Tumblr has rolled out a privacy measure that allows online users to take blog security up a notch, effectively keeping out unwanted visitors.
The new feature lets users toggle their blogs' Web visibility, offering specific options such as allowing the blog to appear in search results. When it's set as invisible to the Web, followers can only view it on Tumblr.com or Tumblr apps, and unwarranted visitors who type in a blog's URL will get a 404 error instead. Followers will also still be able to like, reblog and reply to posts.
"Just a simple layer of privacy to let you better control who gets to see your stuff and who doesn't," Tumblr posted on its blog.
It works great with Tumblr's block feature, giving its users extensive control over who sees their content. These functions are meant to give bloggers the power to weed out trolls and abusers as well as keep them away.
However, main blogs can't be completely private, but users can create secondary password-protected blogs, basically creating a makeshift whitelist in which other members can invite others by sharing the password.
On the other hand, it seems odd how Tumblr doesn't give users complete authority on their blogs, even though other social apps such as Instagram and Twitter have been letting their users set their accounts to private for a long time now.
Also, it doesn't seem to be a useful feature because bloggers won't really intend to block the whole Internet. Without visitors, a blog kind of seems pointless because a physical or offline journal will work a lot better.
The 404 error message doesn't help either. When users come across the dreaded four-oh-four message, they will assume that the blog is no longer active, which could significantly cut down potential followers.
It seems that the only nice thing that Tumblr's new feature provided is that users can now customize their privacy settings, but it's far from innovative.
Photo: Romain Toornier | Flickr
