Anonymous #3 1w

this. I think some of the stuff is gross and weird, but the beauty of ao3 is that I don’t have to see it. I can filter out whatever I don’t want to see, and censorship is a slippery slope because if you ban one thing, what comes next?

37

Anonymous #2 1w

Well cuz some things are objectively not ok like genocides & sticking dicks into 8 year olds & stuff? I feel like there has to be a way to define certainly not ok shit

-23

Anonymous #5 1w

Maybe not ban or remove things but def labeling them as not ok & doing stuff against incoming future new stuff trying to be uploaded. Or maybe let them upload it but again tag them with not only a warning label but also a general explanation on why things like these are wrong. Basically putting new people (who haven’t yet fully gotten into that problematic fetish) off from reading it & making the world a better place

-19

Anonymous #4 1w

I feel like this is centrist behavior tho. It’s just being afraid of not only arguing but sitting down and actually setting down some rules

-23

I’m not arguing no position. I’m arguing the position that archives should not be censored. Point blank period. Also comparing the genocide if tens of thousands of lives to some 13 year old’s gay porn is crazy to me

41

People have tried to recreate ao3 WITH rules of censorship and you know what happens every time? It fails because people can’t settle. “Age gap relationship not allowed” are you defining as anything above 18 as okay? But then what about the people who are uncomfortable with an 18 yr old and 60 yr old? How much of an age gap is okay? 30 years? 20 years? 10? 5? 2? What if they’re some mystical fictional creature and one is 25 years old and the other is 500?

42

And I’m not saying that age gaps are like the prime example, this is just to give you an idea of what it’s like when a group of people has to decide what is and isn’t allowed on their archive and what should and shouldn’t be censored. Nobody is ever happy. Ao3 has lasted this long and become a monolith because there isn’t any arguing — everything goes and is tagged, so normal people like us who find it disgusting and filter tf out of that shit

29

Anonymous #5 1w

It’s not that people are “afraid of sitting down and actually setting down some rules” it’s that it never works. Someone will always think that SOMETHING is problematic. No one is ever happy especially as times change. What people think is problematic 10 years ago is not what people think is problematic today. The recreations of ao3 are always abandoned because inevitably, at some point, someone decides there aren’t enough rules and more stuff needs to be censored and others disagree.

24

Anonymous OP 1w

There’s a way to still deal with this without deleting or censoring anything in an archive, something which i agree with. Go back to the comment i made on the thread above this. Don’t u think that could be a fair workaround?

-14

Anonymous OP 1w

Also wth? First of all i’m saying the act of actual child rape regardless the gender, i didn’t say gay, & i didn’t say 13, i said 8. Also i’m not even comparing those things to eachother, i’m giving both of them as examples of objectively “not ok shit”. Aka comparing both of them to what we’re talking about here in order to exaggerate how bad leaving a crack in the system like this can be, specifically because you are minimizing it

-11

Anonymous OP 1w

Also that comment in it of itself minimizes the act of raping a minor. Like lmao wth do u think happens sometimes in genocides to some of the people that get killed? They get raped too. But regardless. That’s beside the point. Let’s stop attacking how ridiculous we think eachother’s wording was & get back to discussing whether an actual solution is possible. Cuz i genuinely do think a labeling & optional educational input system could be a fair workaround

-11

Anonymous OP 1w

Also bruh no duh lol i agree that the age gap thing is crazy, because objectively age gaps get less problematic as both people age older. It’s more of an equation that’s like y=mx+b where b is the limit that’s like ok any age gap relationships have to be above 18 & then the m is how alright a larger age gap is as time goes on. But regardless. Restricting age gaps isn’t even smthn i would suggest. It’s more so the worse things like minor rape as in just anything including someone under 18 or 16

-12

Anonymous #5 1w

To start, I didn’t read your replies to the other comment, I was solely replying to this one. Also the 13 vs 8 thing, what? I mean a 13’s gay porn as in… written by a 13 year old. Not featuring one. And I’m not going to sit here and argue that rape is at all something that I think rape is fucking permissible, my entire point is that it is not nearly as objective as you think it is.

21

Anonymous OP 1w

Plus i also feel like if u & i both know that that adding an age gap restriction like that is crazy & shows a wild lack of understanding then i feel like the Ao3 people would understand this too & thus someone can def try & discuss with the heads of Ao3 the ethics of an addition of some kind of labeling system on the basis of mutual understanding

-9

Anonymous #5 1w

What if it’s not violent rape? What if it’s coercion? What if it’s black mail? What if it’s CNC? What if it’s anything that someone else might define as rape or too adjacent to it, but someone else thinks it’s not rape and doesn’t meet the criteria. Now imagine doing that for every single fic that’s published. You can’t.

20

Anonymous #5 1w

“I genuinely do think a labeling” so…. Tags. You mean tags. Like in ao3. “And optional educational input system” please do tell me how an education system of ‘raping 8 yr old is bad’ is something these motherfuckers don’t already know and would at all change their mind

33

Anonymous #5 1w

Mf there IS a labeling system. There is a “age gap” tag, and an “underage sex” WARNING. the whole fucking tagging system is a labeling system. One that you can literally filter to exclude from your results. What the hell are you talking about???

30

Anonymous #5 1w

And I literally said an age gap restriction is just a single example of how every single thing that is bad isn’t as objective as you think. There is gray area. People frequently write IN the gray area. And when you make rules, you have to draw the line somewhere. The point is that EVERYONE has a different line and nobody can settle

17

Anonymous #5 1w

“It’s more so the worse things like minor rape as in just anything including under 16 and 18” so rape of adults is okay to be published? What if the author has written the fic so that the 12 year old ‘wants it’? Is it still rape only because it meets the definition of statutory rape and not violent, unwilling rape? What if the 12 year old is the one who came onto the adult in the fic? What if the 12 year old is initially unwilling and then becomes willing?

13

Anonymous #5 1w

Again I’m NOT SAYING RAPE IS OKAY. I’m saying that if you make a rule that says “no rape of minors” there’s always going to be debate on what constitutes rape, what’s okay, what’s not, why you get to be the one to say that and not someone else, etc etc etc. I’m not actually asking you to respond to any of those questions. The whole point is to make you understand that policing fan fiction is impossible because writers can write on the borderline of what is okay and what isn’t

14

Anonymous OP 1w

Not a categorizing system like the one that's already there bruh but more so like an addition to that where the warning tags also (if you clock on the additional warning they they'd have attached) educate on why these things are wrong with actual literature from ethics classes & stuff or just something academic so that people that may be stumbling into the objectively wrong fetishes can at least have something telling them why that's wrong if they choose to read it

-10

Anonymous OP 1w

Wait um sorry educate me if i’m wrong but CNC isn’t rape? Also what do u mean something someone else doesn’t define as rape… wut? Isn’t that literally the problem?… That if we start allowing some people with non-bad intentions to bend or gaslight the definition of words like rape & genocide, it just allows the wring people to use that to their advantage for actual nefarious intentions… can we at least agree on that note?

-8

Anonymous OP 1w

Oh & i don’t mean an education paragraph for every single fan fic bruh obviously not. I mean a general paragraph for each of the warning tags. & dude have u ever heard of people with special needs & people who are just now dabbling in the wrong sides of the internet? Those people can be saved, it just takes one person or one paragraph of just the right words to start at least making them aware of the problems from the path they may be wrongly going down

-6

Anonymous OP 1w

Everyone has a different line & nobody can settle… U can’t seriously tell me that applies to everything. Apply that to literally anything else, like for example the genocide situation, & u start seeing the cracks of that “nobody can settle” logic. SEE OK WAIT^ that’s exactly why examples like these are used! Because sometimes the slight problems in things can only clearly be seen when you magnify them &/or apply them to a much larger issue/example

-6

Anonymous OP 1w

U can’t just assume that no one will be able to settle on a more considerate definition. In coding all it takes is a few extra lines of “ifs” & “whens” on a line of code for it to work on complicated levels that some people would have never thought possible

-4

Anonymous OP 1w

Bruh don’t twist my words. I could have worded that differently but you could have easily got what i was saying. “Like minor rape” & as in for example also “anything including someone under 18 or 16 [in a sexual interaction]” are two different examples that i just used in the same sentence cuz i was brainstorming like cmon at this point now u’re just attacking me & getting mad instead of actually truing to figure this out with me & seeing if maybe there is something the site could do better

-3

Anonymous OP 1w

Also holly sh-… 😨bruh no wth? U did not just say that… That’s literally something that’s already been debated & settled on international academic spaces. 12 year olds are not old enough to be making such decisions on sexual interactions… because at that point it’s just the adult, who knows better, taking advantage of the minor’s lack of understanding on the matter… naw dawg u should know this like wut-🫥

1

Anonymous OP 1w

And dude hold on that’s a good point right there that u accidentally just shined a light on! - You said it was a given that debated would pop up - Why would there even exist debates on these kinda of things if they weren’t worth it to be had? - & no u can’t just rule out & minimize everyone that’s tryin to have these debates as just autistic cuz these debates happen on academic scales is what i’ve been trying to tell u. These debates r had because a stronger definition is cryin out to be made

-1

Anonymous #5 1w

So many problems arise because we don’t have these definitions better established (at least in the English language) other countries in their own languages already have some of these figured out actually. For example, one of the issues that recently popped up in our society is the movie with jenna & the guy from the hobbit. Even they themselves were like alright hol up maybe this was a bit too far into the not alright side of the spectrum. But valid that at first they didn’t see it when makin it

-1

Anonymous #6 1w

the whole point of ao3 is that it's an archive for all writing. it was created as a direct response to the censorship on ff.net. if you censor one thing no matter what it is, then people will use that to censor EVERYTHING. goodbye to queer ships, discussions of violence, anything explicit in any way at all. any form of censorship whatsoever would go against the whole heart and soul of ao3

14

Anonymous #6 1w

no matter what people believe should be censored, there is someone who doesn't think it should be. because fiction is fiction and I believe that any claim of "xx should be censored" or "xx should be censored" will inevitably lead to EVERYTHING being censored. the only possible solution, whether you like it or not, is that nothing is censored, but everything is tagged. this protects people who don't want to see things they don't like, but allows people to write whatever they want

19

Anonymous #5 1w

and you’re still not understanding my point if you think I’m actually arguing for any of these things and not asking rhetorically for you to understand that everyone will define what is and isn’t permissible differently. Even things that you think are objectively agreed upon

22

Anonymous #5 1w

I also just straight up don’t understand what you mean by “why would debates exist if they weren’t worth it to be had” maybe in fucking politics, this is a website for fanfiction. Someone has to decided somewhere what is and isn’t allowed to use on the site. If everyone is always debating, then nothing gets done. If ao3 initially says “small age gaps are fine” (JUST A SINGULAR EXAMPLE) but then after more debate changes to “no age gaps are fine” then fics are deleted en mass

17

Anonymous #5 1w

And I’m not ruling or minimizing everyone Jesus fucking Christ. I’m saying that these debates don’t allow someone to RUN A WEBSITE. If there’s always debates, there’s always rules that are changing, and that isn’t FEASIBLE for an archive

9

Anonymous #5 1w

“Debates” aren’t enough to run a website. There HAS to be rules. And in the case of fanfiction, there has to be SPECIFIC rules or it will not WORK. you’re not thinking logistics of how to run an entire archive, and not listening to why I’m telling you it’s not feasible and it’s exactly why previous attempts at recreating ao3 with rules has always failed.

13

Anonymous #5 1w

Let’s say you want to exclude “rape of (legal) minors.” Does that include statutory rape, where they’re ‘willing’ but considered too young to consent? What if someone writes about consensual sex involving a 17 yr old and an adult? What if the ‘adult’ was 19? Do they get the pass? What about 16 and 19? What about 15 and 19? What about 14 and 19? And the best question — who is making that call? You?

12

Anonymous #5 1w

I think you’re neglecting that America has an entire system of government dedicated specifically to determine A) if someone broke the rules and B) to what extent they broke them. Who will evaluate all of these fan fictions to make sure they fit your rules? Who gets to decide if it’s okay if that person writes a 17 & 19yr old having sex, or a 14 & 19 yr old? How will you manage millions of fan fictions and police them?

12

Anonymous #5 1w

And also you thinking people can be “saved” from kinks is just… crazy. I’m sorry. And every kink could be argued as problematic, so every one of them would get some paragraph, and every kink could be argued as unproblematic, so what now? Who decides what’s ethical kink? I think it’s incredibly patronizing for you to think people with special needs to be explained the ethics of every single kink to know right and wrong.

17

when did I mention politics or Palestine 💀an archive is an archive not a selectively picked one

12

Anonymous #4 1w

Buddy everything is politics & even an archive can be a space to say something instead of keeping quiet, because with great power (or a platform) comes great responsibility

-9

Anonymous OP 1w

Dawg again twisting my words, god damn. Saved from developing a dangerous fetish like pedophilically raping 8 year olds, not your every day innocent kinks, god damn wth part of let’s stop attacking each-other do u not understand? & no not every kink could be argued as problematic what the actual fuck… yea this is literally the type of thinking that leads to worse type of “i don’t wanna put in the effort to think about how to keep people accountable” type of broken hopeless utopic bubble logic

-7

Anonymous #6 1w

But there’s a third player here tho, that third player being the host of the archive, the librarian if you will. They themselves can put a tag on there explaining or pointing out a dangerous thing or a link to getting help or something. Nothing that would stop another from reading but something to help them read that literature with more media literacy or caution

-10

Anonymous #5 1w

are you seriously expecting ao3 (a nonprofit organization funded by user donations) to add links for getting help to whatever tags YOU find dangerous? the tagging system already functions as a way to point out something as dangerous, and it's up to the reader to filter out what they want or don't want to see. expecting the site to parent the users is just absurd. do you expect Spotify to add links to music that you personally find morally reprehensible? obviously they don't, they just (cont)

21

Anonymous #6 1w

(cont) have the creator mark it as explicit. it's up to the users to protect ourselves from media online. the archive exists as a hub for all types of written content, but how you utilize it is very much up to you. the ao3 tagging system gives the responsibility to the writers to properly tag their fics so users like you can sort out what they find don't want to read. also, another aspect of this, is that if you don't like something, DONT READ IT. tags like "dead dove: do not eat" exist (cont)

23

Anonymous #6 1w

(cont) to tell the user that the fic contains stuff not everyone finds acceptable. now it's up to the user to not read it. #5 I can understand not wanting to see content you find disturbing. that's perfectly understandable. I know I absolutely hate seeing incest or child rape fics. however, I know to just ignore or sort out by those types of fics bc there's not rlly anything else that can be done.

15

Anonymous #7 1w

imagine telling someone you want to censor batman bc you think the joker killing ppl is wrong. the only works that can possibly exist are ones where everything is perfect and nothing goes wrong and nobody does anything bad ever

22

Anonymous #8 1w

sitting here typing out long replies but it's hard to argue with someone who doesn't even want to see any other sides of a story. 😐 same vibe as arguing w trump supporters 😭

32

Anonymous #6 1w

They really out here saying censorship is good actually because it’s only the yucky stuff(so long as you ignore how easy it is to make anything the yucky stuff)

23

Anonymous #8 1w

only the stuff they personally think is bad bc they're right and evb else is wrong 😔

17

Anonymous #5 1w

don’t quote uncle ben like that 😭 you realize spider-man is a vigilante? yknow, works outside the laws? doesn’t that fall outside your strict little lines about what should and shouldn’t be allowed? also comparing drawing the line for the genocide vs a fanfiction website is vile, do better 🙄 you know they’re different, stop acting like a victim because someone posted a fic you didn’t like, it’s a fictional story and nothing compared to what people are facing in Palestine right now. grow up

20

Anonymous #6 1w

fr…

12

Anonymous #5 1w

No. Someone cannot be “saved” from developing a pedophilic fetish. No reasonable person would ever develop one, special needs or fucking not, literally what??? Do you honestly think some little paragraph “why fucking kids is bad” will honestly “save” someone from it??? What do you think is going to happen? They’re going to think to themselves “oh! I didn’t know raping an 8 year old is bad. Thank you ao3 for informing me. I am no longer sexually aroused by the content.”

14

Anonymous #5 1w

Wanna bet that not every kink can be argued as problematic? Give me one. And I think you’re losing the message here that what we’re talking about isn’t some philosophical debate on kink, what we’re talking about is actually running and policing a website. Again, how are you going to FEASIBLY police fanfiction? How do you decide the rules? How do you enforce them? How do you decide what is and isn’t considered breaking those rules?

19

Anonymous #5 1w

I’m not saying that debates over this stuff aren’t worth having. You’re focusing so hard on that and completely missing what I’m actually CONSTANTLY repeating, which is What. Are. The. Logistics. HOW are you going to enforce rules on an archive. HOW are you going to manage it. If a fanfiction writes something that some would consider breaking the rules and others would say is permissible, WHO is making that call

11

Anonymous #5 1w

“Everyone had a different line & nobody can settle… u can’t seriously tell me that applies to everything.” That’s exactly what I’m saying. Try me. Give me an example that you think is 100% agreed upon as bad and I can guarantee you I can list a million different ways that different people might draw their lines in the sand on the subject.

17

Anonymous OP 1w

Bruh u walked right into this 1 cuz that’s the thing, just because people do doesn’t mean they’re right. U have to understand that even now in broad 2025 more than 40% of people with a voice r either uneducated &/or have some sort of learning disability. & in the past it was even worse. People even at such large scales r still so much more gullible than i think most people understand. So here r ur examples:

-8

Anonymous #5 1w

“Just because people do doesn’t mean they’re right” — and you are? That’s my point. YOU’RE deciding what’s right or not according to YOUR beliefs. Everyone has different ones. So, again, if someone has to sit down and make a site with rules on what can be posted, WHO gets to be that person deciding what THEY think is right?

19

Anonymous #5 1w

Uneducation and learning disability doesn’t equal ‘susceptible to pedophilia.’ This is insane. Pedophilia is a sexual disorder completely based on needing to exert power and control over victims too weak to fight back, just like rape. That is not something that is TAUGHT and that is not something that can be UNTAUGHT by a fucking paragraph saying “🥺 you can read but fyi violently raping someone against their will is wrong” They fucking know that. The wrongness is what gets them off

21

Anonymous #5 6d

reading president divorced scat yaoi enemies-to-lovers dubious consent fanfic isn’t going to convert everyone who reads it into a shit loving rapist bruh also, even if you ban certain topics you believe to be “morally wrong” (because depending on the person AND topic this can be debatable) on Ao3, what makes you think that’s preventing people from being exposed to it somewhere else? That’s what Ao3’s tag system is for.

39

Anonymous #5 6d

Let me remind you that there are people still debating whether or not gay marriage should be legal. To some people, that’s a debate “worth being had.”

28

Anonymous #5 6d

Yeah not fully removing something but not allowing new content to be published is still the dictionary definition of censorship, point blank

13

Anonymous #5 6d

The actual literature from ethics class won’t give you a conclusive answer. I don’t know if you’ve ever taken any humanities course ever but we kind of specialize in acknowledging the fact that ethics are a huge gray area established by subjective societal constructs of normative behavior

12

Anonymous #5 6d

Interesting that you bring up librarians bc the American library association is strongly anti-censorship

13

Anonymous #10 6d

ALA MENTION RAHHHH 🦅🦅🦅📚📚

7

Anonymous #5 5d

1. It’s FICTION. Don’t think slasher films endorse murder? 2. Ao3 already has a robust tagging system. Learn to use your filters. 3. If you need someone to hold your hand and explain that these things are BAD in real life, you are not mature enough to be online unsupervised.

35

Anonymous #5 5d

We are in the middle of a MASSIVE right-wing push to ban “problematic” media. The anti-censorship folks are not the “centrists” here, YOU ARE. The people in power will not stop their censorship at things you personally find gross or inappropriate. That’s why Ao3 was created in the first place.

15

Anonymous #12 5d

Because when other fanfic sites started to police “problematic content” it almost immediately expanded from “fic that depicts illegal things” to “fic we find icky” to literally decades worth of queer fic, even the most mild and chaste, being scrubbed from the internet. Ao3 is an ARCHIVE where you can curate your own experience with tags and filters. There are plenty of things I find triggering or just repulsive and never wish to encounter on Ao3 and I DON’T because I filter extensively.

19

Anonymous #5 5d

You don’t understand how the websites work do you?

17

Anonymous #12 5d

Right these ideas sound like a web developers nightmare, let alone the fact that ao3 is fully run by volunteers

13

Anonymous #5 5d

Ao3 owns its own servers. Those servers are managed by the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW). The “librarians” are volunteers with Ao3 and OTW.

13