Since its founding in 2007, Tumblr has been a microblogging site and social networking platform that has allowed users post (blog) multimedia (i.e. videos, photos, memes, GIFs, links, etc.) and repost (reblog) as a way of short-form blogging. Good-bye went the old blogs of yesteryear and in came the new instant gratification seeking that we know and love from all millennials.
Tumblr, part of Oath, quickly became a space for individuals looking to be online influencers to have an outlet for their selfies, travel and food pics, and even their nudes.
Now, with the recent development of everyone’s favorite OnlyFans, Tumblr is still serving its purpose by providing free content to otherwise inaccessible data (aka porn), etc.
But with Tumblr’s constant chain of sharing (similar to Twitter’s retweeting) information tends to get watered down and convoluted which of course leads to threats or risks to devices when getting lost in the interwebs rabbit hole.
According to Wired, late last year, Tumblr discovered a scheme that links Tumblr as tool used during the 2016 election by a Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) who infiltrated the site by creating 84 accounts and creating content that became wide-spread by users. An easy target to millennials and those who use this type of social network.
Yesterday Tumblr safely released a statement to anyone who may have liked or reblogged any of this content. This investigation now puts Tumblr on a list of other social networks that have been used to interact divisively with users. Others include Twitter, Facebook and Reddit.
Here’s the statement from Tumblr. Do you remember liking or reblogging any of these?
As part of our commitment to transparency, we want you to know that we uncovered and terminated 84 accounts linked to Internet Research Agency or IRA (a group closely tied to the Russian government) posing as members of the Tumblr community.
The IRA engages in electronic disinformation and propaganda campaigns around the world using phony social media accounts. When we uncovered these accounts, we notified law enforcement, terminated the accounts, and deleted their original posts.
While investigating their activity on Tumblr, we discovered that you either followed one of these accounts linked to the IRA, or liked or reblogged one of their posts:
- blackness-by-your-side previously known as: black-galaxy-magic, fullyfurrymiracle, u4guy, ufo-pilot-and-his-sexy-spouse
- info-mix previously known as: americanstatistics, crazypolitician, girlsagainst, illegalmom, just-stat, rochelbarr
- mooseblogtimes
- morningwoodz previously known as: 5cubes, bangbangempire, empireofweird, gifemprireohh, innerpicsempire, picsempire
- rebellloudwiththecrowd previously known as: massivelystrangetyrant
- shoutoutworldwide previously known as: blackprideworldwide, krispymentalitycowboy
You aren’t in trouble, and don’t need to take any action if you don’t want to. We deleted the accounts but decided to leave up any reblog chains so that you can curate your own Tumblr to reflect your own personal views and perspectives.
Democracy requires transparency and an informed electorate and we take our disclosure responsibility very seriously. We’ll be aggressively watching for disinformation campaigns in the future, take the appropriate action, and make sure you know about it.
— Tumblr
It is unknown exactly what influence the IRA had on Tumblr users or other social networks, but we may start seeing others surface as part of this effort to catch fake Russian accounts.
