Cannes - David Karp, the founder of Tumblr, has claimed that there are too many “jerks” making derogatory comments on rival sites, and his blogging website is taking the “drive-by nastiness” out of social networking.
“It is very hard when you have comments under videos from jerks - it really hurts,” said Mr Karp, referring to other sites. “We've taken a lot of work making Tumblr a nice environment.”
Tumblr allows people to “like” blog postings but there is less opportunity to post rude comments on a fellow user's page.
“When I am saying anything about you, I'm saying it on my page. If I'm being a jerk, I am being a jerk, but your page can be pristine,” he told an audience of advertisers at the Cannes Lions festival of creativity in France.
The 26-year-old sold his site to Yahoo for $1.1bn last month but carries little advertising at present.
He said his site struck a chord with users because it was not trying to operate a popularity contest, even though it has over 115 million blogs.
“We don't share your stats, we don't share your followers. Your performance isn't published. There's no shame about having only 2 000 followers which I always thought was pretty gross on other sites.” - The Independent