beatrice_otter (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beatrice_otter) wrote2024-11-09 09:52 pm
beatrice_otter) wrote2024-11-09 09:52 pm
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AO3 TOS update
AO3 has a proposed update to the Terms of Service, which you can read here and comment on here. For the most part, it is an improvement, and I like the clarity with which they have laid out why they're doing this and what their guiding principles are.
There is one paragraph I have a problem with, and the problem is a doozy.
In section II.H Harassment it says:
It is also further repeated in the FAQ:And the thing is, two paragraphs down from that FAQ statement, they say this:
"Any tool or feature" does not, apparently, include fanworks, the primary feature of AO3.
I don't know about you, but even if I never personally saw it because I had the author muted and blocked, AO3 hosting a work in which I was raped and murdered would create a hostile environment for me.
I think AO3 is missing a crucial distinction here, and in so doing it is going to allow AO3 to continue to be used by people to abuse fans, especially marginalized fans.
There is a very big difference between RPF of a public figure and RPF of a fellow fan, and the difference is, the public figure is almost certainly not going to see the RPF unless they themselves go looking for it. They are not part of the community where it is published and shared, and the fanwork-producing community is such a small proportion of the world (even today) that creating a really vile depiction of them is extremely unlikely to have any effect on them or their reputation at all, unless they go purposefully looking for it. It's a drop in the bucket. Even the worst RPF of a public figure is not harming that person. When there is a targeted campaign against that person that is large enough to cause them harm, the chances of the fic being a significant part of the problem--as opposed to the cruft pulled along in its wake--is very small. Abusive fanworks are merely a tiny drop in the ocean of public reactions to and treatment of public figures.
(Note: I think our society is really really awful in the ways we treat public figures, I'm not saying any abuse is ever okay, but when weighing the competing harms of "how do we prevent abuse" vs. "how do we avoid censorship" you have to ask how much harm is being done. There's no way to have a perfect answer to this question that is fair, harms no one, has no bad social effects, and is able to be implemented at the scale AO3 needs.)
And, again, even if the public figure is the target of a harassment campaign, they're not on AO3. A fanwork on AO3 can't be creating a hostile environment for them because ... it's not their environment. Professional hockey players are not on AO3, as a general rule. Nor are actors or politicians.
When fans are the target of similarly vile RPF, things are different. The scale of the situation is different, and the abusive fanwork is being posted in the fan's own community. Even if the fan being targeted has blocked and muted the harasser on AO3, the fact that the abusive fanwork exists is likely to create a hostile environment across fannish platforms. The abusive fanwork is highly likely to affect their relationships with other people in their fandoms, even if most people don't believe the lies in the abusive fanwork and think it's awful. It will serve as a lightning rod and encourage other toxic fans to harass the victim on AO3 and other platforms. Instead of being a tiny drop in a sea of content about the victim, such a fanwork can be a bucketful in a bathtub--enough to make a major difference. The balance of harm is fundamentally different.
I mean, in some ways it's a step forward because they're actually addressing that people do this (create "RPF" about doing awful things to fellow fans) and specifying that "gifting" such a work to the fan in question is harassment. It didn't use to be! Several fans have been driven off the platform because of this over the years. It's just not enough. And you can comment on it here.
There is one paragraph I have a problem with, and the problem is a doozy.
In section II.H Harassment it says:
Real-Person Fiction (RPF)
Creating RPF never constitutes harassment in and of itself. Posting works where someone dies, is subjected to slurs, or is otherwise harmed as part of the plot is usually not a violation of the Harassment Policy. However, deliberately posting such Content in a manner designed to be seen by the subject of the work, such as by gifting them the work, may result in a judgment of harassment.
So even if someone creates a "fanwork" about a fellow fan in which that person is raped and killed, that fanwork is only in violation of the harassment policy if they gift it directly to the victim. (A later paragraph says that advocating for someone to be harmed is against the TOS. So you can gleefully detail a fellow fan being tortured to death as long as you don't say in an author's note that someone should totally do that in real life.) This is not a hypothetical, this has happened a number of times. In those examples, there's usually been harassment on other sites, and the "fanwork" is part of a campaign of harassment. There is room in this policy for AO3 to say "it's not harassment by itself, but it's part of a campaign of harassment, therefore it counts." But there's also room for them to say "all the harassment is happening on other websites, nothing that is happening on AO3 is harassment, therefore the "fanwork" is fine and can stay."It is also further repeated in the FAQ:
Does the harassment policy cover everyone, or just AO3 users?
Both AO3 users and non-users can complain about harassment. The line between user and non-user can be blurry, so our policy covers both. However, writing RPF (real-person fiction) never constitutes harassment in and of itself, even if the content is objectionable. Please refer to our RPF policy for more information.
The use of any tool or feature could constitute harassment if it's being used to create a hostile environment.
"Any tool or feature" does not, apparently, include fanworks, the primary feature of AO3.
I don't know about you, but even if I never personally saw it because I had the author muted and blocked, AO3 hosting a work in which I was raped and murdered would create a hostile environment for me.
I think AO3 is missing a crucial distinction here, and in so doing it is going to allow AO3 to continue to be used by people to abuse fans, especially marginalized fans.
There is a very big difference between RPF of a public figure and RPF of a fellow fan, and the difference is, the public figure is almost certainly not going to see the RPF unless they themselves go looking for it. They are not part of the community where it is published and shared, and the fanwork-producing community is such a small proportion of the world (even today) that creating a really vile depiction of them is extremely unlikely to have any effect on them or their reputation at all, unless they go purposefully looking for it. It's a drop in the bucket. Even the worst RPF of a public figure is not harming that person. When there is a targeted campaign against that person that is large enough to cause them harm, the chances of the fic being a significant part of the problem--as opposed to the cruft pulled along in its wake--is very small. Abusive fanworks are merely a tiny drop in the ocean of public reactions to and treatment of public figures.
(Note: I think our society is really really awful in the ways we treat public figures, I'm not saying any abuse is ever okay, but when weighing the competing harms of "how do we prevent abuse" vs. "how do we avoid censorship" you have to ask how much harm is being done. There's no way to have a perfect answer to this question that is fair, harms no one, has no bad social effects, and is able to be implemented at the scale AO3 needs.)
And, again, even if the public figure is the target of a harassment campaign, they're not on AO3. A fanwork on AO3 can't be creating a hostile environment for them because ... it's not their environment. Professional hockey players are not on AO3, as a general rule. Nor are actors or politicians.
When fans are the target of similarly vile RPF, things are different. The scale of the situation is different, and the abusive fanwork is being posted in the fan's own community. Even if the fan being targeted has blocked and muted the harasser on AO3, the fact that the abusive fanwork exists is likely to create a hostile environment across fannish platforms. The abusive fanwork is highly likely to affect their relationships with other people in their fandoms, even if most people don't believe the lies in the abusive fanwork and think it's awful. It will serve as a lightning rod and encourage other toxic fans to harass the victim on AO3 and other platforms. Instead of being a tiny drop in a sea of content about the victim, such a fanwork can be a bucketful in a bathtub--enough to make a major difference. The balance of harm is fundamentally different.
I mean, in some ways it's a step forward because they're actually addressing that people do this (create "RPF" about doing awful things to fellow fans) and specifying that "gifting" such a work to the fan in question is harassment. It didn't use to be! Several fans have been driven off the platform because of this over the years. It's just not enough. And you can comment on it here.