One. Ao3 does not host child porn. You can stop with that lie right the fuck now. Child porn(or the more correct term Child Sexual Abuse/Exploitation Material) is when someone has a child under their control and forces them to perform sexual acts and either photographs or films it. It is a recorded documentation of abuse and is in fact illegal(and therefore not allowed to be hosted on Ao3) It is wrong, immoral, and illegal because a real live, breathing child with thoughts, and feelings is being hurt and will have to live with the memory of their abuse for the rest of their lives.The term does not apply to non-photorealistic fanart, or to written words depicting events that did not actually happen(meaning there is no victim and no-one has to live with the memory of the events). Treating either fanart or fanfic as the same as real life abuse is an insult and dis-service to every single child that has ever been sexually exploited because you think their suffering is equivalents to lines on paper. That you think the immorality of CSEM is because it makes you feel âickyâ and not because they were being hurt and exploited. People writing fanfic of two teenage characters making out is in no way equivalent to a real life child having their rape recorded, but I routinely see people calling for moderation on Ao3 acting like it is.
Two. As for the racist(and every other kind of bigotry that can be depicted) Iâm going to be honest. I donât trust the various fandom communities to make a set of standards that arenât just one group of fans forcing their will and preferences onto the rest of fans. I donât know what fandoms youâve been in, but Iâve seen fandoms with interracial ships where if you have the black character top youâre being racist because itâs playing into racist mandrigo tropes. But at the same time you would have people claiming that having the black character bottom youâre also being racist for making the black man submissive. So are both depictions/options racist, are neither of them, or are people just trying to make their personal fic preferences/interpretations some sort of moral issue and force people to cater to them? Iâve been in fandom communities where the admin/moderators refused to let anyone post fics that didnât match their preferences(despite claiming to be friendly to all fics) So itâs very much coming from a place of experience that says trying moderate Ao3 based on racism, or any other problematic metric/rubric you want to use will just end up being used to silence people(including other fans of color)
Racism exists in fandom because we live in a racist society and that will filter into ALL media, including fanfic. Trying to remove so called racist fanfic wonât make society any less racist. All it does is give a tool for bullies to try to control and harass people. Everyone has their own personal biases some conscious, some only in their subconscious that they havenât bothered to unpack Trying to moderate content based on standards like racism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc⊠will inevitably lead to the moderators own personal biases leaking through resulting in uneven, inconsistent moderation resulting nothing but hurt feelings and fighting.Â
Third. I would just like to mention just how heartless and unempathic you sounds when you act like random mass deletions and purges are no big deal. You have no idea how much it hurts to wake up and find something you created just gone. To find large swaths of fics that you enjoyed again and again, that you found comfort in, deleted never to be recovered. To say nothing of when Livejournal caved to a bunch of right-wing christian evangelical trolls and deleted a bunch of users and communities. People were devastated. people lost support communities and were frantically trying to find the friends they had made in those communities.
I know it may be hard to believe but fiction and art do not cause harm just by existing. A story that may be upsetting and triggering for one person, may bring healing and comfort to another, because everyone brings their own set of experiences and persepctives into every story they read, and therefore each takes something slightly different from it. But you and every other person calling for moderation on Ao3 act a story causes harm to everyone, again just by existing. Itâs an insane perspective that makes no sense to me. A story I am not forced to read canât hurt me any more than someone practicing a different religion can hurt me.
snowghoul
vaporwave
2087
discoholicmusic
kianamaiart
dededos
romaincrisis
janainaart
