Another post about Ao3 and racism

[dolorosa_12]

This is a post about the ongoing discussion regarding racism, Archive of Our Own, and Ao3's parent organisation, Organization for Transformative Works' (mis)handling of the former in relation to the latter.


If you don't know what's going on, naye has been compiling a comprehensive collection of links to various threads of discussion, most of which have been taking place on Twitter. As someone who a) has been going through a long period of avoiding Twitter due to the stress it causes and b) finds Twitter a difficult platform on which to keep track of real-time discussions (so few words, so many branching, disconnected threads pertaining to a larger conversation), I really appreciate this. I'm going to state upfront here that I don't agree with every single person/discussion point linked to in those roundup posts — and I don't think every single person linked by naye agrees with each other — but suffice it to say I think the roundup posts do a good job of keeping track of all the various things that are being discussed.

To my mind, there are three different, but related things going on.

1. The first is in my opinion of most severe concern: Ao3, and the fanworks within it, being used as a straight up platform for racist abuse and harassment of other fans — mainly in the form of fanworks filled with specific, targeted racist abuse being gifted to fans of colour against their will (or forcibly making those fans coauthors of those fanworks). Although it is of course possible to refuse a gift or coauthorship, this first requires the target of abuse to engage with the fanwork in some way, which is unimaginably horrible. I had no idea this was going on (which is a mark of my own position of privilege as a white fan and someone who has deliberately ensconced herself in tiny fandoms-of-one, which has the effect of insulating me from larger, louder, nastier fandoms), and I am truly appalled that Ao3's response to this has been so dismissive and lacklustre. I would hope everyone here can agree that it is imperative that this specific problem be addressed as soon as possible, and that the obvious solution — the ability to block other Ao3 users (in a way that means they cannot see your fanworks/comments if they're logged in, and cannot interact with you in any way, much like blocking works on Twitter, rather than the way it operates on Dreamwidth, which still leaves public posts visible and interact-withable to the blocked person) is implemented as soon as is practicable.

2. The second issue is more nebulous, and harder to combat: a lack of importance placed on racist content in fanworks on Ao3, as demonstrated by the lack of racism-related tags being required 'major warnings' when posting a fanwork. (The fact that racism is not addressed in the site's terms of service or diversity statement compounds this problem.) Various solutions to this have been proposed in the discussions linked to by naye. My ideal solution would be to increase the number of mandatory warnings, with the understanding that 'Choose Not to Warn' is itself fulfilling the mandatory warning requirements. I would not be happy with the ability of users to tag other people's fanworks, which has been proposed in some quarters, but I recognise that it may be the only reasonable way to address this particular problem, since a) people who are using their fanworks to be deliberately abusive will continue to do so, b) white people are not the best judge of whether something is racist (and on an international platform, non-US fans may be oblivious to racist tropes within the US, and vice versa), and c) because we live in a culture where white people act as if accusations of racism are worse than the racism itself, oblivious creators may double down when asked to tag their work, even if a 'racism' tag is mandatory. I would prefer to increase the number of mandatory content tags first, and review the situation after a defined period to see if self-reporting has fixed the problem, before leaping immediately to allowing user generated tags.

3. The third problem lies in the fact that fandom is a microcosm of society, and we live in a racist society — and this affects the kind of stories being told, being rewarded and amplified and valued, and the kind of characters being afforded the bulk of the fannish love and attention. I think it would be a huge mistake to devote much time to this particular issue at this particular moment: either to dismiss most of the fans who are concerned about issues 1 and 2 as being 'really' concerned about this third issue, or to demand that Ao3 somehow do something about it. I don't know what they could possibly do about it anyway. It is a sad reflection of wider society that fandom as a whole is more interested in producing fanworks about white characters than black characters. However, an individual teenage fangirl's swoony Reylo fic (to pluck a random example out of the air), or the existence of Reylo fic in general is not in and of itself an issue, and I would be wary about amplifying the voice of anyone who spends most of their energy complaining about such things — especially if they don't seem to spend any time writing fic about characters/pairings they do like, or commenting on/kudosing/recommening fic about their preferred characters. (I want to make it clear I don't think most of the people being linked to in the various roundup posts are primarily concerned with this third problem — it's more I want to head off at the pass a potentially derailing conversation about this issue when problems 1 and 2 are more pressing and have more obvious, straightforward and concrete solutions.)

So, what's to be done? I am a big fan of people making concrete solutions and debating the potential problems that may arise from implementing those solutions, so until today I would have highlighted the editable Google doc 'Antiracist changes to the Ao3 platform'. But since the last time I looked at this doc, it appears that someone has attempted to delete the whole thing, and it's extremely difficult to read — it's still possible to follow, but everything has a strike through it. It's worth noting that almost every proposed fix to the problems I've outlined here, and as discussed in the Google doc, has potential repercussions that could open up marginalised (and non-marginalised) fans for other forms of targetted abuse, and many may require far more robust and laborious moderation procedures than Ao3 has typically employed. I think it's worth discussing those problems, because it would be disastrous to adopt what appears a quick and easy fix, only to open up new avenues of abuse. That said, doing nothing because it might be hard, or because abusive individuals will exploit the situation, is really not acceptable either. There will always be people in fandom operating in bad faith, but if we feel a harmonious community is a worthwhile aim, we need to at least try to minimise the harm done to as many people as possible.

I'll leave this with links to the upcoming Organization for Transformative Works elections. You have until 30th June to become a member for the purposes of voting in the election (the deadline for standing as a candidate has now closed), and the link gives instructions of how to become a voter. If you feel OTW as an organisation (and Ao3 as a platform) are significant to you personally, and if you are financially able to become a voter (it requires making a minimum $10 US donation by that 30th June deadline), this would seem the most obvious way to engage on the issues and problems I've been discussing here.

Comments

[naye]

I don't think every single person linked by naye agrees with each other
That's definitely the impression I've gotten! And it's good to keep in mind, especially since there is no official AO3/OTW stance on anything and literally every single discussion on "could this help" is 100% hypothetical. (Something I've seen a lot is "I think [X suggestion] would be a good idea" immediately leading to someone else having a reaction as if AO3 lawyers were about to burst through their door and serve them papers forbidding them from ever doing [Y thing] ever again. I put a roundup on Tumblr because I couldn't find the OTW letter there, and now have the dubious pleasure of seeing the start of a lot of hot takes in my notes.)

I think it's worth discussing those problems, because it would be disastrous to adopt what appears a quick and easy fix, only to open up new avenues of abuse. That said, doing nothing because it might be hard, or because abusive individuals will exploit the situation, is really not acceptable either. There will always be people in fandom operating in bad faith, but if we feel a harmonious community is a worthwhile aim, we need to at least try to minimise the harm done to as many people as possible.

♥

[dolorosa_12]

Oh no, you posted a roundup about this on Tumblr? You are a braver person than I am!

(As an aside, and without wanting to derail too much, Tumblr is why I had such a visceral reaction of NO when the prospect of reader-generated tags was raised. I just loathe it as a platform because it so easily leads to a million, branching conversations taking place in a billion different places, and there's a sense that your own posts aren't taking place in your space, but rather being thrown into a chaotic ocean to crash onto the sands of thousands of different beaches. What we write anywhere online is written on water, to a certain extent, and I do my utmost to stick to platforms where it's possible to create permanent written records where it's clear who is the creator of a post, and who is commenting, and where all comments/reactions are corralled into a single location, and if someone wants to bring that original poster's content into their own space, the only way they can do so is by linking back. I don't even use the Stories feature on Instagram because they're not permanent, and the impermanence makes me feel weird. So the idea of tags, applied to my writing, by people other than me, in a context where it wouldn't be clear that those tags weren't selected by me provoked this immediate visceral reaction from me. But, as I say, my ~feelings about various internet platforms really isn't the issue here.)

You're doing good work with your roundup posts, although bringing them to Tumblr feels like going above and beyond the call of duty!

[naye]

Oh no, you posted a roundup about this on Tumblr? You are a braver person than I am!
I was desperately hoping someone else had put the OTW letter there, but...nope. I had seen a few posts about the whole issue here and there, so I knew Tumblr was already having the conversation and...yeah, it felt like something the Tumblr Bubble might at least want to see?

You're doing good work with your roundup posts, although bringing them to Tumblr feels like going above and beyond the call of duty!
I will admit that before I did so I shut my Ask box and made it so only people who've followed me for over two weeks can message me. Not just because I am fragile but because none of what I am sharing is my work, and it makes zero sense for people to come back to me and ask me for clarification or opinions!

Anyway it had 1 note for a couple of hours and then I reblogged it and a BNF account boosted it with a nice little essay about how they agree with the letter (though it's a BNF I have very "yikes" feelings about - fortunately not re: racism or it would've been even weirder) and now it's at 1000+

In random venting, one of the complaints Tumblr is making is that the letter was started by white people and I am facepalming so hard at their entire reading comprehension. Yes. Yes, people, it was started by white people because BIPOC have been pulling the heaviest load here and everything in the letter builds on their work (including naming two of them in a separate point about how the OTW should apologize to them) but they shouldn't have to do every single anti-racist thing in fandom themselves. I am glad a couple of prominent white scholars wrote the letter because this mean they're standing up for their BIPOC colleagues and not making them targets for random hate re: this very specific thing.

WHEW. Yeah I have a lot of feelings about this and I am so not putting them on Tumblr because of everything you write above re: how conversations happen there. It would be so easy for someone to take any attempt to explain this as "White people are now claiming to be the true experts on racism!!" or whatever. Anyone willing to read wider and educate themselves will hopefully encounter the idea of white people doing shit so BIPOC don't have to as a form of anti-racism sooner or later.

[dolorosa_12]

Oh my God, that entire Tumblr situation is as depressing as it is inevitable. Why are people like this? As I say, you are brave for opening up the inevitable Notes-stravaganza of cluelessness over there — but you're absolutely right: the work has to be done, and white people have to do what we can to take the pressure off POC who bear a disproportionate weight when it comes to antiracism work.

[naye]

I mean, at least those responses were measured and thoughtful next to the two schools of Please Why Are You Like This: "SAY NO TO CENSORSHIP" and "BURN THE AO3". So.

(I am just here to facepalm somewhere nice and quiet.)

[dolorosa_12]

Uncharitably, Tumblr is basically where nuance goes to die, and where people respond to strangers' posts with the worst possible faith and leap to the most extreme conclusions on the strength of a single, contextless post appearing on their dash. In other words, I am disappointed, but unsurprised that you are getting precisely that kind of pushback over there.

(And yes, facepalm away.)

I noticed in your most recent roundup post that you asked if people on Dreamwidth were happy for you to link to their posts here. While I'm not sure that the earnest ramblings of a white woman who has no personal experience of racism is something which is imperative to boost right now, feel free to share this post if you feel it would be helpful. And obviously if you don't feel it's helpful or necessary, leave it out — it makes no difference to me either way.

[iberiandoctor]

Tumblr is basically where nuance goes to die

OMG, so much this. I am mostly on there to eyeball cute animal videos and photos of scenery and dresses ;)

[dolorosa_12]

I am mostly on there to eyeball cute animal videos and photos of scenery and dresses

Tumblr is great for this, but it feels to me that you end up needing to have extremely aggressive filtering systems in place in order to see solely these kinds of things.

I use Instagram for similar content (although what I'm after is flowers, gardening, food, and beautiful cities and scenery), and I've found it's a good space for that kind of thing.

[schneefink]

I've only read parts of the conversation (I meant to catch up this weekend but it looks unlikely) and I too am grateful for link compilations.

Imo one of the first things the OTW needs to do is become better at communicating. Maybe I give them too much credit, but I believe that the org is generally well-intentioned, but they suck at communication. Which is just one symptom of larger organizational problems, but, well. Long story. And I don't know what exactly their internal procedures look like right now, but I'm pretty sure they need better training.

Users being able to generate tags for others' fanworks seems like something that in itself could very easily become a tool for racist and other abuse, so I'm very wary. But I need to read up on proposed solutions/alternatives etc.

[dolorosa_12]

Imo one of the first things the OTW needs to do is become better at communicating.

I agree with this one hundred per cent! It's pretty ironic that an organisation that was founded in part to provide a space and community where people connect to a large extent through the written word is so bad at communicating its thoughts clearly!

I also think there's a kind of remembered or memorialised trauma that's baked in at an institutional level over at OTW, in relation to shared experiences of various third-party platforms abruptly removing their fanworks without warning, or imposing restrictions on what kind of content could be posted and hosted on those platforms, and it's causing them to view any request for an expanded set of mandatory major warning tags and more robust moderation procedures as a Trojan horse for censorship and the removal of content from the Archive. I cannot see any way that user generated tags would not result in a massive uptick in abuse, and to my mind they would have to be a complete last resort. I may be naive, but I think the ability to truly block other users, combined with an expanded set of required warnings (which I wish were called 'content tags' instead of warnings, but I think that's a losing battle) will be effective in dealing with all but the most deliberately abusive users, and those people are going to be awful, whatever the rules are.

The other problem is that the whole thing is happening at once too slowly, and too quickly. It's too slow, because fans of colour have been pointing out for years the terrible experiences with abuse and harassment they've had on Ao3 and had these experiences dismissed — so from their perspective things have been justifiably delayed for far too long. And at the same time there are people who just want this fraught situation to go away and would prefer to make some quick, bandaid solution to Ao3 which will make all the arguing go away, and they're not stopping to consider the wider implications of such solutions, or whether they will simply open up new avenues for abuse.

[lirazel]

Thanks for this. I have seen the edges of the discussion, but since I am not on Twitter (and really hate it), I've missed out on a lot.

Like you, I wasn't aware that the racist harassment of the kind you describe in 1) was happening. That's horrific and needs to be dealt with immediately, no equivocation. And then we really need to get to work on 2).

[dolorosa_12]

I share your frustration with Twitter, and I'm actually really irritated that this conversation is taking place there, because this is a conversation that could really benefit from a) being concentrated into as few spaces as possible, b) taking place somewhere where people aren't limited to a handful of words at a time, and c) with a culture that doens't immediately leap to ill-informed bad faith hot takes based on very little information. Twitter is ... none of these things.

And yes, racist, targeted harassment needs to be dealt with swiftly and unequivocably. Frankly, the OTW should be ashamed that its platform has been used in this way for so long.

[lirazel]

I have a lot of undirected bitterness about the fact that so many important conversations--not just in fandom, but across every topic--are taking place on Twitter when I think it's the absolute worst place to have substantive conversations. A place for making pithy jokes/observations and sharing links? Sure. If it was only used for that, I'd probably make an account. But having actual dialogue about things that matter? I feel like it would be difficult to design a worse platform for that than Twitter.

[dolorosa_12]

I have a great deal of bitterness about it as well. A cynical part of me thinks that these platforms really took off because they don't require people to put anything substantial into the space/conversation in order to get a lot of attention — whereas back in the old days of forums, personal blogs, and LJ/Dreamwidth, people had to make some kind of consistent, wordy contribution to be able to connect with people, make friendships, or gain any kind of popularity/following. On Twitter, that barrier of entry is much lower. This is not in and of itself a terrible thing (I know for disabled people who have e.g. fatigue issues or some other reason why making lengthy blog posts was a huge barrier to participation in online communities, places like Twitter may be a welcome relief). However, I think it has also made the potential for abuse, disruptive behaviour, or just simply unproductive conversations much higher.

Sadly, I can't see things reverting to the former state of affairs. All that Twitter has seemed to have caused is a fatigue with having complicated, contentious conversations at breakneck speed in public — and people have drawn the conclusion that it's a good idea to remove the public element and move to places like Discord, rather than remove the 'breakneck speed' component!

[lirazel]

I fear you're right.

and people have drawn the conclusion that it's a good idea to remove the public element and move to places like Discord, rather than remove the 'breakneck speed' component!

Another platform where I don't feel comfortable!

[merit]

I think there's definitely scope for more 'warnings' but I wonder how successful people tagging their own works would work in practice. I suspect it would be a drop in the ocean. Though if users could tag works, it could definitely open up another area of abuse.

Ao3 means well but 1) they're not great at communication as noted below and 2) in general, I would say they're only semi well organised. But alas, that's sometimes what happens when you have to rely on the time & expertise of volunteers.

[dolorosa_12]

I have a deep, visceral horror at the thought of users being able to tag others' works — there's already abuse going on in this area via Ao3 bookmarks, and tagging would just increase that.

I think in some ways increasing the number of warnings is a good idea not because it will solve racism (or other isms on the platform), but because it sends a signal that Ao3, and by extension the OTW, cares about those issues and the harm that can be done to people. As I say, deliberately abusive people will go on refusing to tag things appropriately, and oblivious people who don't recognise racist tropes in their own work won't suddenly switch to tagging things appropriately, but at least if someone runs into an untagged fanwork full of blatantly racist tropes and slurs, they would now be able to report that work to Abuse and get it tagged appropriately (or get CNTW attached to it). This of course increases the burden on people responsible for content moderation, so I don't want to pretend that it's a simple solution, but I think it would do a huge amount to clear the air and make people feel that their concerns are being heard.

[iberiandoctor]

I'm not sure I mentioned this before, but I am BIPOC/ethnic Chinese, and while I tend to lurk in a small corner of fandom far away from wank and antis, thanks to recent events in racism-in-fandom discourse, I'm making an effort to be more visible in fannish spaces.

And I am basically in agreement with most of your post? Especially this:

I am a big fan of people making concrete solutions and debating the potential problems that may arise from implementing those solutions

In particular, I think the suggestion that AO3/OTW engages a sensitivity consultant is a good one, and would be a way for them to address your (1) and (2) above. I would like to believe OTW is a generally good faith actor, and that much of its slowness to tackle (1) is due to a lack of resource or technical issues with the code.

[dolorosa_12]

I think you mentioned in the past that you were from (or lived in) Southeast Asia, but nothing more specific than that. I'm glad you feel interested in being more visible about this in fannish spaces, although am sorry to hear it was prompted by the current rather sad state of affairs.

I agree with your assumption that OTW is in general acting in good faith (although a bit clueless when it comes to the experiences of nonwhite fans; it seems a very white organisation) and a lot of problems are due to technical/coding issues and volunteer burnout.

I think a sensitivity consultant is a good first step, but I think I would be cautious in expecting a single consultant to be sufficiently informed of the ways racism and marginalisation manifest everywhere in the world. I can think of myriad specific examples where an online community that was very US dominated was completely oblivious to instances of abusive, racist behaviour, because the wider community didn't understand the specific dynamic or power differentials in other countries, regions, or contexts.

I say this not to dismiss the need for a sensitivity consultant, but more to say that OTW needs multiple such consultants if they want to continue to present their platforms as a genuinely international fannish space.

[iberiandoctor]

So I am interested in your specific examples, and will definitely DM you, if you were keen to share further? I am, as I say, making an effort to learn more (and you are being very sweet and sensitive to me about the current state of affairs, but I do think it is on me to do more).

I say this not to dismiss the need for a sensitivity consultant, but more to say that OTW needs multiple such consultants if they want to continue to present their platforms as a genuinely international fannish space

Yeah, I don't disagree -- as you say racism and marginalisation are different in different parts of the world, and ideally any international organisation should have a sensitivity team that can provide that range of expertise?

But, given what I know of smaller organisations starting to on-board new in-house resource (and from my own experience in gender balanced consulting), I think it would be more realistic to start with a qualified consultant, acting in an executive capacity (and ideally paid, rather than a volunteer), who would then be able to out-source, or hire, other types of sensitivity resource as needed. It would also be good for oversight/governance to also give this consultant a new dotted reporting line to one of the directors (say, to a diversity/racism sub-committee chair), who could also perhaps as act as an ombudsman for whistle-blowers? Something like that, I think, would be robust and realistic, though I recognise resource is a huge constraint.

[dolorosa_12]

A sensitivity team would be an absolutely brilliant idea, and I agree wholeheartedly that at least the leadership of this team should be a paid consultant position, rather than a volunteer one, given that OTW already has significant problems with volunteer burnout. I would certainly be happy to contribute to a fundraising drive to support such an initiative, and I suspect a lot of other people would too.