To the people who pile hate on AO3 for hosting what they deem as âinappropriateâ conduct:
Do you also spend your time boycotting libraries?
Public libraries across the country continue to carry thousands of books like Nabokovâs Lolita (pedophilia), VC Andrewsâ Flowers in the Attic series (incest), and Emma Donoghueâs Room (rape). Those books are available for free to any number of underage people who happen to have a library card. They are often âuntagged.â
Do you also spend your time boycotting pirate/torrent sites? Many movies with inappropriate content are available online to download for free.
How about TV? What about popular songs with inappropriate subject matter? Do you have a problem with radio? With Spotify? Do you know how many ways there are to expose someone to content that mentions pedophilia, rape, incest, murder, or basically any other evil thing in the world?
Why do you get to decide what content is okay to publish on an online platform designed for and by adults? Why do you take issue with a site that posts its budget online, refuses to run ads and provides an absolutely free publishing platform for writers to share their work with a wide audience? Why do you take issue with a site that requires an age check and provides ways to helpfully tag works for particular content, in a way that most other content distributors do not?
Letâs talk about the bottom line, here: writing about something is not the same as endorsing it.
Letâs say it louder for the people in the back: writing about something is not the same as endorsing it.
You all think Stephen King is a murderer? How about the people who write every disturbing episode of Law & Order: SVU? How about the creators of any of the zillions of teen dramas that show teenagers having sex? Why is that content any different than the content available on AO3?
Thereâs a standard in the United States for what does and does not constitute child pornography. Itâs called the Miller Test. Read it and familiarize yourself with it before you hurl around damaging accusations.
But thatâs kind of irrelevant, because: AO3â˛s policies specifically prohibit the hosting of actual child pornography. Their Terms of Service page outlines, in detail, the kind of work they will and will not host.
AO3 makes it possible for countless writers and artists to create transformative work. They have an endless supply of creative content and they choose to make no money from this venture. They also pledge to help legally defend anyoneâs right to create fan works.They donât require you to buy a book or a theater ticket or a monthly subscription fee to read all of this work to your heartâs content, without popup ads, without selling peopleâs information. AO3Â has been hugely responsible for making fanfiction possible, period.Â
And if you censor some of it? You censor ALL of it. There is no fair or reasonable way to determine what content is okay and what is not okay, because fiction is not math, and there is no scientific formula for âappropriate.â
EVEN SO, refer again to the Terms of Service above, in which AO3 does set specific limits on the content it will host.Â
Do you know what isnât appropriate? Censoring artists. Telling writers they canât write about certain topics. Bullying fans who donât write the pairings you personally deem âokay.â Policing people for writing fictional stories.
In short: Donate to AO3. They make fandom possible on a daily basis.