"Disappear" (transitive) is absolutely a reference to a human-rights violation. See http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/disappear:

disappear (ˌdɪsəˈpɪə)

— vb

1. ( intr ) to cease to be visible; vanish

2. ( intr ) to go away or become lost, esp secretly or without explanation

3. ( intr ) to cease to exist, have effect, or be known; become extinct or lost: the pain has disappeared

4. ( tr ) (esp in South and Central America) to arrest secretly and presumably imprison or kill (a member of an opposing political group)

In the fourth of four variants, where all three of the earlier ones seem to apply well here. Language is language. Causes and issues, no matter how grave, don't get to own bits of it.

None of the first three apply here. They are all clearly marked as intransitive ("The train disappeared into the night") rather than transitive ("Tumblr disappeared her").

The first three are intransitive senses; I'm sorry the abbreviation "intr" wasn't familiar to you, but it's quite common in dictionaries. Please delete your unnecessarily aggressive comment, ajross.

It's an inflammatory word whose use is designed to associate with despicable and unpleasant deeds. It's in bad taste to dilute the meaning of the word for personal vanity.

It's a perfectly valid usage that does not at all necessarily imply political assassinations or other despicable. No reasonable person would interpret her post's title as claiming any kind of equivalence with political assassination, and any suspicion of that wouldn't survive a cursory reading of the actual post.

Also, Ms. Boyd holds a PhD from the Berkeley School of Information and is a well known & respected Microsoft researcher in social networking & media and online identity. The professional interest in not having broken links to her writings alone is sufficient to remove this matter from the realm of "personal vanity," nevermind the more substantive yet slippery matters of identity.

Additionally, the post title 'Tumblr disappears [someone]' pretty much implies they're not being sent to the gulag or gitmo, it's just a figure of speech.

People sent to the gulag were, as far as I know, never disappeared. They were arrested, subjected to a trial, and sentenced. Transitive "disappear" entered modern English from Spanish used to describe the actions of the US's allies against their citizens during the Cold War.