3323: The Video Camera - see entry

[pottersues]

Here is day seven.

Today's doll is a steampunk doll.

TITLE: The Video Camera
PERPETRATOR: WhereTheBerriesBloom
SUE-O-METER:

Comments

[indigoneutrino]

I always find it especially annoying when people are well aware they're breaking the rules but think it's alright because of "creative freedom" or whatever. FFN is a site that is providing a free service, and if they put rules down, people should respect them. You can't complain that it's restricting your creativity when it's what gave you the platform for creative expression in the first place. FFN is the biggest fanfiction archive on the internet, it has a lot of young users and it funds itself from on-site advertising, meaning it has to be careful in abiding by the law. Hence the rules they've put in place, which people don't seem to realise are there to protect users as well as the site.

This is why it's so infuriating that people abuse it when there are sites like AO3, whose express purpose is that they don't place any restrictions on what can be posted provided it's tagged and warned for correctly, and they specifically have a legal team that advocates for people to be allowed to post fanworks of any nature. If you want to write smut, it's in your best interests to post it on AO3! Same for RPF, because if you get into any trouble for it (unlikely though it may be) the site will support you, whereas FFN would throw you under the bus. And rightly so, because they've laid down the rules, which they need to in order to protect themselves as an organisation funding itself through advertising. AO3 is entirely volunteer and fan run, so if anyone gets all mad about FFN being too "restrictive" why don't they just move themselves on over there. Sure, the user interface isn't as great and the tagging system is pure chaos, but overall it would be in everyone's best interests. I'd even argue that MA material is more likely to get attention on AO3 than on FFN, if that isn't persuasive enough! In my experience you'll get more feedback on smut fics than you will regular fics on that site, so if people really want to share their MA rated stuff, that is the best place for them! I don't know why they fight so hard to get away with posting it on FFN when there's much better places for it.

There is a line between M and MA, and occasionally it can be hard to define depending on how many flowery euphemisms people use to be obvious without being explicit, but in the vast majority of cases, that isn't what you seen on FFN. It's just clear MA material that shouldn't be there. Don't get me wrong, I'm not kidding myself that if 14 year olds can't access MA on that site they can't access it at all (whether they should is another matter) but there are good legal reasons for the site enforcing that rule, and the site has a duty to try to protect its users. That means not making MA content available to minors, and people ought to respect that. Just because it's widely available elsewhere on the internet isn't an excuse, because that isn't FFN's responsibility.

I've also noticed that MA and PWP fic I've seen on other sites generally has a higher writing quality than anything I've happened across on FFN, probably because the writers themselves are more mature and don't have this sense of entitlement that makes them think they can post it in inappropriate places. The badly written nature of most of the MA stuff on FFN makes it even more annoying, considering it shouldn't be there in the first place.

Sorry, kind of ranting here and preaching to the choir, I know, but this is something that really frustrates me.

[yemi_hikari]

Well... if I remember correctly I ranted at you on this as well.

I've come across only one writer I can think of where the writing was pretty good on FFN and when I explained that they could get in trouble for MA material they started moving said material over to another site. The ones that post MA material aren't the only ones who whine about themselves being censored and how much their work is an art form. I'd say only 1% of the rule breaking stuff is truly creative, truly artistic... though it seems to be a bit higher with RPF, but not by much.

Fact: If you cared about your work and do consider it artistic and creative you would either make it compliant with the rules or you would find a venue that it fits.