duchessonfire:
I have been reading a bit on the OTW elections and the whole Tiffany G thing, but most of all, I’ve been reading comments from people supporting Tiffany saying that she just wants to clear AO3 from all the CP (child pornography) content and I don’t know who needs to hear this but:
If someone comes to a predominantly QUEER space (like AO3) and tells you that censorship is necessary to eradicate CP… it’s not actually CP they want to eradicate…
I’ve seen this type of discourse about Pride and about queer literature and queer movies and queer communities. It’s a tried and true technique of the right and conservative movements.
First, they say there is a DANGER to the community through CP and they conflate the actual threat of CP in the community (we all know someone who thinks that writing a love story between two characters who are 16 is CP…), and make you believe that censorship is the only way to PROTECT THE CHILDREN. And since most people are (rightly) mind-bogled at having to explain that of course they don’t support CP content, they bow down and accept the censorship for the greater good, without anyone actually trying to have a conversation about what qualifies as CP (which needs to, you know, actually involve real children and not fictional characters who are 17 and losing their virginity with their crush in a Mature-rated story about high school football and first love based on the author’s own experience of losing their virginity at 17 to their crush in high school).
Then, they tell you that there are other forms of DISTURBING CONTENT, and what they really mean is porn that THEY find disturbing, for ex, (and I kid you not, I have seen comments like that) porn featuring disabled characters, which they consider to encourage the exploitation of vulnerable individuals, or BDSM porn (which supposedly encourages violence and lack of consent), or rough p*rn, or any kind of porn that isn’t two (preferably white and skinny) able-bodied people doing it missionary style while lovingly gazing in each other’s eyes. SO TO PROTECT VIEWERS, that needs to be banned as well.
And then, they tell you that even that sanitized version of porn is still porn and that people under 18 or under 21 or under whatever age they consider too young to view anything sexual regardless of the fact that not all countries have the same law about the age of maturity, should be free to surf the site without having to *gasp* filter out properly tagged works. So TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN, every explicit content is censored.
And then finally, when all that is left is a sanitized, white-washed, ableist, puritan type of content featuring General-Audience approved gay works of two nice men or two nice women holding hands and chastely kissing each other on the lips… Well guess what? :) CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BE EXPOSED TO QUEER CONTENT SO WE NEED TO BAN THAT AS WELL, and since we’ve basically done purge after purge before and there are still a handful of people on the website, well surely they won’t mind/care anymore, will they?
It’s not just a slippery slope, it’s something that has been done time and again, and that is why censorship on AO3 will never, never have a positive outcome.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Okay, but, while I agree 100% with everything OP has said, they’re missing one glaring, screaming clarification that all of the posts about this I’ve seen keep missing, and I need to say it.
There is no actual “CP” in AO3.
First of all, do not call it CP. It is not called CP. Every advocacy and regulatory body and TOS on the fucking internet does not call it CP.
CP stands for Child Pornography.
This was the lingo of the 90’s. This was the term chosen in time because it produces a very visceral, upsetting reaction in people. It’s a term meant to induce disgust.
It is also a term that carries very, very, very unfortunate implications.
It is 2022, and we have all as society agreed that Child Pornography doesn’t exist, per se, because “pornography” describes an industry that adults participate in. Ideally, willingly, but there’s abuses and excesses, like in all industries, where people are coerced. Pornography is like retail: some people do it because they enjoy it, some people do it because they have to pay bills, some people do it because someone is coercing them into it.
But the keyword is “participate”.
Pornography is made by adults, for adults, and as such, all adults have a level of agency in it.
CSAM, or Child Sexual Abuse Material, is the proper term to refer to what people think of, when you say “CP”. We changed the terminology, because children have no agency. It is not pornography. It is material explicitly recording and displaying abuse. Children cannot consent to sexual activity.
Children cannot participate, the way adults do, in pornography.
The other thing, to keep in mind, is that AO3 does not host CSAM. At all. It is against their TOS already. No website with servers in the US, or in a country with any kind of economic or diplomatic relations with the US, does. Because it’s against the law. See the fiasco with the AO3 volunteers that were sent actual CSAM materials and the way AO3 handled that.
AO3 does not host any kind of CSAM.
When you get that context, you realize that any cries to remove material from the archive are not being done in good faith. And therefore any and all replies to those, are pointless.
The hot button material that people are upset about are fictional works depicting fictional minors engaged in any level of sexual activity, thus tagged “Underage”; and specifically, a subjection of those works, that are also fictional works depicting fictionalized versions of real people, thus tagged “RPF”.
Whether you think this material should or shouldn’t be allowed in the Archive, is one thing. (I personally don’t particularly find it to my taste and would not be super heartbroken if AO3 decided to remove it, but that doesn’t matter, because it is allowed and fits within the guidelines and falls under the mission statement of AO3, and has since inception, so every single person who is currently using AO3 has, at least in theory, accepted that. If people tell you “they didn’t know” this or try to frame it like it’s something new? Those people are either lying to your face or idiots who didn’t read the TOS before joining the site.)
But you cannot, in good conscience, call this “CSAM” or related terms. You cannot. It is literally and explicitly not.
The reason CSAM is illegal and bad and terrible and consistently accepted as one of the worst possible things to exist in the world, is because its existence depends on the abuse of a child. Its very existence is confirmation that a crime has been committed.
The point is not that CSAM is “disgusting”. Even though it is, 100% and if you don’t think it is, you’re a fucking idiot. The problem with CSAM is the inherent harm its creation requires. That’s why it’s illegal basically everywhere. That’s why every TOS is written to exclude its presence explicitly.
The content currently in AO3, “Underage RPF”, does not match that definition. Does not cause the harm that CSAM does. The morality of Underage RPF can be up for debate. The actual/potential harm of Underage RPF can be up for debate.
But you can’t have any of those conversations if you don’t start from a clear understanding that it is not “CP”, that “CP” is not even a “real” term anymore and should instead be considered a red flag, used primarily to antagonize and demonize the opposition.
OP is absolutely right in tracking how accusations of this nature have been used historically to target and censor and destroy queer communities. But OP is also playing into the game by not rejecting the mislabeling of content, because THAT too is what they want. When they accuse AO3 of hosting CP, and you skip clarifying that, no, actually, AO3 does not host ANY CP at all in the first place, you’ve already lost. You’ve already handed them the win, because any and all arguments become void. You’re defending CP in their eyes, and they will frame it as such. And if you’re defending CP, then anything you say is irrelevant. Or worse, if you’re defending CP, that means everything else you’re defending (queer people, freedom of expression, writers, FICTION, etc.) is also as suspect and as inherently bad as the CP.
Otherwise you wouldn’t defend it in tandem.
