it seems very likely that the timing was purely coincidental. It’s more likely that AO3 became a target of China’s ongoing attempts to suppress queer and explicit media content, as a part of its larger dedicated pattern of internet censorship.
Chinese censors have been preparing for new, tighter restrictions on the type of content considered acceptable to post online
In January, the Chinese government announced that beginning March 1, it would be enacting new regulations against content on Chinese websites. The new rules include restrictions on “negative” content. This is likely part of China’s ongoing effort to curtail internet discussion about the months-long Hong Kong protests (which call for a return to the region’s former democratic government) and many other aspects of its restrictive government. The regulations also aim to hold specific websites accountable for the content posted on them.
According to Variety, the new laws place the onus on individual websites to ensure that the content posted on them is primarily positive, uplifting, and devoid of misinformation. A nebulous list of unacceptable content includes content that “harms the nation’s honor and interests,” and any type of “sexual innuendo ... sex, gore or horror,” and anything that could potentially “violate social mores.”
These are extremely broad terms which appear to push websites that operate in China toward more zealous self-censorship. It’s possible that the Archive of Our Own, which has always been strident about not censoring content, became one of the first casualties under the new law.
It doesn't look good. But this is the kinda surface-level reporting that doesn't really get at the heart of the issue. Are they censoring gay scenes, or pedophilic or abusive power-relationship dynamics amongst gay individuals. Would a Call By Your Name (controversial, large age differential, seen somewhat predatory even by the queer individuals I know) get censored. What about Portrait of a Lady on Fire, slow-burn, yearning, and romance amongst equals, Would that also be censored?
I know Archive of Our Own has a lot of queer content that is decidedly wholesome and beneficial for teens and young adults wanting to find representation and grow into their identity; but the problem is in their attitude "strident about not censoring content" which also allows for reactionary, disgusting, vile, and problematic content to be distributed amongst the community.
From a The Verge article, after doing some cursory googling:
But fans have also long disagreed about what content any given space should host. Some early archives banned specific subjects, while others put restrictions on certain characters or relationships. AO3’s free speech maximalist approach to fictional content was founded in direct response to corporate censorship as a way to ensure that all fanworks were protected on the basis of simply being fanworks, rather than meeting a standard of literary merit or adhering to thematic guidelines or restrictions.
“One of our most quoted sections from the ToS is: ‘You understand that using the Archive may expose you to material that is offensive, triggering, erroneous, sexually explicit, indecent, blasphemous, objectionable, grammatically incorrect, or badly spelled,’” Matty Bowers, AO3’s policy and abuse chair, tells The Verge.
Recently, the loudest opposition to AO3’s “maximum inclusiveness” has centered on sexual acts that are often considered taboo or are illegal, like whether writers should be allowed to depict things like rape, incest, statutory rape, or pedophilia, regardless of whether the stories are marked with clear warnings.
Thornier still, some fans want AO3 to police the way these sensitive topics are depicted, including whether sexy depictions of unhealthy relationships encourage real-world abuse or the difference between a depiction of rape and writing a “rape fantasy.” The conversations echo everything from 20th century obscenity trials, the feminist porn wars of the 1980s, and the long-standing debates within fandom itself.
I don't think free speech should cover things like rape, statutory rape, and pedophilia. I don't think certain topics are or should be allowed to exist within the protection of free speech or corporate endorsement (your refusal to ban or delete bad topics is in itself a tacit endorsement).
This website has a deliberately hostile approach to "free speech". It has made us grow pretty slowly, and even turned some people off, but it's also one of the least reactionary places I have seen on the fucking web.
I think Vox is using the problems these laws are causing to LGBTQ minorities to ignore the larger problems posed by immoral and problematic content that Chinese censors might be actively seeking to prevent from entering the web.
Facebook human moderators get PTSD and suicidal ideations from the amount of horrific content that gets uploaded to the site. Americans also enjoy 3.2 million man-hours of active moderation to prevent and reduce the chances you run into some really horrific shit using one of their sites. Meanwhile, in the Global South, Fb and Instagram are being used to traffic and rape women. They are used to recruit young boys and teenagers into cartel hitmen training camps. Instagram has been found to give young girls Eating Disorders and suicidal ideations as well (per the latest WSJ article about FB inside data).
Maybe the idea of an uncensored internet is not a wholly "GOOD" concept. And it should be treated more critically than what bourgeois media, tells you to think it as.
I'm sorry I just don't think going all Edwin Meese over some A/B/O fic and treating it like a moral threat to society is reasonable. Sometimes art is yucky.
Ao3 played an important part in me, a queer person, learning to love an accept myself. The site is very important to many young queers.
while I do support the banning of reactionary content on this site, it reaches the point where myself, and other users, feel like they are walking on eggshells. it's created a site culture of distrust.
I don’t think free speech should cover things like rape, statutory rape, and pedophilia. I don’t think certain topics are or should be allowed to exist within the protection of free speech or corporate endorsement (your refusal to ban or delete bad topics is in itself a tacit endorsement).
Completely reasonable
... Except that these fanfictions are just that, fiction
So yeah, my default is "ostracize anyone who makes that shit" because otaku shit is what comes to mind... but it's not as if everyone making stuff with that content is doing it out of enjoyment or endorsement
If someone wanted to write a story about comfort women, should it be banned for realistically and unflinchingly depicting the rape of minors by Japanese soldiers? (Damn, Shinzo Abe would love that)
If a woman is writing a "rape fantasy" or "ravishment fantasy" or whatever word they're using, should that be banned for romanticizing sexual assault?
If a man is writing a memoir about a relationship he had with a 40 year old at age 20, should we ban that for glorifying age gaps?
What if someone is writing a story about rape in order to process their own sexual trauma at the hands of an adult they once trusted?
Point here is that it's easy to look at the worst of the worst and think "ban this sick filth" when the reality of it is that mainstream society is pushing this shit (child beauty pageants, Roy Moore apologism, targeted hypersexualization of teenage celebrities, ordinary romance novels, etc.), and sending moderators to comb through millions of works to figure out who's getting off on it and who isn't is impossible, and if anything, will make people just stop putting warnings on their fanfics
At the end of the day, it's easy to get mad about made up stuff on the Internet because it's easy, but there's brutality right in front of your face in the real world that's better of being faced down instead
Except that these fanfictions are just that, fiction
I don't think this is a good argument. Fiction can make individuals do powerful things. Ideas can make people do things, move them to collective action, try and change the world, radically reframe the way you see things. I wouldn't be here, if I hadn't dedicated some part of my life reading Marxist theory AND encountering the very same things Marx talked about, in my daily professional life. I wouldn't be here if I hadn't read Those who walk away from omelas and been moved to tears by the allegory of a badly beaten, neglected, abused, and malnourished little kid. So to say that fiction is just fiction, it's not giving it its due credit.
So yeah, my default is “ostracize anyone who makes that shit” because otaku shit is what comes to mind… but it’s not as if everyone making stuff with that content is doing it out of enjoyment or endorsement
If someone wanted to write a story about comfort women, should it be banned for realistically and unflinchingly depicting the rape of minors by Japanese soldiers? (Damn, Shinzo Abe would love that)
I definitely agree with you. What subjects are taboo and what subjects are allowed is something that deserves constant, transparent, and public discussion. It made me think of Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison. There are depictions of sex that are consensual, and there are also depictions of prostitution, and sexual violence, domestic abuse, etc that broke my fucking heart. By China's own restrictions it is too negative and violating of social mores to put out into the world.
Point here is that it’s easy to look at the worst of the worst and think “ban this sick filth” when the reality of it is that mainstream society is pushing this shit (child beauty pageants, Roy Moore apologism, targeted hypersexualization of teenage celebrities, ordinary romance novels, etc.), and sending moderators to comb through millions of works to figure out who’s getting off on it and who isn’t is impossible, and if anything, will make people just stop putting warnings on their fanfics
I think this is what came first the chicken or the egg. People write hypersexualized content because we live in a hypersexualized society. I think the Communist party is fighting a multi-pronged cultural fight here, video game addictions, burnout in students, pornography, etc. Will this have the desired effect? I don't know, but they are certainly trying to do something; part of me feels like America doesn't do anything about the worst excesses and violations of the human spirit. And in our society, they will gleefully peddle you porn, queer or otherwise, and hide behind it while sickos go on to write pedophilic fantasies that groom tweens with inappropriate access to the internet.
At the end of the day, it’s easy to get mad about made up stuff on the Internet because it’s easy, but there’s brutality right in front of your face in the real world that’s better of being faced down instead
I think because a lot of people have grown up on the horrible American internet, we have become de-sensitized to it. But I've seen a man's distended anus (GOATSE). Unwanted and involuntary pornography. Hate crimes. Death. Violence against Children. This is all incredibly traumatic shit that we grow up and we don't even really talk about it. Or we talk about it in jest. Like "yeah I grew up in 4chan where pedophiles constantly tried to groom kids and post loli" and we act like that doesn't do something to you as a person. We gotta think of what sacrifices we are making, morally and culturally to allow for a "free speech internet" and lately, a part of me feels less moved by the idea of free and unregulated internet, or at least, more specifically, free and unregulated internet spaces, where filth is allowed to mingle and entangle with content you'd like to see. And that content is used to hold a lot of people "hostage" to the idea that it's either-or. And refuse to demand the fact we deserve better.
feel like your last paragraph there is a pretty good argument against centralised, top-down net censorship though (since that's what facebook et al already do) - having rules + moderation be entirely alienated from the communities they run means that both the users feel no empathy towards them and the mods can't learn how to deal with specific issues in specific communities. Can't really figure out how I actually feel about Ao3's attitude, obviously posting nonce shit is bad but also rules around sexual content have always been primarily weaponised against LGBTQ folks on the web and there's a hell of a lot of grey zone between wholesome and Evil
What exactly does it mean that free speech should not cover things like that? Should there be a communist Hays code that demands a specific degree of "If you feature bad things in your content it must be at least this punished and the consumer of the content must be explicitly shown how bad it is" or is it just not allowed to be depicted?
Personally I’d just have a system where any profit made off problematic material is garnished and sent to fund therapeutic social services. Example, a shock jock says “Rape is a natural way to let off steam”. He should, hopefully, be fired and investigated for possible rape/sa allegations. But immediately his income should be garnished to fund women’s shelters, therapy and abortion services.
Say someone writes a racist manifesto and somehow manages to make some money off of it. They should, hopefully, be deplatformed and any money accumulated sent to the nearest diversity and inclusion program for minorities and ethnic groups (more specifically the ones targeted in their racist screed).
But That’s just me. I’m personally not a fan of prisons.
I mean, thats fine for the examples you mentioned specifically cause its people advocating for shit like rape or racism, but just putting it as a "problematic material" is really vague. Is it just for unambigous promotion of crimes and bigotry or is it for depicting crimes and bigotry too?
Legal codes aren't wind up clocks. Especially of there's even a modicum of socialist/democratic control over the system that's enacting them. The whole point of leaving language loose like this is to allow for the specifics to be worked out in practice and not to enforce an idealized hypothetical onto reality.
Obviously depictions of bad things as bad things are different than depictions of bad things as good things. Letting courts/committees decide that on a case by case basis is the best way. Especially of those committees are composed of the people/groups most effected by the case.
But theres still gotta be principles all this is based upon, and just saying that there would be committees of people affected by the case/work in question still feels like it would mainly work for explicitly political work or speech but be very messy when thinking about narrative works.
What exactly does it mean to be affected by a fictional work, in a sense that it would make it relevant for you to rule on its existence?
You're really thinking into this way too much. Basically just more paid moderators that report content to comittees that decide on proper actions for certain content. Like how most websites work, but on a larger, more socialsed scale.
Once a specific type of content is registered, it becomes easier to spot more of it later on. Basic moderation stuff. Banning sites that refuse to moderate their content and allow shit through is fine and should be done. They aren't even wiping them out or anything, just blocking the site (in this AO3 case). Not like everyone's work is lost forever.
I don't think that'll happen. It's also not like art has been treated much better in capitalist places. Allowing artists to live and create is important, but it's also important that you aren't just allowing people to perpetuate the old system through their art, or romanticize things that don't/never existed.
Any damage done by heavy moderation will be more than offset by provision of better living conditions for working artists.
From the article
It doesn't look good. But this is the kinda surface-level reporting that doesn't really get at the heart of the issue. Are they censoring gay scenes, or pedophilic or abusive power-relationship dynamics amongst gay individuals. Would a Call By Your Name (controversial, large age differential, seen somewhat predatory even by the queer individuals I know) get censored. What about Portrait of a Lady on Fire, slow-burn, yearning, and romance amongst equals, Would that also be censored?
I know Archive of Our Own has a lot of queer content that is decidedly wholesome and beneficial for teens and young adults wanting to find representation and grow into their identity; but the problem is in their attitude "strident about not censoring content" which also allows for reactionary, disgusting, vile, and problematic content to be distributed amongst the community.
From a The Verge article, after doing some cursory googling:
I don't think free speech should cover things like rape, statutory rape, and pedophilia. I don't think certain topics are or should be allowed to exist within the protection of free speech or corporate endorsement (your refusal to ban or delete bad topics is in itself a tacit endorsement).
This website has a deliberately hostile approach to "free speech". It has made us grow pretty slowly, and even turned some people off, but it's also one of the least reactionary places I have seen on the fucking web.
I think Vox is using the problems these laws are causing to LGBTQ minorities to ignore the larger problems posed by immoral and problematic content that Chinese censors might be actively seeking to prevent from entering the web.
Facebook human moderators get PTSD and suicidal ideations from the amount of horrific content that gets uploaded to the site. Americans also enjoy 3.2 million man-hours of active moderation to prevent and reduce the chances you run into some really horrific shit using one of their sites. Meanwhile, in the Global South, Fb and Instagram are being used to traffic and rape women. They are used to recruit young boys and teenagers into cartel hitmen training camps. Instagram has been found to give young girls Eating Disorders and suicidal ideations as well (per the latest WSJ article about FB inside data).
Maybe the idea of an uncensored internet is not a wholly "GOOD" concept. And it should be treated more critically than what bourgeois media, tells you to think it as.
lots of words to justify puritanism when the bible has already been written lol
thank you for seriously engaging with the post.
I'm sorry I just don't think going all Edwin Meese over some A/B/O fic and treating it like a moral threat to society is reasonable. Sometimes art is yucky.
puritanism was based tho back in its day fuck the papists and fuck the "anglican" papist puppets
that's def an opinion!
deleted by creator
Ao3 played an important part in me, a queer person, learning to love an accept myself. The site is very important to many young queers.
while I do support the banning of reactionary content on this site, it reaches the point where myself, and other users, feel like they are walking on eggshells. it's created a site culture of distrust.
Completely reasonable
... Except that these fanfictions are just that, fiction
So yeah, my default is "ostracize anyone who makes that shit" because otaku shit is what comes to mind... but it's not as if everyone making stuff with that content is doing it out of enjoyment or endorsement
If someone wanted to write a story about comfort women, should it be banned for realistically and unflinchingly depicting the rape of minors by Japanese soldiers? (Damn, Shinzo Abe would love that)
If a woman is writing a "rape fantasy" or "ravishment fantasy" or whatever word they're using, should that be banned for romanticizing sexual assault?
If a man is writing a memoir about a relationship he had with a 40 year old at age 20, should we ban that for glorifying age gaps?
What if someone is writing a story about rape in order to process their own sexual trauma at the hands of an adult they once trusted?
Point here is that it's easy to look at the worst of the worst and think "ban this sick filth" when the reality of it is that mainstream society is pushing this shit (child beauty pageants, Roy Moore apologism, targeted hypersexualization of teenage celebrities, ordinary romance novels, etc.), and sending moderators to comb through millions of works to figure out who's getting off on it and who isn't is impossible, and if anything, will make people just stop putting warnings on their fanfics
At the end of the day, it's easy to get mad about made up stuff on the Internet because it's easy, but there's brutality right in front of your face in the real world that's better of being faced down instead
I don't think this is a good argument. Fiction can make individuals do powerful things. Ideas can make people do things, move them to collective action, try and change the world, radically reframe the way you see things. I wouldn't be here, if I hadn't dedicated some part of my life reading Marxist theory AND encountering the very same things Marx talked about, in my daily professional life. I wouldn't be here if I hadn't read Those who walk away from omelas and been moved to tears by the allegory of a badly beaten, neglected, abused, and malnourished little kid. So to say that fiction is just fiction, it's not giving it its due credit.
I definitely agree with you. What subjects are taboo and what subjects are allowed is something that deserves constant, transparent, and public discussion. It made me think of Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison. There are depictions of sex that are consensual, and there are also depictions of prostitution, and sexual violence, domestic abuse, etc that broke my fucking heart. By China's own restrictions it is too negative and violating of social mores to put out into the world.
I think this is what came first the chicken or the egg. People write hypersexualized content because we live in a hypersexualized society. I think the Communist party is fighting a multi-pronged cultural fight here, video game addictions, burnout in students, pornography, etc. Will this have the desired effect? I don't know, but they are certainly trying to do something; part of me feels like America doesn't do anything about the worst excesses and violations of the human spirit. And in our society, they will gleefully peddle you porn, queer or otherwise, and hide behind it while sickos go on to write pedophilic fantasies that groom tweens with inappropriate access to the internet.
I think because a lot of people have grown up on the horrible American internet, we have become de-sensitized to it. But I've seen a man's distended anus (GOATSE). Unwanted and involuntary pornography. Hate crimes. Death. Violence against Children. This is all incredibly traumatic shit that we grow up and we don't even really talk about it. Or we talk about it in jest. Like "yeah I grew up in 4chan where pedophiles constantly tried to groom kids and post loli" and we act like that doesn't do something to you as a person. We gotta think of what sacrifices we are making, morally and culturally to allow for a "free speech internet" and lately, a part of me feels less moved by the idea of free and unregulated internet, or at least, more specifically, free and unregulated internet spaces, where filth is allowed to mingle and entangle with content you'd like to see. And that content is used to hold a lot of people "hostage" to the idea that it's either-or. And refuse to demand the fact we deserve better.
feel like your last paragraph there is a pretty good argument against centralised, top-down net censorship though (since that's what facebook et al already do) - having rules + moderation be entirely alienated from the communities they run means that both the users feel no empathy towards them and the mods can't learn how to deal with specific issues in specific communities. Can't really figure out how I actually feel about Ao3's attitude, obviously posting nonce shit is bad but also rules around sexual content have always been primarily weaponised against LGBTQ folks on the web and there's a hell of a lot of grey zone between wholesome and Evil
What exactly does it mean that free speech should not cover things like that? Should there be a communist Hays code that demands a specific degree of "If you feature bad things in your content it must be at least this punished and the consumer of the content must be explicitly shown how bad it is" or is it just not allowed to be depicted?
Personally I’d just have a system where any profit made off problematic material is garnished and sent to fund therapeutic social services. Example, a shock jock says “Rape is a natural way to let off steam”. He should, hopefully, be fired and investigated for possible rape/sa allegations. But immediately his income should be garnished to fund women’s shelters, therapy and abortion services.
Say someone writes a racist manifesto and somehow manages to make some money off of it. They should, hopefully, be deplatformed and any money accumulated sent to the nearest diversity and inclusion program for minorities and ethnic groups (more specifically the ones targeted in their racist screed).
But That’s just me. I’m personally not a fan of prisons.
I mean, thats fine for the examples you mentioned specifically cause its people advocating for shit like rape or racism, but just putting it as a "problematic material" is really vague. Is it just for unambigous promotion of crimes and bigotry or is it for depicting crimes and bigotry too?
Legal codes aren't wind up clocks. Especially of there's even a modicum of socialist/democratic control over the system that's enacting them. The whole point of leaving language loose like this is to allow for the specifics to be worked out in practice and not to enforce an idealized hypothetical onto reality.
Obviously depictions of bad things as bad things are different than depictions of bad things as good things. Letting courts/committees decide that on a case by case basis is the best way. Especially of those committees are composed of the people/groups most effected by the case.
But theres still gotta be principles all this is based upon, and just saying that there would be committees of people affected by the case/work in question still feels like it would mainly work for explicitly political work or speech but be very messy when thinking about narrative works.
What exactly does it mean to be affected by a fictional work, in a sense that it would make it relevant for you to rule on its existence?
You're really thinking into this way too much. Basically just more paid moderators that report content to comittees that decide on proper actions for certain content. Like how most websites work, but on a larger, more socialsed scale.
Once a specific type of content is registered, it becomes easier to spot more of it later on. Basic moderation stuff. Banning sites that refuse to moderate their content and allow shit through is fine and should be done. They aren't even wiping them out or anything, just blocking the site (in this AO3 case). Not like everyone's work is lost forever.
Idk I think y'all aren't thinking enough about it, but I guess its like decades away if it will even be a thing in our lifetime so w/e.
Would just prefer shit doesnt end up with heavy handed and archaic rulings about art which has happened in a lot of socialist places.
I don't think that'll happen. It's also not like art has been treated much better in capitalist places. Allowing artists to live and create is important, but it's also important that you aren't just allowing people to perpetuate the old system through their art, or romanticize things that don't/never existed.
Any damage done by heavy moderation will be more than offset by provision of better living conditions for working artists.