This is an evolving document, as we continue to roll out moderation features. Features will change and be updated and evolve frequently during this development process! The handbook will be updated to reflect new changes, and future (not yet available) features may also appear here (properly marked as future).
Moderators (also called mods) are community members who have agreed to help maintain the health of the community. They are promoted to moderator by an admin of the community. Since each community on Tumblr has different topics and guidelines, mods will moderate differently depending on which community they’re supporting.
To review the moderators in the communities you are in, open the community and in the right sidebar, select Members. There you can browse all members, view just admins, or just moderators by choosing between the options at the top of the list.
In the image below, you can see the different badges for moderators (top) and admins (bottom). Moderators have a shield badge, to indicate that they are responsible for safeguarding the health of the community, and admins have a star badge, for instant recognition even at small sizes.
It’s important to note that moderators don’t have special abilities outside of the communities they moderate (aside from being a unique, talented, and probably very discerning user of Tumblr), and they are not members of Tumblr Staff. They can and should moderate their communities according to the guidelines established by its admins, as long as they abide by the Tumblr Terms of Service and User Guidelines. Tumblr Staff will not intervene in community disputes, unless someone has violated the Tumblr Terms of Service.
In general, it’s important for moderators to build trust within the communities they moderate, and using the community features, along with regularly posting and commenting, help in that regard. Therefore, it’s required that moderators also abide by the guidelines of their community, treat other members with respect, and stay aligned with their admins and any other moderators. Moderators are there to serve the community, and the community guidelines are there to support the health of the community. If moderators are not meeting this requirement, members are encouraged to leave the community and start their own.
Admins cannot be demoted! The only way an admin can stop being an admin is by voluntarily leaving the community and rejoining (or being invited back). Admins cannot be banned by other admins.
Admins can see all content in their communities and all community members can see Admin content, regardless of blocks. This only applies to content within the community! If you need to block an admin, you will still see their content in their community. Admins need to be able to see all content within the community so they can act on it, and all members need to be aware of Admin announcements.
Moderators can:
- Invite new community members (if enabled)
- Remove any post in a community (but not in broader Tumblr)
- Remove any comment in a community (but not in broader Tumblr)
Admins can:
- Invite new community members
- Ban existing community members
- Promote / demote members to moderators
- Promote members or moderators to admins
- Edit the community’s guidelines
- Edit the community’s name, description, and other settings
- Delete any post in a community (but not in broader Tumblr)
- Delete any comment in a community (but not in broader Tumblr)
Moderators are responsible for the health of the community. All community members must adhere to the Tumblr User Guidelines as well as the specific community guidelines defined by its admins. Communities are not allowed to circumvent those user guidelines for all of Tumblr, and communities found in violation are subject to removal.
When a post or comment violates the User Guidelines for Tumblr, the mod should escalate the post or comment to the Tumblr Trust and Safety team (“T&S”) by using the Report option in the meatball menu (as you would report any violative post on Tumblr). However, if a particular admin or mod generates a high rate of false reports, their reports will receive less priority going forward. Once the violative content has been escalated, it will be removed from the community (though in the future, it will be visible in the audit log until T&S has taken action).
The audit log of moderation actions will be visible to all community members, though removed content will only be visible to moderators and admins.
When a post or comment violates the community’s guidelines, the post will disappear as soon as the mod removes the content. To all other members, an in-feed signpost will appear to show that a mod has removed the content.
Mods can visit the audit log to review all past moderation decisions, reverse community moderation decisions (though not decisions made by T&S), and leave notes on community moderation decisions.
By forging a solid relationship with your community, you can rely on their reports to take action on things that don’t belong in your community.
In short, moderate anything that violates the community guidelines specified for the community! We recommend that a community’s admins and moderators agree together on what approach to take. Things teams should consider include:
- Whether to warn before removal for first-time or infrequent violations.
- Whether to instantly remove content that doesn’t comply with the community guidelines.
- Whether to instantly remove violative members.
Without a clear understanding within the group of how strict to be, the entire community could feel confused about inconsistent moderation decisions. This can also lead to accusations of discrimination. We encourage you to be as consistent and transparent as possible in all moderation decisions. When you make a moderation decision, you must enter a reason for removal. This helps you remember why you made a decision in the past, and it helps other mods and admins understand how you moderate. It’s also a useful tool for training new mods!
The most basic condition of when to remove (or warn about) a post or comment is when it violates your community guidelines.
When moderating content, it’s best to:
- Keep an open mind and remember that not everyone in your community may come from the same background or life experience as you.
- Consider how your guidelines could be misinterpreted. If someone’s content breaks the rules of your community, it may be the result of a misunderstanding, and they may need help course-correcting rather than receiving punitive action.
- Consider context and intent! Some violations of your community’s guidelines will be obvious on the surface, but others may need deeper review.
- When in doubt, lean on the hive mind. If there are multiple moderators in your community, connect with them for confidence checks before making a final decision. Different perspectives can help keep decisions fair and consistent.
If the above are your community guidelines, your job is to make sure that all content in the community meets these expectations. Therefore, you would moderate any content that was not nice, did not treat other people with respect, or was off-topic. Your particular community may have many more guidelines. Depending on what you choose to put in your community guidelines, you may find overlap with the list of moderation reasons below.
The moderation reasons that a mod or admin can choose from currently include the following:
- Violates community guidelines
- Off-topic
- Spam
- Inappropriate behavior
- Violates Tumblr guidelines
- Other
Let’s review each reason.
Violates community guidelines: This means the post or comment was deemed to be in violation of the guidelines that the admin created and posted (e.g., a guideline might be written as, “be kind,” so the mod or admin may remove any post or comment that is unkind).
Off-topic: Most relevant to fandom communities (but not exclusively!), a mod or admin may mark a post as “off-topic” if it has nothing to do with the community’s purpose (e.g., posting about kitties in a puppies-only community).
Spam: True spam is a violation of Tumblr guidelines as well, so choosing this option will automatically flag the offender to Tumblr Trust and Safety. Only use it when you are 100% certain that the post or comment is spam! If someone is writing the same thing on every post, you may want to warn them first by choosing “other,” and let them know that this behavior constitutes spam behavior, and only report them if they won’t stop. True malicious spamming includes attempting to deceive other members in order to generate revenue or traffic, or create posts in communities with the primary purpose of affiliate marketing.
Inappropriate behavior: This covers content that feels inappropriate for your community. It’s nebulous, because while you may have some guidelines written, you may discover the more you moderate content that there are cases that don’t exactly violate your guidelines, but you know you don’t want in your community.
Violates Tumblr guidelines: This covers any content that violates Tumblr’s User Guidelines. Choosing this option will always flag the post to Tumblr Trust and Safety! You will also be required to enter a reason to validate why you believe the post or comment is violating the Tumblr guidelines.
Other: This option covers literally anything else. You will always need to enter a reason when choosing this option. You may want to use this option to warn a user before a ban or more serious moderation action.
When a post or comment receives a number of reports that meets the threshold set by admins, it will be automatically hidden from public view and sent to the moderation queue for review.
The default report threshold is set as follows:
- For communities with 40 or fewer members: the threshold is set to 3 reports
- For larger communities: the threshold is calculated as 5% of the community size, but always stays within the range of 3 reports and 10 reports.
Admins can change the threshold from the Smart Moderation section in their community settings.
Being a moderator isn’t just about removing content, it’s about shaping your community. The moderation queue makes it easy to see what needs attention, act quickly, and keep the vibes right.
Your community members can now report posts and comments that are inappropriate for the community. These reports will land in the moderation queue, which community admins and moderators can access.
In the moderation queue, moderators can:
- Remove content that doesn’t belong.
- Escalate reports that break Tumblr guidelines to staff for further review.
- Dismiss reports when the content fits within the community guidelines.
Every action is saved in the audit log, so there’s always a record of what happened and why. Pending reports will also show a red badge count in your sidebar on web, so you’ll always know when there’s something to review.
The moderation audit log is designed to give moderators and admins a clear, accessible history of all moderation actions, including the reasoning, timing, and specific content involved. This view is only available to moderators and admins.
With this tool, moderators and admins can ensure transparency and accountability in their decision-making processes, making it easier to reflect on and ensure consistency across moderation actions. This feature empowers moderators and admins to review past actions effectively, fostering trust and alignment within their teams and providing a reliable reference point for maintaining moderation standards over time.
If you’re navigating Tumblr from a desktop device, you can access it from the community menu shown on the side.
On mobile, you can access it from the shield icon in the community header.
To moderate a post or comment, in the meatball menu of the post (…) select “Moderate post” or “Moderate comment.”
When the moderation overlay appears, choose the correct reason for the removal, and add your rationale. It’s important to include a note (and it is required for some of the options), so that other moderators can understand why you removed the post, and the member can understand why the post doesn’t fit within the community.
If the moderator or admin selects an option that automatically escalates to Tumblr Trust and Safety (Spam and Not allowed on Tumblr), additional criteria will appear that are required. For example, you will need to select the reason that the post or comment is not allowed on Tumblr, and the note will not be optional. Once “Remove” is clicked, the post or comment will be automatically escalated to Tumblr Trust and Safety, and the post will be removed from the community while comments will be replaced with a notice that they have been removed.
You can remove problematic members by going to the Community Members page and selecting “Remove @[blogname].” On mobile, the Members list can be found in the top-right meatball menu (•••); after searching for the member you want to remove, you can tap on the meatball menu (•••) beside the blog name.
While removing a member, you may choose to ban the account, preventing them from joining your community in the future.
If a post violates the Tumblr User Guidelines, make sure to report that post or comment. Here are some examples of violations of our Tumblr guidelines, so you know what to watch for. Keep in mind this is not an exhaustive list. Please be sure to review the complete User Guidelines so you’re familiar with what you should or should not escalate to Trust and Safety (T&S:)
- Harassment including sending unwanted messages, a pattern of abusive commenting on someone’s posts, or reblogging in an abusive way.
- Harassment is not: disagreeing with your opinion; promoting a ship you don’t like; taking moderation actions that are consistent with the community rules; behavior on other platforms.
- Hate speech which we define as encouraging violence, hatred, or dehumanization of individuals or groups based on race, ethnic or national origin, religion, gender, gender identity, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, disability, or disease.
- Hate speech is not: disagreeing with your opinion or political stance, posting about disagreeable things, posting about off-topic things.
- Violent threats which are closely related to hate speech. They are specific, credible threats of violent behavior towards someone else.
- Violent threats are not: in-jokes between mutuals who may have a dark sense of humor, non-credible threats.
- Additional examples:
- Spam – while a community member may post a couple posts in a row that are similar, this doesn’t rise to the level of needing to be reported to T&S. Additionally, if they are commenting with the same or similar message on every post, a good first action is to tell them to knock it off. However, if a user is using repeated posts and comments in a deceptive manner, whether to drive revenue or deceive readers in a malicious way, or seem to be attempting to recruit for affiliate marketing, that is worth reporting to T&S.
Note that while a post may not rise to the level of needing to be escalated to T&S, it may still violate your community guidelines and be cause for moderation (including removing the community member). For example, if your community has a guideline to be kind, and someone posts (or comments) something uncivil, you have every right to remove that content, and/or ask your admin to remove the community member.
Violating the Tumblr user guidelines may result in account suspension or content removal. Repeat violations may lead to permanent suspension. We strive for fair outcomes but like you, sometimes we get it wrong. As a result, users have the opportunity to appeal moderation decisions taken by our Trust and Safety teams.
In the audit log, members will be able to view the posts/comments that moderators and admins have moderated. They will not be able to view posts/comments that have been escalated to Tumblr Trust and Safety. If Tumblr Trust and Safety do not agree that the post violates Tumblr’s Terms of Service, then no action will be taken. The post will not reappear in the community, as the moderation team has already determined that the post violates their community. If a post is determined to violate Tumblr’s Terms of Service, the member will be notified directly, and can use that interaction to appeal if they feel this was in error. Community moderators and admins cannot appeal Tumblr Trust and Safety decisions on behalf of community members.
Tumblr Trust and Safety uses a three-tier system, in order of increasing severity, with the first tier comprising minimal action and impact (first time offenders, minor infractions), and the third tier comprising automatic, immediate suspension (gross violations). Tumblr uses a “first and only” warning system, where a first-time offender is given the benefit of the doubt for minor violations, and a warning is given about the behavior. The second time the behavior is repeated will result in suspension. Tumblr Trust and Safety will not discuss any users moderation history with any other user, so community moderation teams do not gain access to any private information.
Members will be able to view posts removed by the moderators and admins which have not been escalated to Tumblr Trust and Safety, and appeal them from the audit log. These appeals go to the moderation and admin team for that community, not to Tumblr Trust and Safety. Tumblr Trust and Safety will not get involved in community moderation decisions.
Promoting members to moderators is a vital way to stay on top of your community’s health and safety.
Admins can promote members to be mods or admins.
- The user you want to promote or demote needs to be a member of the Community.
- Navigate to “Members”.
- On web: Click “Members in the right sidebar.
- In the apps: Tap on “Members” under the Community’s name
- Click the meatballs next to the user you want to promote or demote and select one of the options to promote or demote them.
Demotion doesn’t remove the member from the community.
We encourage admins to think about what rules they may want to establish for promotion and demotion. For example, you may want to promote someone who has consistently demonstrated good judgment on posts (or at least ask them if they’d like to become a moderator!). You may want to define some criteria for demotion – like, breaching a threshold of improperly moderated posts/comments (you would decide the threshold, visible in the audit log), behaving uncivilly to community members, or acting partially or in response to bribes from community members.
When a member is promoted, they receive an activity item notifying them of the event.
Clicking on the activity item will then activate a short welcome event, outlining the basic responsibilities of all mods, and will link them to this handbook.
When a Mod is demoted, they will receive an activity item notifying them of the event. Clicking on the activity item will return them to the community.
These actions show up in the audit log.
There is no distinction between the admin role and an ownership role. If you are the admin of a Community and want to give ownership to another user, you can promote them (or several other users) to admin before leaving the Community.
To promote another user to be an admin of your Community, please see the section on “Promoting or Demoting Members” above.
If the only admin leaves a community, and the community has a moderator, the moderator will be automatically promoted to admin. If the only admin leaves, and there are no moderators, the oldest member of the community will be automatically promoted to admin.
