Government Information Requests
Summary
Tumblr routinely receives requests for information about our users from government agencies around the world. In emergency cases, when permitted by law, we may voluntarily disclose limited user data. In all other cases, we do not voluntarily grant government agencies access to user data for law enforcement, intelligence, or surveillance purposes. We will only disclose user information in response to valid legal process, issued by a U.S. authority. The scope of user information disclosed is dependent on the type of legal process received. For more information on our requirements for information requests, please see our legal guidelines.
Evaluating Government Information Requests
We disclose user data only in response to valid legal process such as a subpoena, search warrant, or court order issued by a U.S. authority, in accordance with Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and/or New York state law.
We carefully review all legal process we receive to ensure it is complete and valid. All requests must accurately identify the specific Tumblr user account by unique identifiers, such as an email address, username at issue or URLs of specific posts and/or comments. For more information on our requirements for information requests and what data may be available, please refer to our legal guidelines.
Additionally, if a request or inquiry highlights a potential violation of our privacy policies or Terms of Service, we will review it in accordance with our standard enforcement procedures.
Emergency Requests
As permitted by US law, we may voluntarily disclose user information to law enforcement agencies if we have good faith belief there is an imminent emergency involving death or serious physical injury to any person, and Tumblr may have information necessary to prevent the harm. For detailed information about emergency requests, and how an emergency request can be submitted, please refer to our legal guidelines.
User notification
It is our policy to notify users about requests for their information, and provide them with a copy of any legal process underlying those requests, unless we are prohibited by law or a court order from doing so.
You can learn more about our policies and procedures for handling government and private information requests in our legal guidelines.
Notes
- We receive requests for user information from non-governmental sources, such as litigants in civil proceedings. Those requests are not included in this transparency report.
- We may receive requests that do not clearly identify a blog or user as required by our legal guidelines, which can cause the reported account count to differ from the actual number of accounts involved in a request.
- We may receive requests identifying the same account across multiple report periods. In this circumstance, the account is included in the specified site total for each report period.
- As of January 1, 2024 we expanded our transparency report data categories to fulfill the requirements of the European Union’s Digital Services Act.
Government Information Requests
| Country | Data requests | Specified accounts | Some data disclosed | Rejected | No data found |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Czech Republic | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Denmark | 1 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Germany | 4 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| India | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Portugal | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Romania | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Singapore | 2 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Spain | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Switzerland | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| United States | 287 | 473 | 270 | 12 | 5 |
| Total | 302 | 495 | 270 | 27 | 5 |
Requests from the United States
| Type of request | Some data disclosed | Rejected | No data found | Total data requests | Total specified accounts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subpoenas | 96 | 5 | 3 | 104 | 186 |
| Search Warrants | 170 | 7 | 2 | 179 | 283 |
| Court Orders | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| PRTT | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Title III | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 270 | 12 | 5 | 287 | 473 |
Emergency Disclosure Requests
| Country | Emergency requests | Specified accounts | Data disclosed (#) | Data disclosed (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0% |
| Greece | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0% |
| Germany | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| Hungary | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0% |
| Ireland | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0% |
| Pakistan | 1 | 5 | 0 | 0% |
| South Korea | 4 | 5 | 0 | 0% |
| United States | 9 | 6 | 3 | 33% |
| Total | 18 | 20 | 3 | 33% |
Government Preservation Requests
| Country | Preservation requests | Specified accounts |
|---|---|---|
| Costa Rica | 1 | 1 |
| Germany | 1 | 1 |
| Spain | 1 | 2 |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 1 |
| United States | 157 | 258 |
| Total | 161 | 263 |
Copyright and Trademark
Summary
At Tumblr, we dedicate a significant amount of time and resources to addressing issues involving intellectual property on our platform, such as processing DMCA takedown notices, resolving copyright counter notices, and investigating trademark complaints. Our Copyright and Trademark report covers the number of these notices we receive, the percentage of those notices we process and the volume of content we subsequently remove or restore.
Copyright
Notes
- Our staff carefully reviews each DMCA takedown notice we receive, for accuracy and validity, before content is removed.
- Each notice may cover more than one site and/or piece of content. Some notices identify dozens of allegedly infringing materials. In the future, we’ll aim to provide more specific data on the number of sites affected and items removed.
- We forward formally complete DMCA takedown notices to users, regardless of whether or not we decide to remove content.
- You can learn more about our process for reviewing and acting on copyright complaints here, and about how to correctly submit a DMCA complaint or counter notice here.
Trademark
Notes
- Our staff carefully reviews each trademark complaint we receive, for accuracy and validity, before content is removed.
- Each notice may cover more than one site and/or piece of content. Some notices identify dozens of allegedly infringing materials. In the future, we’ll aim to provide more specific data on the number of sites affected and items removed.
- We forward substantive trademark complaints to users, regardless of whether or not we decide to remove content.
- You can learn more about how to correctly submit a trademark complaint here.
Copyright
| Month | Total Notices received | Valid DMCA requests (%) | Accounts affected | Posts affected | Pieces of content affected |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 511 | 86% | 389 | 1,875 | 2,926 |
| February | 887 | 94% | 646 | 1,264 | 5,533 |
| March | 766 | 91% | 635 | 1,510 | 3,719 |
| April | 567 | 90% | 560 | 868 | 2,858 |
| May | 573 | 85% | 673 | 777 | 1,746 |
| June | 720 | 84% | 732 | 1,763 | 4,948 |
| Total | 4,024 | 89% | 3,635 | 8,057 | 21,730 |
Notes
- The table above indicates the number of copyright infringement notices we received during each month of the reporting period. Each notice may cover more than one blog and/or piece of content. Some notices identify dozens of allegedly infringing materials.
- As a U.S. company, Tumblr requires that all copyright notices be submitted in accordance with the DMCA. When we receive non-compliant requests (including foreign requests), we ask the complainant to resubmit their request in accordance with the statute.
- Tumblr processes notices pursuant to the DMCA. Under the DMCA there are a number of conditions a complaining party must satisfy:
- Identification of the work or material being infringed.
- Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing, including its location, with sufficient detail so that we are capable of finding it and verifying its existence.
- Contact information for the notifying party, including name, address, telephone number, and email address.
- A statement made under penalty of perjury that the information provided in the notice is accurate and that the complainant is authorized to make the complaint on behalf of the copyright owner.
- A statement that the complainant has a good faith belief that the material is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or law.
- The complainant’s physical or electronic signature.
Counter Notices
| Month | Valid counter notices | Accounts affected with restored content | Posts restored | Pieces of content restored |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 2 | 2 | 10 | 20 |
| February | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| March | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| April | 7 | 4 | 15 | 15 |
| May | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| June | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 12 | 6 | 25 | 35 |
Notes
- Under the DMCA, a user can formally challenge a notice of copyright infringement by submitting a counter notice. When we receive a counter notice, we forward a copy to the individual who submitted the original DMCA notice and restore access to the content if no further action is taken.
- In accordance with the statute, a valid counter notice must contain:
- The user’s physical or electronic signature.
- The user’s name, address, and phone number.
- Identification of the material and its location before it was removed.
- A statement under penalty of perjury that the material was removed by mistake or misidentification.
- The user’s consent to the jurisdiction of a federal court in the district where the user lives (or the federal district court located in New York County, New York, if the user lives outside of the U.S.).
- The user’s consent to accept service of process from the party who submitted the takedown notice.
Trademark
| Month | Number of notices received | Number of URLs affected | Percentage blogs terminated | Percentage of blog content removed | Percentage of URLs changed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 20 | 5 | 20% | 5% | 10% |
| February | 17 | 3 | 18% | 0% | 0% |
| March | 16 | 7 | 44% | 0% | 0% |
| April | 15 | 4 | 27% | 13% | 0% |
| May | 23 | 22 | 78% | 0% | 13% |
| June | 25 | 12 | 32% | 0% | 16% |
| Total | 116 | 53 | 38% | 3% | 9% |
Notes
- Handling trademark issues (either potential infringement or instances of confusion) is complex, especially for neutral platforms like Tumblr, and consequently requires additional analysis as compared to copyright infringement. We first require documentation of a live federal or international trademark registration—often the name of a business or brand or its logo. We then look at a variety of factors to determine if reported content or a URL is misleading to users or causes confusion, and what action to take in these cases. Among them:
- How the reported term is being used.
- Content found on the blog.
- The registered goods and services.
- Landscape of similar marks related to the reported term.
- When the reported term was first used.
- If a user is using a misleading URL, we may require them to change it. We notify the URL holder and give them an opportunity to change the URL on their own before we change the URL to something generic on their behalf.
- Alternatively, we may request that a user include a disclaimer on their blog.
- Sometimes, we remove specific posts that are using a term to create confusion. Like all content takedowns on the site, we always notify the user when we remove any of their content, and include as much information as possible regarding the claim made against their post.
Possible Emerging Trends
In the course of comparing our numbers from this period (January through June 2021) to those from previous period, we noticed the following trends:
- There was an increase in the number of DMCA takedown notices over this period, and an increase in the percentage that were valid.
- The number of posts and pieces of content identified by counter notices that we have received from users requesting the restoration of content that had been removed pursuant to a DMCA takedown notice has increased compared to the previous period.
- We have seen a decrease in the number of trademark complaints we’ve received over the past reporting period, with an increase of the percentage of URLs changed for Trademark Infringement.
Government Takedown Demands
Summary
Like other technology and communications companies, Tumblr routinely receives content removal requests from governments and law enforcement agencies worldwide. These requests may allege that the reported content is in violation of local law(s), or the agency may ask us to review the reported content against Tumblr’s Terms of Service. The Transparency Report contains data on all government agency removal requests for each 6 month period.
Evaluating Government Takedown Requests
We carefully review each government takedown request, and are unable to process overly broad or vague requests. Court orders must be submitted in accordance with our legal guidelines, and takedown requests must clearly identify the content in question by providing a link or permalink to a blog or specific post.
We first review any reported content in accordance with Tumblr’s policies and Terms of Service.
We do not remove reported content if it does not violate Tumblr’s policies or Terms of Service, however we may restrict content where it is alleged to be in violation of local law(s). See the Content Restrictions section below for more information on this.
Content Restrictions
When we receive a government-mandated demand or order to block access to content in a country due to alleged violation of local law(s), but the content does not breach Tumblr’s policies or Terms of Service, we may geographically restrict access to that content for users and visitors with IP addresses originating from that country. We include data about geoblocks in our Transparency Report.
Where content has been geographically restricted, we provide users of the affected content with a notification that the content has been restricted, the impacted country, and the authority that requested the content block.
Notes
- As of January 1, 2024 we expanded our transparency report data categories to fulfill the requirements of the European Union’s Digital Services Act.
- Government takedown requests may target multiple posts, blogs, or related content. The number of reported items is counted per site, not per individual link. Direct media links are not treated as separate sites, which may cause the reported site count to differ from the actual number of sites involved in a request.
Government Takedown Demands
| Country | Removal requests | Total items specified | Data removed (#) | Data removed (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 6 | 33 | 32 | 97% |
| Canada | 121 | 163 | 158 | 97% |
| China | 5 | 19 | 6 | 32% |
| Columbia | 1 | 1 | 1 | 100% |
| Denmark | 1 | 6 | 6 | 100% |
| France | 3 | 3 | 3 | 100% |
| Germany | 5 | 11 | 10 | 91% |
| India | 2 | 7 | 0 | 0% |
| Japan | 64 | 418 | 416 | 100% |
| Korea | 1,216 | 8,437 | 6,874 | 81% |
| Malaysia | 6 | 9 | 6 | 67% |
| Norway | 1 | 1 | 1 | 100% |
| Pakistan | 9 | 17 | 7 | 41% |
| Russia | 60 | 61 | 32 | 52% |
| Singapore | 3 | 3 | 3 | 100% |
| Taiwan | 7 | 12 | 10 | 83% |
| Turkey | 7 | 13 | 12 | 92% |
| United Kingdom | 84 | 850 | 792 | 93% |
| United States | 85 | 796 | 759 | 95% |
| Total | 1,686 | 10,860 | 9,128 | 84% |
Notes
- This government removal request data includes similar requests from non-governmental organizations which put dedicated resources towards reporting potential violations of Tumblr’s guidelines. This contributed to the significant volume in countries such as South Korea, where the majority of requests come from the WHIRK organization.
EU Terrorist Content Removal Orders
On June 7, 2022, the European Union’s regulation on preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online came into effect. This regulation introduces new requirements related to content removal, preservation of account information, and transparency reporting, specifically regarding materials that an EU member state believes to have been created for terrorist purposes.
The information below represents the number of content removal orders we received, as well as data related to user appeals of terrorist content removals from Tumblr.com based on both EU removal orders and our standard moderation practices.
Totals
Identifying and Removing Terrorist Content
Content created for the purposes of terrorism, violent extremism, or calls to violence is prohibited on Tumblr.
Like most online hosts, we do not pre-screen the content that millions of users post to our services. We evaluate reports of content that violate our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service and take some limited measures to proactively surface other abusive content that is posted to our services. We try to make the process for reporting abusive or illegal sites as transparent and simple as possible. If you see a site that you believe violates our policies, please report it here.
Additionally, we partner with a number of industry coalitions, such as the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism and Tech Against Terrorism to proactively locate, identify, and remove violent extremist content. We also work closely with law enforcement and other government agencies around the world to address quickly any illegal or otherwise abusive content discovered on our platform.
We do not automatically remove websites from Tumblr; a (human) member of our Trust & Safety team reviews each report and makes a decision on whether it violates our policies. While we are legally required to remove all content that is the subject of an EU Regulation content removal order, we still manually review each order to ensure accuracy and validity.
Freedom of Expression
All reports of terrorist content are investigated by a member of our staff.
One important reason we review each report is to guard against the removal of material posted to legitimate blogs (e.g., citizen journalists) that discuss terrorism or terrorist groups. In another context, some of the materials they publish may qualify as terrorist propaganda or calls to violence, and would be removed under our policies. Although it requires additional effort to review each report, we do so because we take the task of protecting legitimate speech and expression seriously.
Privacy Reports
Summary
At Tumblr, protecting and preserving the privacy of our community members has always been a top priority (right next to curating the internet’s best memes). That’s why, in accordance with privacy regulations, we go to great lengths to provide all members of the Tumblr community and staff with a plain view of our security and privacy practices. This report includes a comprehensive overview of requests, and provides an outline of the user data removal and retrieval process.
Access Requests
Notes
- Automattic honors Access Requests from any source or location. It does not restrict Access Requests to individuals residing in certain locations. Automattic has never denied an Access Request from one of its users.
- We do not require individuals who submit Access Requests to disclose their location as part of their request.
Deletion Requests
Notes
- The deletion of data is tied to our account closure process, which is always self-service and can only be triggered by the logged in account owner or administrator. Because the process is self-service, we do not have data on the full number of users who desired to delete their personal information from our service. The above numbers only represent the total number of deletion requests opened privately with our Support team.
- Because deletion is self-service, Automattic does not deny deletion requests for any verified and logged in account owners. Deletion requests submitted to Support are occasionally denied when an individual has lost access to their account and is unable to verify their ownership.
- Automattic vigorously defends the speech rights of its site owners. We do not honor deletion requests submitted by third parties in an attempt to censor the content published on our service unless the content is found to violate our Terms of Service. We will, upon request of the third party, pass complaints on to site owners.
- When an account is closed, we retain the account data for 30 days, then fully purge it from our systems. For this reason, the length of time it takes to honor a deletion request is always 30 days.
Overview of GDPR and CCPA Requests Received
Notes
- Under GDPR and CCPA regulations, Tumblr is required in some circumstances to provide copies of the information it has about someone if that individual requests it, and to facilitate the electronic removal or restriction of personal information, should a person wish to have their info deleted. Additionally, under the GDPR Tumblr must sometimes obtain the expressed consent of individuals when transferring or processing their personal information. More information defining the rights of the data subject can be found in the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Tumblr’s Data Deletion Process:
Users have the ability to request removal of personal information held by Tumblr at any time. Visit Tumblr’s Help Center for a more detailed description of the data deletion process.
Tumblr’s Data Access Process:
Users can use their privacy settings to see and manage many aspects of how their information is used. Users can also request to obtain and download data associated with their Tumblr account. Visit Tumblr’s Help Center for a more detailed description of the data access process.
Additionally, individuals in California can contact us at ccpa@tumblr.com to obtain information about the categories of information we are processing about them, the categories of uses for that information, and the categories of third parties with whom the information is shared.
Right to Opt-Out of the Sale of Personal Information
Limiting Tumblr’s use of personal information:
- Tumblr selectively runs advertisements so we can provide you with Tumblr content for free. To help select which ads to show you, we may share some of your information with advertising partners, or allow our advertising partners to “collect” certain information. Under the CCPA, this data sharing may be considered a “sale.” In compliance with the CCPA’s “Right to Opt-Out of the Sale of Personal Information,” we offer users an opportunity to request that Tumblr not share their personal information with our advertising partner.
Automattic Transparency Reports 