Some fics on ao3 are so brutal, why are they allowed to stay up???
Because AO3 is a hosting service. They don’t exist to police the content on their site as long as that content doesn’t breach the Terms of Service.
It’s an author’s responsibility to tag and rate and warn their fics appropriately. It’s a reader’s responsibility to read those tags and ratings and warnings and decide whether or not they want to read the fic. Anyone who isn’t willing to do their part probably shouldn’t be using the service.
In the wake of China apparently banning AO3 in the country, this post has been making the rounds on Weibo and now on Twitter. I thought I’d bring it back here, as well.
AO3 has a robust tagging system so that users can either find or avoid content. The site doesn’t moderate the content because the users do. If authors fail to tag or readers fail to pay attention to tags, that moderation slips and people are exposed to content they don’t want to see.
I love the fact that AO3 puts the power over what I see in my hands. I have control, not some faceless person and certainly not my government. I can see whatever I want to see and avoid whatever I want to avoid and every other user of the site can do the same thing.
This is a group effort, and if there’s anything that fandom is good at it’s banding together to get shit done. Tag your fics. Read the tags. Don’t be an asshole.
Seriously, as both a AO3 user and a Chinese, I wish those “Chinese fandom culture” could just piss off. How stupid they are of doing this!
