA: CAT MEDICAL BILL SCAM

Please signal boost this if possible to inform your followers about these scams.

Earlier today, I got a message from the account nicole-loves-king, where they asked me to signal boost a post because their cat needed medical help. Here's the ask:

(And you can see the post in question here)

I looked at this post and was immediately put off because they were asking for people to send things through 'friends and family', which if you aren't aware, is a very insecure way to send someone funds using paypal, because you don't have the protections you would get if you used 'goods and services'. So scammers can make off w your money really easily.

I looked at their blog and scrolled down to the end, and I realized their blog was made today! And, all their posts (there weren't many posts to begin with lol) were of trending topics. I noted puss in boots, and welcome to nightvale among others. This is probably how they found me, because I reblogged some of that stuff recently.

Here's the time stamp from their oldest post (notice it says the time, not the date, which means the post was from today):

In their ask, they also tell you to answer privately. Hm, that seems sus. Why would someone not want you to publish a request for help?

So I have a policy where I don't signal boost posts from brand new blogs because, yknow, they could be scams. I posted this, and the scam account blocked me. They also blocked my friend when they replied to their ask and said their blog looked suspicious. I did some more digging, and I found a comment from someone that confirmed my suspicions:

This is in fact a scam!

@nicstonka is almost identical to the above account (nicole-loves-king). Look at the avatar, the pictures, and the paypal address, both accounts even have 'nic' (as in 'nicole') in the name. The only thing that is extremely different is the name of the cat! Yet both blogs also have the name of the cat in their url ('king' and 'tonka'). That should also be a red flag, because usually someone isn't gonna have the name of their pet in their url, only a few posts, and a signal boost for that exact (fake) pet.

Here's a side by side:

Looks at those paypal accounts: nbrunelle519, and nbrunelle391. Nope definitely not a scam /s

And the cat pictures side by side:

Tumblr's "scam" tag is actually full of these reports now, which you can see here. Or if there's nothing there anymore, click here and here for images.

And links to some older PSAs about other cat scams: 1 2 3

So if you see any blogs like this, where all they have is trending posts, it seems like they've copied and pasted an ask to you, or if they're asking you to send things via friends and family, vet them so so so carefully, because chances are you're walking into a scam. Don't just repost things without carefully checking! If you aren't in a position to check carefully, better safe than sorry: don't repost it! Don't let these scams spread.

Pro tip: If a blog is dash only, so you can't view their archive to see when their first post was made, and you're on desktop, you can just open the blog in its dashboard view, then click 'end' on your keyboard over and over until all their posts are loaded. Usually if it's a spam blog, you'll only need to click 'end' 5-6 times, sometimes a bit more, since they only post just enough times to give the appearance they're active, then there's absolutely nothing after that.

If you want more proof someone is a scammer, you can look at the currency they use their post (or the currency shown in the vet bill), then hover over the paypal link and inspect the part of the url that says 'country.x=AA'. The 'AA' is the abbreviation for the country your money is going to! If that country doesn't match the country of the currency shown in the post, it's a scam! Example: someone's post says '$' for USD/CAD dollars, but the country in their paypal link is 'PH', which stands for Philippines, where they use Philippine pesos, not dollars!

Also keep in mind that these are not bots! There is a real person behind these accounts. They have replied to people who wanted to confirm they were real, but their intentions are still to scam you, they just know it looks better if they reply.

Stay safe!!

Edit:

Updating this post to announce the scammer's made more blogs, and they're probably gonna keep doing it! Here's the list so far. This isn't up to date btw, go to @scamarchive and check their pinned post for the most recent detected blogs

turncoatrune, starlightdisc, xxmy, wxnt, eeyore-pg, coatedpeanbean, starrypanelstars, panelstars, scyllostyle, the-nonbinary-witch, aash-aash, leechness, ash-aahs, commandobutch, lovely-pages, pagefive-to-six, reconnecteed, five-and-fourty, stepsapphic, farmer-butch0, health-pages, turnersapphic, lxve, march-pls-be-good, emberful, imse7en, kassidymaygemz, kassidymaydream, dreamingkassidy, kasdream, live-march, confusedskulll, march-lives, criticaltuesday, quicksilvah, wrldy, quicksilveey, the-stucked-pan, flurrbum, o345, nxce, thls, hokkairi, sykdykee, furrtasticbu, bumfurry, supsense, wickdart, the90sbest

Keep in mind you may not receive an ask like the above ones. You may get something simpler like this, instead:

Most of these are cats, but there's been dogs and even people too.

If you wanna get even more info on all these accounts, there's an archive of this scammer's pinned posts and asks here, so you can see at a glance how similar they all are. You can also see a comprehensive list of scammer red flags specifically for tumblr here!

And lastly, you can report the scams using 'report something else' > 'unlawful uses or content' > 'phishing'

[niuniente]

New Spam Bots

If you receive this message asking you to support/reblog a campaign regarding the poster's safety in Gaza, this is a spam & scam from a bot.

I have received this exact same message from 4 different accounts in the past week.

Just report and block it the same way as we do to p0rn bots.

[titenoute]

To the new people on Tumblr who don't understand why we veterans block empty blogs with no avatar, no title nor personalisation on sight.

This is why.

This is a bot. And they can do this kind of things.

Which isn't ok.

So for the love of everybody's sanity, personalise your blog. Even if you're lurking.

[shadowfoxsilver]

eeyore-pg is a scam account

Update 2/13/2023 - The scam account is finally down and removed! I’ll still leave this alert up though as a reminder to anyone who sees the scam post floating around. Below is the original warning contents.

Update #2 - You can help Eeyore here!

—

Hi! You may have received this ask from an account called eeyore-pg:

“Hi there, im really sorry for this cause I know its kinda inappropriate to ask for a favor at a time like this, but I just wanted to try and ask if you could possibly share or boost the post I pinned for my cat Eeyore since we're in desperate need of help right now. I hope youd consider, if not I understand and pls dont worry. Be safe always! Pls do send me a msg or answer this ask privately if possible <33”

This is actually a scam ask. This ask has been specifically catered to sound very urgent, but also asks you to answer privately even though the post is very public. It is well known asks like this want to be hidden so searches wouldn’t find them but they get spammed so much that asking to answer privately is kinda pointless. In fact, this ask is about a cat called Eeyore.

While Eeyore is a real cat, he is not owned by the supposed Pamela Galvan. In fact, their email, pictured below from their public post, is not the email run by the real owner. I’m posting this because it is not private info; It is seen in a post accessible to anyone who looks.

You may ask yourself who the real owner is. Well, good news! They do have a tumblr account now and even have their own post explaining that this account I speak of here is not theirs and has stolen their post from Facebook. Below is the owners post with their own photo of Eeyore that the scammer likely will save and use to prove they own him. The owner is more used to Facebook, so sorry for the kinda bland blog appearance. They were in a hurry.

So please, do not share eeyore-pg’s post unless you are warning people it’s a scammer. I know the account linked above is run by the owner; I have contacted them by Facebook DM’s and confirmed they run the linked account and not eeyore-pg.

Please share this post to bring awareness of the scammer and share it to anyone who has shared the scam post.

[s0fti3w1tch]

Please be easy on and mindful of fanartists and fanfic writers when they decide to discontinue or take long breaks from their works. It's okay to feel sad and stuff, like, you cared about that thing. But remember that these people are people. Most people start doing this kind of stuff for fun, for passion.

Please don't make Val, Bloodbath AU's creator, feel guilty or tell them you're disappointed in them.

And please don't guilt or push artists who are still working on their fanworks to update.

We're only individual bodies doing this stuff at home. Thank you for liking our works, but remember that we exist behind these screens.

[occultradio]

I guess save anything important on your blogs because @vyxated's blog got taken down too and nothing was nsfw

[did-i-do-this-write]

The boops are back...

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Periodic reminder that it is good and awesome that you can turn off reblogs and comments on this site, but if you are trying to promote your writing/art/run an advice blog and people cannot reblog your work, it will not be seen.

Reblogging is essential for gaining traction/eyeballs on Tumblr, don't shoot yourself in the foot by locking your content down.

(Unless you want to! Then it's fine!)

[canadiancryptid]

New privacy setting just dropped! Its turned off by default!

Its under blog settings, for each individual sideblog. Bottom of the page. Don't know if you can get to it from app but you definitely can on desktop mode

[polybius3d]

Hey, PSA that tumblr is gonna dabble into AI shit so if ur an artist/writer/anyone really that does NOT want that, go into your settings and look for this option under "Visibility".

[xofemeraldstars]

a quick list on what counts when having tags trending!! let's keep it going bucktommies 🥰🫶🤗

[thepromiscuousfinger]

Oh boy

Another round of spam asks. Remember not to post the asks, just report them as spam and move on.

[getvalentined]

Let's talk about bots

Every time I see someone talking about tumblr's bot situation being "worse than ever" I think about that poll I ran in early 2023 where I learned that people considered it impossible to deal with <10 bot follows per day. In a more recent poll, I saw people asserting that one bot ask per week was too many, and I've come across a handful of posts where people talking about seeing up to a half dozen bot posts in an extremely popular tag over the course of a week as something untenable.

I feel like I should offer some...perspective? On how much tumblr's bot situation has improved? Because it has improved.

At the peak of the 2023 bot rush, I got over 100 bot follows in a single hour. Just last month I was getting 2-5 bot asks per day on my main blog alone. I have reported several dozen spam bots posting to the tags I track in the last couple weeks.

As of now, I get very few bot follows—so few, in fact, that I could not tell you when the last one happened. I receive maybe three bot asks per week, across all 22 of my blogs. I see almost no bot activity in my tracked tags. I know I'm just one user on a large platform, but I have been in the trenches with this nonsense, and I've seen dramatic improvements over time.

Here's how to help Staff get or maintain control of the bot situation:

1. Don't report posts/asks—report ACCOUNTS.

2. Don't report as 18+ content—report as SPAM.

If you report a post, it may get the post taken down, but it won't get the account removed. If enough asks are reported, it may lead to an investigation of the account, but from what I know of webdev and how thin Staff is stretched, the bar there is going to be much, much higher than if an account is reported.

If you report a post or account for unmarked 18+ content, all this will do is get them flagged as an 18+ blog, leading their icon to be blurred and causing a banner to appear over the blog when you visit to make sure you're comfortable seeing adult content, or apply a community label to the post. It will not get the account removed. Adult content is allowed on tumblr (to a point), but that's not the issue here—the issue is that's it spam, which is not allowed on tumblr.

We can expect an uptick in bot activity as the so-called Holiday Season gets into full swing, because these bots are generally gunning for traffic, and that picks up this time of year. If you report them for the right things and in the right ways, it will be much easier for Staff to keep it under control.