Ao3’s “Acceptable Intolerance”

How the Paradox of Tolerance Relates to Policy and Abuse

There’s a fairly common subject that’s chattered about in Leftist spaces without the thought that it truly requires: The Paradox of Tolerance. Most Leftists, especially in fandom do not exactly understand that the word “paradox” is there for a reason—to suggest to them that the fashion in which they invoke this concept is…part of it. The paradox is thus: If a society is tolerant of all ideologies, including those that are intolerant, the society’s ability to stay tolerant will eventually be impeded by the intolerant. What many tout as the “solution” to this paradox is actually part of the paradox itself: intolerance of intolerance, rendering your tolerant society…intolerant. Philosopher Karl Popper, who gave life to this paradox in 1945 (of course he did), suggests that though society should first strive to use all other motions against intolerance, the “tolerant” society should then have the ability to invoke the right to suppress intolerant speech. But who gets to decide who the “intolerant” are?

The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) has had a distinct reputation of allowing all works that are legal under the First Amendment of the United States—one of the most free and open set of rules of any fandom website. Nevertheless, a lot of folks seem to forget that any website is bound to have a Terms of Service Statement (ToS) that is always more restrictive than simply invoking First Amendment rights. The Archive (Ao3), for example, withholds the right to suspend works or users based on rules regarding plagiarism, solicitation, harassment, and other issues. While plagiarism and solicitation might be somewhat cut-and-dry subjects, “harassment” seems to be the most contentious when it comes to determining exactly what constitutes harassment. It is explicitly stated in Ao3’s ToS that Real Person Fiction is not considered harassment nor are actors deaths depicted in fiction considered death threats. They also state very openly that statements are considered on a case-by-case basis but claim that statements that are merely “annoying” as opposed to “threatening” will be left alone by the abuse team. But…is that true?

On September 3rd 2023, Twitter (X) user murashky tweeted a screenshot of an email sent to them by the abuse team at The Archive informing them that their story “you don’t wanna be alone” had been hidden and was no longer publicly accessible. According to the email that was also shared by murashky, the abuse team had hidden the work due to a statement they had made either in the tags or the notes of their work which stated:

“Proshitters dni

“GET A LIFE” [sic].

The team then cited the section of their ToS which claims, “Harassment is any behavior that produces a generally hostile environment for its target” and goes on to inform murashky that this includes “collective bullying, and threatening conduct directed at an individual or a group.”

Murashky’s Tweets depicting screenshots of Ao3’s communications with them regarding their story “you don’t wanna be alone”

Regardless of whatever an individual might think about anti-shippers or proshippers or whatever “side” one might profess to be on: this course of action is interesting. Through experiences and prior knowledge of Ao3’s abuse team actions, one should be able to deduce that a tag or author’s note expressing contempt for proshippers should not at all constitute “harassment” unless the user has a prolonged history of making bullying statements in their tags or author’s notes (evidence of which we do not currently have though it has been hinted at by statements made by murashky and others). Even still, would statements like this not simply be considered merely “annoying” by the abuse team since they have no discernable target and proshippers are not—barring the subsets of queer and BIPOC therein—an oppressed or marginalized group as defined by general society standards? Even some tags that have contained a discernable “target” as in a singular individual (here’s looking at my short-lived tag citing Fandom Scholar Rukmini Pande’s whole ass name) have not prompted the abuse team to hide a work (though the circumstances of that were, admittedly, different as Pande had criticized my work and Ao3 determined the clap-back was fair game even before my deescalation).

If Ao3 were a bastion of First Amendment rights, “Proshitters dni” and “GET A LIFE” would be fair game for tags and notes…but The Archive doesn’t itself claim to be a bastion of free speech despite what a lot of fandom Leftists claim. Their “society of tolerance” still has a Terms of Service Statement that explicitly creates avenues by which the abuse team can exert control over what is on their site. The Archive’s ToS specifically states that it strives for “maximum inclusivity of content,” implying then that tags and author notations within a work are extraneous and are specifically excluded in the definition of “content” when in regards to the fiction itself. The Archive has a similar regard for comments; even though one might consider commentary and criticism of a work to then transform into a part of the work itself with its own artistic merit, Ao3 does not take this stance, considering comments a separate entity and subjected explicitly to a more stringent code of conduct according to their ToS.

This, of course, might answer some of our burning questions about why only some of notorious racist writer Sugarino’s works have been purged from the site and not others which are, within their content, explicitly and virulently racist. Were there aspects of Sugarino’s conduct outside the content of their fics that was subject to Ao3’s abuse team moderation in ways that do not apply to a work’s internal text? This would certainly explain the loss of their Confederate flag loli avatar and if they had faced permanent suspension, it would explain why there have been no other fics posted to that profile, as permanently suspended accounts’ fics are not automatically purged if they do not violate abuse team moderation standards. Such a thing might merit further investigation, as it would clear up some confusion as to their standing with the Archive and what is explicitly allowed or disallowed on the platform.

Right now, it’s all up for speculation. Did murashky have a history of creating denigrating comments in their fiction’s notations or tags? Is a derogatory word for a group of people who are bound only by terminally online ideological terms enough to constitute “harassment?” Interesting questions and certainly something to keep in the back of one’s head when it comes to the interpretation of any further ToS alterations. After all, though fandom Leftists might consider Ao3 the shining “City on a Hill” of “tolerance,” that tolerance comes with the paradox-predicted side order of acceptable intolerance, something that is obviously widely acceptable if one considers the public support of The Archive abuse team’s actions among the majority of proshippers on Twitter (X). Is this acceptable intolerance working as it should when taking action on “annoying” author notations and tags, citing them as “harassment” or is this an example of a minor overstep in the exertion of control? If the latter: is this an outlier, or a new normal? When does acceptable intolerance turn into simple intolerance?

OPEN COMMENTS! Tell me what you think:

1. Should writers be able to voice limitations on who they want to interact with their work in their tags? If so, would you object to this limitation drawn on racial, religious, or political lines?

2. Is “proshitter” a valid derogatory term to warrant a “harassment” violation in a similar vein as say a veiled slur? (Think “maggotry.”)

3. Should author notes and chapter summaries be held to a higher standard than a fiction’s base content? What about comments?

4. Karl Popper’s experiences having faced exile after the German annexation of Austria played deeply into his philosophical works during the post-war era. Do you think that Ao3’s policy reflects the Paradox of Tolerance in action and if so, is it something you agree with? Do you think that America’s speech laws would benefit from an amount of “acceptable intolerance” to fight against rising fascism and if so, do you trust the American government’s ability to enact this type of censorship?