Introduction to Social Media Investigation: A Hands-on Approach, 1st Edition (2015)

Chapter 14. Tumblr

Abstract

Tumblr is a microblogging Web site. Users can post photos, videos, and text blog entries. There is no character limit (as on Twitter), but the site is organized and presented in a way that favors shorter content. This chapter presents an overview of the different types of information people share on the site and how to find those people.

Keywords

Social media

Social networks

Tumblr

Microblogging

Description of the Site

Tumblr is a microblogging website. Users can post photos, videos, and text blog entries. There is no character limit (as on Twitter), but the site is organized and presented in a way that favors shorter content.

Posting

The top of the Tumblr page has options for users to create posts. There are seven post types (see Figure 14.1): Text, Photo, Quote (a stylized text post), Link, Chat (another stylized type of text), Audio, and Video.

FIGURE 14.1 The post types on Tumblr.

Selecting any post type brings up a simple interface for either entering text or uploading a file. Figure 14.2 shows the interface for creating a text post.

FIGURE 14.2 The interface to create a text post on Tumblr.

Posts are published to a Tumblr blog created by the user. Figure 14.3 shows part of Malcom's Tumblr blog.

FIGURE 14.3 Malcom's Tumblr blog.

Hashtags

Hashtags are used very frequently within Tumblr. Figure 14.3 shows a couple on the photo Malcom has posted. Since photos are a very common type of media to share on Tumblr, hashtags improve the searchability of content.

Sharing

In addition to creating their own content, users have the option to share posts by others through reblogging. At the bottom of each post is a double arrow icon. (See Figure 14.3, in the lower right corner of Malcom's first photo post.) Clicking that brings up a window where users can add comments and repost the original item to their own blogs. These appear in the list of posts, similar to how retweets on Twitter will appear on a user's page.

Users can also like posts by clicking the small heart next to the reblog post.

Following

Users can also follow others. When they do, posts from other users appear on their dashboard. Figure 14.4 shows Malcom's dashboard. It includes his most recent posts along with those from other people. The dashboard is visible only to the user who controls it.

FIGURE 14.4 Malcom's Tumblr dashboard. It shows his posts and posts from people he follows.

Tumblr users can control the appearance of their blogs. Malcom's blog in Figure 14.3 is the simple, default appearance, or theme. Users can choose alternate themes. Some of these may show additional information, such as who the user follows or which posts they have liked.

User Demographics

Tumblr is smaller than some of the sites we have covered in this book. Estimates suggest it has 30-50 million active users. But Tumblr's parent company, Yahoo!, claimed they receive 300 million unique visitors each month. This difference can be accounted for by people who visit the site to look at content without having accounts.

Tumblr has a very young audience, with nearly half its members aged between 16 and 24. It also has a higher population of Hispanic users than might be expected. They make up roughly 20% of Tumblr users—twice the representation of Hispanic users online. The male-female split is pretty even, with women accounting for a few percentage points more of the population than men.

Finding People

Tumblr has a search option, but it's designed mainly to find content, not individual users. For example, consider a search for “Robert Smith” as a common example name. Tumblr's search results are shown in Figure 14.5. The results consist of blogs that mention Robert Smith in the title (generally about the lead singer for The Cure).

FIGURE 14.5 Search results on Tumblr.

Via Autocomplete

The autocompleted suggestions under the search bar (in the upper right) show blogs that have similar names to the search term. The results on the page include blogs that mention the name, followed by posts that mention it. You may be able to find a user this way.

Via Known Usernames

If you know a common username used by the target, another option is to directly test it as a Tumblr blog name. Simply go to http://«username».tumblr.com, where «username» is replaced with the target's username.

Via “Following” Lists

Most people do not share a list of people they follow on their blogs. However, some users choose to add this. It generally appears as a grid of icons, each representing the main picture of the blog being followed. Figure 14.6 shows an example (with the icons blurred to protect users' privacy).

FIGURE 14.6 An example of a grid of icons that show who a user is following.

When this is available, you may be able to perform a social search for a target. If you can find an associate of the target and if that associate has a list of people he or she follows, searching that list may turn up the target's account.

Obtaining Data

It is possible to browse Tumblr without having an account. After you have found a target, the main source of data you will find about him is in the posts he has made on his blog.

If you want a quick overview of those posts, particularly if you are looking at a lot of photos, you can append “/archive” to the end of the address for his page. For example, for Malcom's archive, you can go to http://malcomcsmith.tumblr.com/archive.

Privacy Levels and Access

Tumblr posts are all visible to the public, even if the viewer does not have a Tumblr account. But there's one exception: users can create private Tumblr blogs. Private blogs are password-protected. So, unless you know a password commonly used by a target, it will not be possible to access private blogs.

Case Studies

Tumblr has been a source in a number of investigations.

Joanie Faircloth

In 2013, a woman used her Tumblr account to accuse singer Conor Oberst of raping her nearly a decade earlier. Her original post read in part:

I became a huge fan of Conor's music, and for my 16th birthday, Bright Eyes was playing a local show and my old English teacher (Conor's brother) arranged for me to go and meet Conor after the show as a birthday present of sorts. Conor definitely took advantage of my teenage crush on him. At first, I was flattered when he was playing with my hair and had his hand on my leg. It was like my dream come true at that point. But then he clearly wanted to go further and I made it very clear and told him I was a virgin and wasn't prepared to change that right then but he didn't stop.¹

The singer denied the allegations and sued the poster, Joanie Faircloth, for libel.

After her identity was revealed and she was sued, she retracted her post, saying:

The statements I made and repeated online and elsewhere over the past six months accusing Conor Oberst of raping me are 100% false. I publicly retract my statements about Conor Oberst and sincerely apologize to him, his family, and his fans for writing such awful things about him.²

Shoplifting Community

On Tumblr, some people even create problems for themselves with the truth. A community of users formed on Tumblr around shoplifting. Posters would blog photos of the things they had shoplifted, including tallies of the value. They also posted lists of tips and tricks for successfully shoplifting.³

After one Tumblr user discovered the group, their posts were commented on and reblogged extensively. There are no reports of anyone being arrested as a result of these posts, but the public outing and shaming of this group of users illustrates what can be discovered when people think their posts are quiet and anonymous.

Child Pornography

As one might suspect on a photo-heavy site like Tumblr, pornography is popular. Unfortunately, cases of child pornography are being shared as well. In the summer of 2014, a Baton Rouge man was arrested for posting two pornographic images of children to his Tumblr blog, including one photo of a boy who was only 5-years-old.⁴ A later search found additional images on his hard drive at home. He was subsequently arrested and charged with distribution of child pornography.

Threats of Violence

Another user who got himself arrested and jailed because of Tumblr posts is Caleb Jamaal Clemmons. The 20-year-old student created a Tumblr post that read: “Hello, my name is irenigg and i plan on shooting up georgia southern [university]. Pass this around to see the affect it has to see if i get arrested.⁵” Only hours later, he was arrested and charged with making terrorist threats. The man claimed his posts were merely a joke, but a judge disagreed. Not only was he sentenced to 6 months in jail and 5 years of probation, but also he was banned from four Georgia counties and banned from using any social media.

Conclusions

Tumblr is a microblogging platform where users share text, photos, and videos. It has a primarily young audience, with half their users under 25-years-old. Users can follow one another, reblog posts, and favorite each other's posts. There is basically no profile information on Tumblr, so the main source of information about a target comes from the content of his or her posts. These, however, can be quite revealing, so Tumblr is a worthwhile source to use if a target has an account.