Reading is my life

Can’t believe I’m hyping the US on this one, but at least our laws easily distinguish this. It’s not possible to “exploit” a character because they’re not real.

nothing will happen.

the fic you don't like will not be removed. the author's account will not be terminated. the author in question might not ever even know that you've reported their fic, because ao3 only contacts authors if their works go against the terms of service- which do not prohibit any kind of written content.

the only reason ao3 might contact an author on the content of their fic is if 1) major content warnings like rape/non-con or underage are missing (and in this case ao3 will simply ask the author to add that content warning- the fic will not be taken down), or 2) the author is in some way attempting to monetise their fics or linking go fund mes etc. that's pretty much it.

it is an archive, not an algorithm, and censorship of any kind is not present. it is your responsibility as a reader to filter content you don't want to see, as it is the authors responsibility to tag their works correctly.

a real person looks at all abuse reports on AO3;

if enough people report a fic on AO3, AO3 won't let people keep reporting it, so that the volunteers' time isn't wasted going through 3000 reports;

IF it violates AO3's terms of service the author gets a warning and plenty of time to amend the violation;

most AO3 TOS violations occur in the tags or author's notes and are things like linking to the author's patreon or forgetting to tag a major archive warning or CNTW -- things it's easy to fix!

the only common thing I see that AO3 would delete (after warning the author!) is "not a fanwork" violations, where someone posts a request for prompts or something, and there's no actual fic or art;

AO3 tends to err on the side of keeping something up because they are a not-for-profit dedicated to giving fanworks a place to exist online, not a for-profit website that needs ad revenue to stay up.

If people are harassing authors, that sucks and authors should take measures they deem necessary to be comfortable. If they want to, yeah, they can delete their fics. It's always a good idea to download your favorite fics, because fics get deleted all the time for lots of reasons. But AO3 isn't out here deleting fics without warning and for no reason.

wattpad essentially banned smut, triggering a lot of users to flood AO3 seeking a new place to enjoy free and uncensored fanfictions

only for some of them to report fics they deem "unethical" and "inappropriate"

am I

ao3 doesn't have an app because for it to have an app, appstore will have to approve it first. and if, hypothetically, ao3 needs appstore to approve it, it will also have to abide by appstore's pro-censorship stance and start banning dark and taboo fics, which is against its own core principle of being completely against censorship.

ao3 doesn't need an app. it works more than fine without an app. the reason ao3 can allow dark and taboo fics, the reason it can allow the most disgusting and shockingly vile fics, and be completely against censorship is because it doesn't need appstore's approval. it stands on its own as a non-profit organization with functioning site and a team of lawyers protecting its platform, its users, and every single fanwork on its platform.

everybody say thank you ao3