Hey, so, OP here. I wrote this post in a coffee shop last year when AO3 was doing their fundraiser, but since AO3 has just completed another fundraiser it’s collecting lots of notes again, and I’d like to address some things I didn’t when I had no idea that this post would get this many notes.
I am not a lawyer, but I am familiar with the US definition of Child Pornography. I’ve posted an explanation of the law below:
Images of child pornography are not protected under First Amendment rights, and are illegal contraband under federal law. Section 2256 of Title 18, United States Code, defines child pornography as any visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct involving a minor (someone under 18 years of age). Visual depictions include photographs, videos, digital or computer generated images indistinguishable from an actual minor, and images created, adapted, or modified, but appear to depict an identifiable, actual minor. Undeveloped film, undeveloped videotape, and electronically stored data that can be converted into a visual image of child pornography are also deemed illegal visual depictions under federal law.
Note that everything in the definition is about visual depictions. Written depictions of childhood sexual abuse do not constitute child pornography. Stories depicting CSA are generally considered protected as free speech, unless they are judged to be obscene, and it’s really hard to prove obscenity. So basically all the stories on AO3, including those graphic stories depicting the rape of infants and young children that some people have screenshotted (and by the way if you’re going to be posting that kind of content you really ought to put it under a cut), are legal. Stop saying “AO3 hosts child pornography.” They don’t.
We should also ask why child pornography is illegal (and why stories depicting CSA are not). The reason that it’s illegal to create or consume CP is because it requires the abuse of real children to create. It’s illegal not because “it’s gross” or because “pedophiles could get off on it,” but because you have to harm children to create it. By contrast, fictional stories, which do not require children to be harmed in order to create it, are legal, even if they are “gross” and even if pedophiles might be getting off to them.
Of course, just because they’re protected free speech doesn’t mean AO3 is obligated to host such stories. They could decide to ban whatever content they want. But I think that the choice AO3 has made to draw the line at permitting all content as long as it’s not illegal and isn’t directly harassing other users is the right one, and I’ll try to explain why.
There are lots of reasons to depict CSA or rape in a story, not all of which are about “glorifying” it. These crimes are real things that happen and cause trauma, and people want to explore those themes, and a lot of the people who want to write or read about those themes are survivors who are working through said trauma.
Most reasonable people understand this and say that fics about CSA and rape recovery should be allowed, it’s those other “gross’ fics that they want to ban. The problem is that there’s really no way to make a policy that allows one and bans the other. Are there pedophiles who are posting non-fannish, extremely violent content to AO3 because the platform allows it? Yes, clearly. And I don’t like it at all. But there are also survivors who are writing about their trauma, and it’s not possible to make an enforceable policy that permits one but not the other.
I myself am a CSA survivor who writes fic about CSA and rape to process trauma. So a big Fuck You to the people who have accused me of being a pedophile. And don’t even come at me with this myth that victims of CSA are more likely to be child molesters themselves. Studies have shown this holds true only for a minority of male victims, and that it does not hold true for female victims.
The majority of fan creators posting work to AO3 are female or afab. The idea that authors on AO3 who are writing underage or noncon fics are all pedophiles is absurd and offensive. Unlike the person who posted the “receipts,” I actually read the screenshotted fics, at least the ones with an identifiable author name and title. One of those authors also writes 1D fic. My guess, based on the demographics of 1D fans, that this person is more likely to be a young, female CSA survivor than an adult, male child molester (of course there are young female abusers, of course there are older male victims, I’m saying what is statistically more likely). If I’m right, that would mean that even among a group of stories which were cherry picked to show the most extreme content you can find on AO3, there might very well be a fic written by a CSA survivor among them. I’m not willing to silence that survivor. Or any survivor.
But the thing that bothers me most is that the people who are condemning the extreme content based on AO3 are mostly doing so based on the tags. The presence of those tags means that the authors are warning readers about the content. What people seem to want is for AO3 to moderate fics and take down content with extreme tags. If AO3 were to implement such a policy, not only would fics about rape trauma and recovery written by survivors which might also have similar tags get caught in the dragnet, but there would be authors who would stop tagging their fic appropriately in order to fly under the radar. Trust me when I say that is not an outcome anyone wants.
So, I think AO3 has made the right choice, in that they allow authors to post extreme content, but that they encourage a culture where tagging and warning is the expected norm. If that content upsets you, don’t go looking for it. And you really have to look for it. These fics represent a tiny minority of what’s on the archive, and about the only way to find it is to search for it using specific tags. So again, if you are upset by that content, don’t go looking for it. And if you are a CSA survivor and you are triggered by such content, please please don’t go looking for it. That’s a form of self-harm and you should discuss it with a therapist.
Anyway, I will close by repeating what I said last year: Donate to AO3 if you can, signal boost if you can’t. The archive is amazing,
jacobvanloon
kianamaiart
kaledo-art
snowghoul
baratheonpilled
titsay
