AO3 and Abuse: A Story About the AO3 Abuse Team
First, I’m just going to say that I didn’t particularly WANT to write this post, but given that some people deliberately seem to be missing the point when it comes to this discussion of the AO3’s current policies regarding abuse and how they don’t protect marginalized members of fandom, I’ve elected to do something. Also: this post contains discussion of racism, including the replication/quoting of racist slurs and abuse.
A disclaimer: I’ve been in fandom for over a decade at this point. I’ve been a user of the AO3 since 2009, and I was writing fic for years before that. I was around for Racefail, for the J2 Help Haiti Big Bang Debacle, and I was around for the giant debate in fandom whether warnings for common triggers such as rape, sexual assault, and explicit depictions of violence should even be used. Because of that long history in fandom, I’m not surprised to see that many people are regurgitating the same exact arguments as before, but I am disappointed, deeply so, that we seem to have taken so little from those arguments and developments in fandom over the years.
As before, I really encourage everyone to read stopthatimp’s posts on this topic, both the original and the follow-up posts she’s made, which can be found here:
http://stopthatimp.tumblr.com/post/152352331803/ao3-censorship
What I wanted to do was discuss in depth an incident she’d touched on, about the racist troll in Hockey RPF fandom that, in 2014, posted a deliberately racist fic to the tags involving Sidney Crosby and PK Subban. PK Subban, if you’re not aware, is a black Canadian player, and Sidney Crosby is a white Canadian player. The fic was tagged with “interracial kink”, posted anonymously, and sets out to deliberately fetishize PK Subban as a black man. When other AO3 members protested in the comments, the author responded with outright racist trolling, using racial slurs in response to critical comments. I want to say this again, because I don’t want this to be overlooked–this isn’t just a case of an author posting something in good faith that other people found offensive. This is a troll deliberately choosing to post something offensive, then responding to critical feedback with comments such as “this fandom will never ship a mulatto and a wetback”.
At this point, many people went to the AO3 Abuse Team to report the author, believing (and reasonably so) that such behavior was harassment, and should not be allowed on the AO3.
I’m reposting some of the Abuse Team’s responses, with permission of duckgirlie, who was one of the AO3 users that contacted them originally. During that exchange, the member of the Abuse Team stated that:
“unless it violates some other policy, we will not remove Content for offensiveness, no matter how awful, repugnant, or badly spelled we may personally find that content to be.” This is an accordance with our policy of maximum inclusiveness, which is one of the main goals of the Archive.” [emphasis theirs]
They later went on to state that the author’s behavior was NOT harassment by the definition of the Terms of Service, and that they felt “that both parties (the commenters and the author) are equally responsible for the conduct reported to us.” [emphasis mine]
As far as I’m aware, the author was the only person using racial slurs in the comments. To me, the notion that you could go into the comments to discuss a fic with the author, be met with racial slurs, and then be somehow be held “equally responsible” for what happened in those comments is beyond baffling, it’s inexcusable.
When duckgirlie politely pressed the Abuse Team for clarification as to how racial slurs would not be deemed harassment under the AO3’s TOS, she was told that unless slurs were directed at any “specific users”, the AO3 would not delete comments because they were simply “offensive”.
The email ended with this: “We understand that not everyone agrees with these policies. The OTW has decided that our goal is maximum inclusiveness of content. By necessity, that content will includes things that many different people find offensive.” [emphasis mine]
Inclusiveness of content. Not people. Not, say, the people of color who were talking and arguing with the author in the comments, who already had to deal with a fic that fetishized and dehumanized a popular character in a fandom they all were in, but now had to face the casual use of racial slurs in those comment threads, slurs that deliberately thrown in their faces–and then had to discover that by the AO3’s standards, none of this counted as harassment. On the contrary, they were “equally” at fault for what had occurred.
The most insulting of the comments on that fic have since been deleted, either by the Abuse Team or by the author themselves, I’m not sure. The fic, however, is still up.
It’s been two years since this happened. For all that I know, the AO3 Abuse Team might handle this differently now than they did then (although personally I doubt it). The reason I bring this story up is because to me, this was the moment when it became brutally clear that I, and other fans of color, are afterthoughts as far as the AO3 is concerned. We are told, over and over again, in ways both small and large, that we are not valued, that our jobs as fans are to shut up and assimilate and not cause waves, because that’s just not NICE, you guys.
This is peak White Feminism at work here. The idea that one abuse policy will fit all, the idea that it’s more important to preserve the “free speech” of racist trolls rather than making a good faith effort to support the fans of color who are being attacked by said trolls is, frankly, privileged bullshit, and is a MAJOR reason I do not support the OTW/AO3 financially. Because I do not trust the AO3 to support me if needed, not when their stance on plagiarism is stronger and more nuanced than their stance on racist/bigoted abuse.
The idea that the AO3 doesn’t need to create a policy that will address bigotry and racist abuse because “it’s not really an issue yet” is not only disingenous, it’s blatantly false. Racist and bigoted abuse on the AO3 has already happened, is happening now, and will happen again in the future. And until the AO3 acknowledges this and takes real steps to prevent it, fans of color, as well as other marginalized groups, will continue to be pushed to the fringes of fandom.
baratheonpilled
snowghoul
germansingergirl
turnnoffyourmind
prguitarman
janainaart
titsay
