Comment by ballmerpoint
9 hours ago
I disapprove of how much underage material they host. Free speech absolutism runs head-first into its internal contradictions.
9 hours ago
I disapprove of how much underage material they host. Free speech absolutism runs head-first into its internal contradictions.
There is no contradiction here. It was founded precisely because LiveJournal started censoring sexually explicit fanfiction involving taboo subjects (particularly incest/rape/minors).
I suppose it won't help to point out to you that it's fiction, none of it actually happened, no person was ever hurt, and this is nowhere close to ”free speech absolutism”.
https://archiveofourown.org/content#II.H
It’s acceptable on AO3 to write a narrative description of a real person’s actual abuse, including their personal information (see II.F.4.a), and it only “may result in a judgment of harassment” if also the author specifically makes it available to the victim.
The policy is unsafe by design.
It's the written equivalent of deepfake porn - hugely entertaining for the creators, not so much for the victims. Especially if they're teens at school, and the creators are bullying them.
No matter what AO3 thinks, in many countries this immediately crosses the line into criminal harassment.
As for the rest - the fanfic community has been among the loudest criticising AI writing for 'stealing from real artists', which is... not exactly self-aware.
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