#End OTW Racism FAQ

[end-otw-racism]

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Read our Call to Action first, then come here if you have additional questions!

Vote To End OTW Racism FAQ

Why Voting?

We feel the current Board of Directors has demonstrated little urgency on dealing with issues of racism on their platform. Additionally, over the course of the last few weeks, a variety of accounts have come forth showing fundamental, institutional and structural issues with OTW as it currently stands. With 4 of the 7 current board positions up for election, we feel that now is a key time to push for a board that is willing to address and tackle the issues OTW and AO3 are currently facing. 

Why are you encouraging donations to an org you are trying to change?

The only way to be able to vote is to donate. Like many nonprofits, OTW uses a membership fee to ensure that each member is a distinct individual with one vote. In order to do this, the OTW requires their supporters to make a minimum donation of $10 US. We do not feel that anyone should feel compelled to donate. However, there are many people who have already donated who may not know that donation entitles them to voting!

Can we donate on behalf of other users so they can vote as well?

Unfortunately this is not possible under OTW’s current system. You cannot create a membership for anyone but yourself. This system protects OTW elections from sabotage by outside parties. 

Do we have to give money?

No. We fully believe no one should feel pressured at all to contribute financially. There are many who are uncomfortable contributing to the OTW as it currently exists and we fully support and understand their position. We feel voting is only one of many ways people can be involved and encourage everyone to do so at a level they feel comfortable with. With that, our Call to Action has a subsection of many ways you can get involved that do not involve money. 

What is the point of changing Pseuds?

We want everyone, including those who cannot or do not create fanworks, to have a way to show their support and be engaged in this movement. Creating a Pseud is a great way of showing support and reminding people that voting season is upon us – it makes our action visible in comments and kudos and can be done by anyone with an account. After the action, the Pseud can be deleted and all comments/kudos made will revert back to the main account. 

Should we change the names of old fanworks for this action to Vote to End OTW Racism?

You don’t need to, but are welcome to change any and all fic titles to join in the action and our collection at any time. The primary goal of this action is to be a constant reminder to AO3 usership that it is voting season and they should vote if they can, which is why we’re focusing on name-changing new works between now and the end of elections – so that the reminder can be front and center regularly on various fandom and tag pages. (We can’t put a banner at the top of every AO3 page to encourage voting, so this is our next best tactic.)

General FAQ

Who are you people? Who's running this initiative?

Given that virulent harassment for speaking out about fandom racism is one of the things we're attempting to fight, it should be understandable that we don't want to make targets of ourselves by revealing our names/handles. We believe that our message and this movement is more important than our individual identities, and ask that you respect that by not engaging in baseless and inflammatory speculation.

The core organizers of this initial action are all longtime fans and users of AO3, including both people of color and white folks, who have been in fandom for decades. We are NOT "outsiders"! Our perspective and work on antiracism in fandom has also been developed in collaboration with a diverse range of fans older and younger than us, from many different fandoms and backgrounds. We are grateful for those connections, and are inspired by those who have been tirelessly fighting racism in fandom over time. We are all sick of seeing the same kinds of racism crop up in fanspaces year after year, in fandom after fandom. We want to see fandom's flagship project do something to make fandom more inclusive and safe for fans of color. We welcome participation and input from all fans who want to fight racism as we move forward. Fill out this form or contact our socials to get involved beyond this first action!

Are you pro-shippers or antis?

Neither. This is not about shipping discourse, it is about racism and harassment, full stop.

Is this about dark or "problematic" content?

Is this about policing kinks &/or queer content?

Is this about top/bottom discourse?

No. This is about racism and abuse/harassment. We are in favor of kinky, queer, and dark content (and many of us have created and enjoyed fanworks that falls under those umbrellas). If you consider extremely racist content to be a kink essential to your identity as a fan, then we can't help you.

Why aren't you focused on underage/incestuous/dark/etc content? Isn't that also a problem?

Bigotry is a different issue from content that fans may find uncomfortable or even triggering in other ways. Please don't derail this focused campaign by bringing other topics into the mix.

Is this about monetizing fanworks on AO3? Is this about making the AO3 palatable to advertisers?

No. We support AO3's rule against openly/directly monetizing fanworks hosted on its platform, and its commitment to being totally fan-funded and free from advertising revenue (and the fickle, proscriptive demands of outside interests like major corporations and other advertisers). Fanspace should be for fandom, not credit card companies or tech conglomerates to profit from.

What kind of work do you mean when you say "extremely racist and extremely abusive"?

We understand that people might be concerned that we're opening the door to broad censorship of work on AO3, but that's not our goal. Our concern is with racist fan works written for the purpose of making the fan site unwelcoming to fans of color. We haven't directly linked to current examples here because we don't want to invite harassment of individuals. However, we do hope that the OTW/AO3 takes a long hard look at their Terms of Service (TOS) and brings it in line with current/progressive antiracist content. Currently, AO3 only considers something harassment if it targets a specific individual - and even then, they have often refused to take action on harassment like authors using racial slurs in replies to comments, or tagging a scholar of color's full name in a fic to incite harassment of them for speaking out about racism. We believe that harassment against a racial/ethnic group should be considered harassment under AO3's TOS and Abuse policies. How AO3 handles offending works until these proposed changes would be up to AO3 to decide. Avenues for progress may involve discouraging such works, de-listing such works from search results, or prohibiting them all together, depending on severity. We are also in favor of the organization establishing reasonable guardrails or guidelines so that the new TOS/policies are less likely to be abused or otherwise used maliciously.

Who gets to decide what content is "extremely racist and extremely abusive"?

Ideally, the OTW will update their TOS and Abuse policies and procedures to define these terms, and they will ultimately determine how to implement these changes. We're not asking for them to hire a bunch of prudish strangers to comb through every work AO3 in order to mass-delete anything remotely objectionable, but for the OTW to implement common-sense measures to make the AO3 and the organization more inclusive. They've already committed to similar measures, so we're just asking for concrete action to back up their vague promises. This approach to racist harassment is in line with their existing policies that prohibit certain kinds of content, such as their policy on plagiarism that takes a case-by-case approach to determining what is and isn't plagiarism. We're just asking that they expand those policies and practices to include extreme forms of racism & harassment.

What do you mean by "off-site harassment"?

Answered here.

Do you want to remove content from the Archive?

Our primary goal is for the OTW to follow up on the promises it's already made to protect fans of color and other people who have been harassed, but in more concrete ways than they've done thus far. This does involve reviewing the TOS and Abuse policies and procedures to add protections for people facing racist harassment. Like with any other violation of the TOS, such as failure to use the archive warnings properly or plagiarism, this may result in creators receiving warnings about their works that are in violation of the new harassment policies. However, the end goal is not censorship, but an Archive that is more inclusive for fans of color and which minimizes harassment and abuse.

When do you expect AO3 to solve these problems?

We're hoping (in an ideal world) that they will respond within the recommended two-week timeframe of our action (which ends May 31st) by putting out a statement committing to our requests. We understand that a large organization like this run by volunteers needs time to actually implement those changes, but OTW has been working on these policies for three years already. With that pre-existing work, our demands can be feasibly implemented within six months to a year at the latest, and a commitment to change – and sharing a concrete, expedited timeline – can happen immediately. The exact timeline is up to the OTW, and we hope they will be fully transparent about both that and any delays they may encounter. We don't want this to be a rehash of their previous commitments, where they keep kicking the can down the road indefinitely: we want them to make a concrete plan and stick to their promises. The OTW has in fact acted quickly on policies when they feel urgency to do so - their implementation of a tag limit happened within months! - so we know it's possible. After the current action window closes, we'll still need your help to keep an eye on the org and make sure they fulfill their promises. Fill out this form if you're interested in helping long-term!

Why are you doing this? Why aren't you focusing on real racism in the real world?

Fandom racism is real racism. Fandom is not an utopian bubble insulated away from the real world – if we're not careful, we bring our parent cultures' biases and bigotries into this space, and fandom racism has a real impact on fans (who are real people). People of color, especially Black fans, have been harassed, doxxed, had their actual jobs threatened, and even reported to law enforcement for talking about these problems. Fans of color deserve for fandom to be just as safe and welcoming and inclusive for them as it is for white fans privileged enough to ignore these issues. And racism should be fought everywhere so it has no place to hide or fester - remember Gamergate and how the bigotry in that space metastasized into American politics? Don't let fandom have the same issues.

[edited 06-16-2023 for Action 2]

[olderthannetfic]

the 'end OTW racism' thing sounds good on paper, and i'm not saying they don't have noble goals, but it's almost laughable how vague their entire movement is. they say over and over again in the FAQ and in their info posts that they want the OTW to 'take action' but they actually don't give any concrete examples of what that action should be or look like. you can't just say 'make changes to stop racist harassment on the platform' and leave it at that if you expect your movement to be actionable--you need to actually provide concrete action items, and frankly they haven't.

and it's concerning to me that they seem to be including changes to content moderation policy--which should not be changed, i do not want any team of ao3 volunteers to be forced to take it on themselves to start moderating works for bigotry, and it kind of appalls me that they think this kind of moderation could happen without subjecting actual humans to the kind of work they seem to find horrifically traumatizing to be exposed to? the abuse team has it hard enough, and for this to work the way they seem to want, the team would need to be staffed with poc--and taking action based on off-site behavior which would just be a fucking nightmare.

no, ao3 should not in fact implement systems that attempt to hold ao3 users accountable for behavior that does not occur on ao3 itself. that would be a serious overreach and wide open for abuse and i don't want it.

but even for all of that they don't actually seem to have any answer for what concrete actions they want the OTW to take, and yet they expect their movement to force large-scale change within a six month timeframe? sorry but asking for the moon ain't gonna end with a moon rock on your front porch, and i'm a little curious why they don't seem to want to demand anything that the OTW can feasibly deliver on within the timeframe they've set if they actually expect to get anywhere.

--

The charitable interpretation is that they're setting a harsh deadline to light a fire under OTW's ass.

[robo-cryptid]

Imagine talking about ending racism and harassment while being an Overwatch fan. Activision Blizzard will never be held accountable thanks to hypocrites like you.

Imagine seeing a campaign about racism in the OTW and changing the subject. From EndOTWRacism's FAQ:

[Alt text: "Please don’t derail this focused campaign by bringing other topics into the mix."]

If you want to hold Activision Blizzard accountable, you can support their workers' alliance. It might be more fruitful than anon messages, but it might also require actual effort on your part.

[decepti-thots]

I had no idea that anything was actually happening with otw but thank you I see this as a sign to start downloading all my fav fics lol

On reflection, I suppose I did make that comment offhandedly without thinking that many people have no idea what I'm talking about- it concerns stuff I suppose falls into that "if you're in circles that know it seems obvious, if not you have no idea it exists" valley.

I should probably clarify that that post wasn't me talking about some imminent risk of AO3 as a platform imploding or disappearing or anything, and nobody needs to start panicking in that regard. I was referring to the current boiling over of a lot of very long term (like, back to when it was founded) institutional/structural/operational issues within the OTW as an org that have been coming out over the past week or so. So me looking at being less solely reliant on AO3 was more a matter of longterm "seems a good idea not to be on just this one platform having these issues" planning and not anything anyone needs to be worried about like, right now.

...and because I know folks not as familiar with this same longterm stuff WILL ask, I'll put a brief summary below the cut for if any of you are curious. However, please be aware, this discussion will by necessity include reference to an incident last year in which OTW volunteers were sent CSEM/CSAM materials as part of a horrendous targeted campaign; while nothing graphic regarding CSA itself is discussed, I mention it here for post filtering and general warning purposes.

So these past couple of months there has been a sustained fan organizing action going on under the name #endOTWracism, which is a specific, targeted attempt at pushing for the OTW to make good on promises they made in 2020 to look at improving their response to racism on their platform. There's an FAQ covering the scope of the action (which ended yesterday, and ran through May) here.

I've been following this with very great interest and it's brought a lot of really good focused discussion out in fan communities, bringing back up a lot of talking points which have historically been shouted down re: the OTW and its poor (one might say "nearly entirely negligent") response to racism in fandom over the span of its existence, and the long standing attempts to get them to address this.

Anyway, one of the posts I especially was recommended that looked at it from the perspective of someone with experience in volunteering and organizing was this post, which takes a look specifically at the issues of how the OTW is structured as an org in a practical, real-world sense. I think it's a great post that brings a really good, grounded approach to the whole issue, looking not just at the big ideas but at how to really run a functioning organisation in a way that is able to be e.g. antiracist. A post like that of course brought in a lot of discussion of... how the OTW is structured and functions day-to-day! That being the topic at hand, and folks wanting to bring their own experiences to the table.

Which, both on that post itself and elsewhere, has uh. Brought some stuff to light that makes even the most hardcore OTW skeptic look like maybe they were overly optimistic. To be quite honest

Some highlights:

Last year, there was a horrendous attack in which OTW volunteers were directly emailed and bombarded with high volumes of CSEM. This was of course horrifically traumatising and scary, and even at the time it was noted that the OTW's response to this was wildly negligent in terms of taking action to safeguard and help their volunteers. Well, it turns out that a) this was an escalation of preexisting issues that the OTW knew about and failed to reasonably address, b) they took a HIDEOUSLY unethical approach to how CSEM distribution attempts were moderated on the platform and just dumped it on one unsupported volunteer who was left horribly burned out by the experience. This post has a good summary and roundup. The fallout from this entire debacle is way too much for me to summarize in full but suffice to say: folks are thinking maybe people should consider not continuing to volunteer for an org that is this unethical and exploitative towards its workforce in a way that directly puts that at serious risk! This is a standpoint I would agree with given there's seemingly also been internal retaliation against the person speaking out! This is terrible! I feel so bad for all these poor volunteers! I have been reading about and fuming regards this situation for two days now and it truly is awful.

There has recently been an instance in which Chinese OTW volunteers got hung out to dry regards their specific work with OTW on Weibo, where it was made clear to them that the org really wasn't interested in any of the work they were doing to engage with and support specifically Chinese fandom. Basically, "we don't really think this is worth doing, and noone involved in the board etc even speaks Chinese, so whatever". This follows an observed and longstanding pattern of higher ups at the OTW undervaluing... basically anyone who isn't part of Western anglophone fandom.

In general, just a LOT of current and past OTW volunteers talking on various platforms about the sheer dysfunction that means things at OTW are deeply incapable of getting basic shit done at best and straight up chew well meaning volunteers up and spit them out at worst. This is basically the nth round of this exact cycle since the OTW began, but in conjunction with the above, it seems to be getting a lot more attention than such things usually do.

This is only some of the stuff that's going on right now but basically, every single issue of internal bullshit the OTW has been accruing as an org for the past ~15 years seems to be blowing up at once, and it's really the first time I've considered that this time it might, in the long run, have a serious impact on the viability of the org in the future. (As things stand: it absolutely should do, because any org that so comprehensively fails the human beings working for it in such an immediate, real life sense needs to make huge immediate changes or fuck right off tbh.)

So that's a bad summary of... SOME of the stuff going on right now. It's a lot. Needless to say.

I wanted to make this post for a couple reasons. One: many folks came into fandom well after the AO3 was just this... site that was there, used by default, and which just sort of operates and you don't think about how. Which is understandable. A person coming into fandom in a post-AO3 world will see the site the same way one sees Twitter or Tumblr or Wattpad; a thing too big and too... default to really concern yourself with the details of how it came to be so big, and used by default. I, personally, have been in online spaces since I was very young, and AO3 launched when I was around sixteen, many years into my experiences with the fandom spaces it came out of. I was around at the time that the OTW and AO3 were proposed, developed and began to expand in scope. I was in circles where folks were talking about this stuff in a very direct way, basically. So I think I have a decent enough sense of context to help lift that veil a little for folks who have no such advantage, and also to help highlight that these are issues years and years in the making, not sudden revelations as they sometimes seem.

Two, because I expect to see many, many folks trying to pass this off as "discourse" or "wank" or "purity culture" in the coming weeks as the fallout continues, and I want dig my ankles in and say if you try that shit on with me I will laugh you off my blog. I think this post makes my opinion fairly clear on where I draw the line between "dumb fandom wank" and "this is not dumb fandom wank, this is serious shit"; it is well before this stuff. So.

tl;dr: I don't know what the OTW will look like in a year or two or five, and this shit has reminded me I shouldn't bank on pretending I do. So, I'm mirroring stuff elsewhere, not because I think the org will collapse, but because maybe the centralization of fandom is overall bad, actually. I encourage folks to consider their own feelings on the topic, since this is as good a reason as any to consider for yourself how you feel about this stuff.

[lisafication]

Looked into end otw racism myseld and honestly they aren't asking ao3 anything different then what the organization has established themselves. The group even explains that not having a defined example of what constitutes as "harassment" according to ao3 standards is in itself a problem that needs to be solved. I dont think the group is demanding solutions but to at least address the issue that again ao3 has mentioned in passing at best

This is presently what their FAQ has to say (just a snip to illustrate the point, there's more than this): "Currently, AO3 only considers something harassment if it targets a specific individual - and even then, they have often refused to take action on harassment like authors using racial slurs in replies to comments, or tagging a scholar of color’s full name in a fic to incite harassment of them for speaking out about racism.

We believe that harassment against a racial/ethnic group should be considered harassment under AO3’s TOS and Abuse policies."

They are, indeed, demanding specific solutions. These solutions are impossible if you have the size and relative budget of AO3. That's my point.

[sroloc--elbisivni]

what's happening with ao3? (summarized)

wrote a version of this up for a friend, thought it would be good to put it out in case it helps even one other person who's only caught rumblings, especially since even the most informative posts I've seen on the topic I found unhelpful in other ways. June 3 2023.

A group of folks came together to organize a campaign that ran in May 2023 called ‘end-otw-racism’ with the end goal of decreasing the potential for racist harassment on ao3; specifically to call attention to how few of the promises on Ao3's 2020 statement against racism have been fulfilled. (this is an EXTREMELY condensed summary. please do go check out their pinned post and FAQ if you want more information)

Partly as a result of the discussions this campaign generated, some of the volunteers/former volunteers of the OTW/Ao3 have come forward to discuss how there’s been a culture of overwork and poor structural management, as well as a lack of support for members both in general and in a specific incident where volunteers were sent sexually explicit and illegal material to their email inboxes. Further details here. The following link is from someone who was involved in the founding of the OTW (and left in 2014) confirming that there are some structural problems that have been present from the beginning.

Here is a post I have previously reblogged discussing some next steps to take if you want to try and effect change.

The following is my own opinion. I think there are definitely reasons for structural reorganization, and I think it’s good for people to be paying attention to what is, essentially, a community project that many of us participate in, and I think that the rapid growth ao3 has experienced in the past few years has been probably poorly handled internally, ESPECIALLY since everyone who volunteers with the organization has been living through the same global pandemic as the rest of us. I think that having visible public complaints and support for the volunteers who have been poorly treated will be helpful for any volunteers or internal members of the org hoping to change how things are done.

I also think that staking everything on demanding immediate change is going to cause more problems than it solves, and I am concerned this could flare up into an immediate firestorm of ugly fighting and internet name-calling and not actually generate in the long-term the momentum, patience, or attention to actually effect positive change.

[palominodragon]

Not quite what I'm talking about.

In no way am I saying that what you describe hasn't also happened and continues to happen.

I'm talking about the type of fandom antis who will reach for any opportunity to put on a show of performative activism by calling out someone else, often taking something their target did out of context or coming up with the worst interpretations they can think of. Some of them do it for the power trip, some of them do it because they think they're actually helping fix society, and a lot of them do it out of fear because if they don't prove themselves to their peers, those peers will turn on them and accuse them of racism/misogyny/homophobia/pedophilia/any possible condemnable fault they can come up with...

This is absolutely a thing that happens. It's very widespread across online fandom, and it has been such a constant pressure over the last near-decade that it's created an environment in which people are so used to being called out for things that aren't true that they doubt any accusation and reflexively balk at anything that sounds like the language antis use.

I have personally seen this interfere with fandom communities when they try to expose a racist, bigoted, or abusive person in their midst. I have seen other members of the same community leap to that person's defense simply because it's become reflex to do so - because they have had to defend themselves and others a dozen times before over false accusations.

Again, everything you said also happens. I'm not arguing with you or with the fact that there's a big racism issue in fandom that needs to be addressed more than it is already, and that actual racists are taking advantage of the hyper-defensive atmosphere created by antis. All I said was that the "boy who cried wolf" influence of the anti movement itself is also a factor in how people are reacting.

I didn't tag that initial post for a reason. It's nothing but me complaining about how the anti movement has once again made it harder, not easier, to help the people they claim to want to help. It happens with queer people, it happens with abuse survivors, it happens with neurodivergent people, and it happens with People of Color. It IS a factor, albeit not the only one.

-

If you are miraculously oblivious to the existence of antis or their fearmongering, I have whole google drives full of examples.

Here are collected receipts from 2020 and 2021, and a collection of screenshots on imgur. The anti movement began around 2013-2014 and has only become more and more widespread, to a point now when for a huge number of people it's just the fandom norm. Take everything in those lists but imagine witnessing/being subjected to the same for nine years instead of just those two, and of course it's made people paranoid about anything that sounds like cencorship. That's WHY End OTW Racism has to be so specific about it in their FAQ.

And once again, in case I'm still not clear, this is not me criticizing the End OTW Racism effort. At all. This is me criticizing the anti movement - which is still going strong and doing tons of damage - for making efforts like End OTW Racism even harder than it would already be.

Currently angry thinking about how the End OTW Racism thing would probably be going more smoothly if the anti movement hadn't thoroughly destroyed everyone's trust regarding both accusations of racism and critiques of ao3.

[end-otw-racism]

The OTW Board Elections are over, and with that wraps up our second End OTW Racism action! Thank you to everyone who has participated over the last few months, whether by voting, attending the July 2 OTW Board Meeting, submitting questions for the candidates, sharing our posts, writing to the OTW Board, providing us critique and feedback, and more. 

Now that we’ve completed two End OTW Racism actions, we wanted to take a breath and tell you a little about how we started. We began as a team of five people in May who felt spurred by renewed conversations we’d seen on twitter about racism within the OTW and wanted to do something about it. As we’ve shared in our FAQ, the core organizers are all fans and users of AO3, including both people of color and white folks, who have been in fandom for decades. We’ve added new core organizers since May, but also some organizers have rolled off, so we remain a small and diverse team.

Since the beginning, we’ve had four specific demands for the OTW:

Harassment policies that can be regularly updated to address both on-site harassment and off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users, with updated protocols for the Policy & Abuse Committee to ensure consistent and informed resolutions of abuse claims

A content policy on abusive (extremely racist and extremely bigoted) content; by abusive, we are talking about fanworks that are intentionally used to spread hate and harassment, not those that accidentally invoke racist or other bigoted stereotypes

Hiring a Diversity Consultant within the next 3-6 months

Committing to a policy of transparency on this topic, with quarterly updates on the progress of these projects including challenges and their plan for overcoming those challenges. These quarterly updates should be published on OTW News page and newsletters, not solely discussed in Board meetings

This may be surprising, but we only began planning our first action in May five days before we announced it! And we’ve been working really hard since then on top of our other individual life obligations. We also rolled straight from our first action into our second because of the timing of the OTW Board Elections, which made things even busier.

We’re very proud of all we’ve accomplished and everything that has happened since then - not only the work we’ve done and the progress we’ve made on our specific goals, but also the way that a larger conversation has opened up publicly about many other forms of racism and dysfunction within the organization. These conversations have, of course, been going on for years, both inside and outside the OTW, and more recent efforts have built on the work of fans of color calling out racism in fandom for decades, particularly Black fans. The discussions that have happened since May included thousands of people in fandom and have become wide-ranging, and we’re thankful to everyone who has been part of them. Organizing and running this campaign has also been a learning process, and we've grown so much from the feedback we've received. We look forward to being even better as we continue on with our specific anti-racist lens.

We couldn’t have done any of this without all of you, the community that has fostered and spurred these conversations and put them into action. We’re also really excited to see that other campaigns are coming up to address aspects of racism in fandom that are outside our narrow scope. We hope our example of what you can do as a small team can be an inspiration to anyone else who wants to start their own parallel antiracist efforts too.

Since it’s been an exhausting (but thrilling!) few months, our core team is going to be taking a pause for a few months to reflect and regroup before planning another action focused on our specific goals. We also want to figure out how to engage more of the community in our planning for future actions, since we know there are lots of people who are excited about this work, and we weren’t able to do that in the quick turnaround between the first and second actions.

In the meantime, we’re excited to announce that two partner projects will be launching next month! These will not be led by our core organizers, but by other fans who have volunteered to take them on. 

Anti-Racist Fanlore Project: An effort to update Fanlore, the fandom history wiki run by the OTW, with articles that flesh out the history of racism and anti-racism in fandom. This will be a collaborative project run through a new Discord server, and we welcome people of all levels of experience with Fanlore editing, including people who have never done it before! We’ll need people for a wide range of tasks: project management, research, drafting, reviewing, and posting to Fanlore.

Anti-Harassment Street Team: A group aimed at supporting people who are harassed for talking about racism in fandom, including developing de-escalation practices, creating resources on curating your own space, correcting misinformation, and more. This project will also be collaborative and run through a new Discord server.

You can sign up for these projects on our Volunteer Sign-Up Form. If you already signed up for either of these projects at any time in the last few months, you will receive an email with more information when each project kicks off. 

Apart from those projects, we’ll see you again for our next action in a few months. If you need to get hold of us in the meantime, you can email us at endotwracism [at] gmail [dot] com, though we may take a little while to get back to you. Thank you again for your passion and support in fighting racism in the OTW!

- The Fandom Against Racism Team

[end-otw-racism]

Why? See our Call to Action and FAQs for more information!

[Image description: If you see a work on AO3 titled 'End Racism in the OTW' this week, comment in support of our movement. Illustration: stylized icon of hearts rising from an open hand, palm up.]

[end-otw-racism]

Why? See our Call to Action and FAQs for more information!

[Image description: Bold text with a background exclamation mark: Change your work titles to 'End Racism in the OTW' today!]

[end-otw-racism]

It's getting close to the end of day two, and we have some glorious stats for you, if you're curious!

On AO3:

There are 2,698 works that result if you search "end racism in the otw" in titles (some are locked, so you won't see them all unless you're logged in).

There are 829 works in the "EndOTWRacism" collection.

8 works in the collection are tagged as "meta."

10 works in the collection are tagged as "fanart."

13 works in the collection are tagged as "podfic."

47 works in the collection are tagged as "fanvids."

57 works in the collection were posted on or after the 16th (due to time zone differences, we're including the 16th as part of the start date of the initiative).

The most popular fandom in the collection is "Bad Buddy: the Series" with 36 works.

On Tumblr:

The Call to Action post has 4,428 notes.

This account has 679 followers.

Side note: we've received word that Tumblr is locking our posts behind a login wall, so we're looking at mirroring options elsewhere.

On Twitter:

The pinned post has 500 shares and 403 likes.

The account has 519 followers.

Overall:

The response and support from ALL OF YOU have been overwhelmingly positive, with only a handful of folks misinterpreting our intentions or spreading misinformation about us. We're grateful for everyone who's been brave enough to combat misinfo on our behalf, both here and on other sites, and would like to remind everyone to stay kind when coming to our defense. Link back to our Call to Action and FAQs whenever you need to.

[end-otw-racism]

Let me start by saying that I admire your campaign and think i is absolutely necessary. I understand completely where you are coming from and I support this wholeheartedly. My question: How do you think the policies you are asking for can be used fairly and without backfiring on the people who are not making racist content? I worry about the enforceability of these policies. It seems like any method of solving this problem would need tools that can be used both ways.

Hi! Thanks for the ask. We've answered questions in a similar vein before but feel it worth clarifying our position as it is a bit confusing and atypical. Most of the time when people identify a problem they also are expected to have a solution for that problem. That is not what we are here for. If you'll note, we have not outlined any specific policies in our demands and that is because we are firmly aware of the risks and dangers of unforseen consequences that come with creating policy as well as our own limitations of expertise in this area.

We are not policy makers. We do not know all of the solutions. What we do know is that there is currently a problem, a problem that the organization itself has confirmed and acknowledged. We also know what we would like to have at the end of this: policies that reduce the current problems of racist harassment.

The actual policies themselves (the mechanism by which this goal is achieved) , we believe, should be crafted by experts and those with skills in crafting policy especially in regards to racism, with an awareness of current industry best practices.

Additionally, even if we did have the most perfect solutions ever that would fix all of the current issues, unless the OTW decided to take action, anything we propose is meaningless. Thus, our current action is about demonstrating to the organization that the fans using AO3 want this to be a priority.

So to answer your question, we are aware of the limitations and risk of backfire. This is why we are not asking for specific policies. We want the OTW to honor its commitment to hire experts who can craft these policies while maintaining the spirit of the OTWs founding mission.

[ Call to Action ] [ FAQs ]

[end-otw-racism]

We've opened our submissions so that people can share their own perspective, contributions, and testimonials regarding our initiative. We're also tracking the #EndOTWRacism and #End OTW Racism tags if you want to use your own blogs. You can also contact us at EndOTWRacism@gmail.com if you'd like us to anonymize your submissions.

The plan is to start sharing these during the two weeks of the action (this Wednesday the 17 thru the end of the month!) to foster and uplift our community of supporters.

We reserve the right to close submissions if this option is abused, or to not publish posts that fall outside the scope of this movement. But we want to hear from you!

[ Call to Action ] [ FAQs ]

[end-otw-racism]

We've made an AO3 collection! You can add any fanwork where you're incorporating "End Racism in the OTW" in the title, whether a new or old fanwork.

[ AO3 Creators' Note Templates ]

Please wait until Wednesday (the 17th) to do so - we'll post reminders on both Tuesday & the day of!

For readers: this will be a great way to find authors who support the initiative - when you see works with the title "End Racism in the OTW," be sure to leave a supportive comment!

[ Call to Action ] [ FAQs ]

[olderthannetfic]

I just read up on the end otw racism thing. I agree with the other anons that asking for accountability is good, but I am a bit iffy about some of their links and the willy-nilly answers to some questions.

From their faq:

"We are in favor of kinky, queer, and dark content (and many of us have created and enjoyed fanworks that falls under those umbrellas). If you consider extremely racist content to be a kink essential to your identity as a fan, then we can't help you."

Would they say the same for extremely sexist content? Because I've never actually seen the extremely racist stuff, but extremely (kinkily, unapologetically) sexist stuff is lurking at every corner in my ao3 experience. I guess I just like ao3's core principle of maximum content inclusiveness too much and they are not sufficiently clear on whether and to what extent they're advocating for content moderation. Although, to be fair, when pressed in asks, they say they are merely asking for otw to find "an appropriate solution", their above answers just seems to indicate a certain kind of solution they would deem appropriate.

"It is more than just an archive now; it is a central hub of the modern fannish experience."

Nah, it's still "just an archive", but obviously that doesn't mean it can't improve as such, as OTW itself has said.

"This approach to racist harassment is in line with their existing policies that prohibit certain kinds of content, such as their policy on plagiarism that takes a case-by-case approach to determining what is and isn't plagiarism. We're just asking that they expand those policies and practices to include extreme forms of racism & harassment."

I agree about the racist harassment that they mention in the beginning of that answer, but by the end it's racism & harassment, and not racist harassment, and I can only assume the racism then refers to actual content.

They're also making claims like "We know the otw can do X in 6 months, Y in a year, and asking for Z in 3 months is easily enough time." I would very much like to know what basis they have for making these claims, in terms of familiarity with organizational procedures and the usual timeline of changes.

Someone in the notes also brought up banning slurs in metadata. The idea apparently comes from Stitch. But like, (obviously) that's not enforceable? It also feels like a very American idea to me. What about Spanish black and German subscriptions? What about reclaimed or non-racial slurs? Is queer next? I feel like it should be possible to code a user-side script that hides fics with certain words in the metadata though? Based on some of the amazing ao3 tools I've seen shared.

--

[smallhorizons]

A policy that does not address racist harassment, including the use of slurs in tags or the targeted gifting of fic with gratuitous violence against characters of color to fans of color, is also a slippery slope that drives fans of color out of fandom ... hence why ao3 users are almost 80% white.

I find it very interesting that, on a post that specifically does not even mention content moderation like what you are discussing, you've both brought up the "slippery slope" of censorship as a reason why this action to bring awareness to these issues is flawed.

In fact, the FAQ for this event addresses their stance on censorship, which you could easily find if you clicked through to their blog.

Here, answering the question "What kind of work do you mean when you say “extremely racist and extremely abusive”?":

We understand that people might be concerned that we’re opening the door to broad censorship of work on AO3, but that’s not our goal. Our concern is with racist fan works written for the purpose of making the fan site unwelcoming to fans of color. We haven’t directly linked to current examples here because we don’t want to invite harassment of individuals. However, we do hope that the OTW/AO3 takes a long hard look at their Terms of Service (TOS) and brings it in line with current/progressive antiracist content. Currently, AO3 only considers something harassment if it targets a specific individual - and even then, they have often refused to take action on harassment like authors using racial slurs in replies to comments, or tagging a scholar of color’s full name in a fic to incite harassment of them for speaking out about racism.

And in the answer to the blunt question "Do you want to remove content from the Archive?":

Our primary goal is for the OTW to follow up on the promises it’s already made to protect fans of color and other people who have been harassed, but in more concrete ways than they’ve done thus far. This does involve reviewing the TOS and Abuse policies and procedures to add protections for people facing racist harassment. Like with any other violation of the TOS, such as failure to use the archive warnings properly or plagiarism, this may result in creators receiving warnings about their works that are in violation of the new harassment policies. However, the end goal is not censorship, but an Archive that is more inclusive for fans of color and which minimizes harassment and abuse.

If you're not going to even read the FAQs of an anti-racist event before you start arguing against what you think they're saying, maybe you should take a step back and consider if you are truly acting out of concern, or if you are responding to a strawman that doesn't exist in order to protect the status quo that prioritizes maximum inclusivity of content over maximum inclusivity of people.

End OTW Racism: A Call To Action

A fan protest against the lack of action from the OTW on addressing issues of harassment and racism on AO3 and within the organization

This is a Call To Action for Fans of Color and Allies

AO3 has acknowledged that they have a harassment & racism problem that its parent organization, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), needs to address. Currently, people can use AO3 to harass others through fanworks, comments, and tags. Just a few examples include: racist Untamed “spitefic” that used anti-Indigenous slurs and was written specifically to lash out at fans of color; a Transformer fic that used its Black-coded character to reenact George Floyd’s murder in July 2020; someone naming a fandom scholar who criticized their Nazi omegaverse fic in the tags of the fic specifically to incite harassment to the scholar; writers using racial slurs against commenters who pointed out racism in their hockey fic; and so much more.

In June 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, the OTW committed to addressing these issues. It has been nearly three years and they have not yet implemented any of the changes they promised, other than a blocking/muting tool that was already in development before 2020. We need to hold the OTW accountable to their own promises. (See the section further down on “Why Are We Doing This” for even more detail.)

As fans, together, we are powerful. We are organizing to protest the lack of action on promises made by the Organization for Transformative works to deal with issues of racism and harassment on their platform, Archive of Our Own.

We call on fans to do any or all of the following actions any time between May 17 to 31, 2023 to send a message to AO3 and OTW that we will hold them to their promises.

On AO3

Change the title of ten (or more!) of your most recent or most popular fanworks to include ‘End Racism in the OTW’ in the beginning, and provide a link to this post in your summary or first/top creator’s note

Post a new fanwork any time between May 17th to 31st with “End Racism in the OTW” either as the title or at the beginning of the title. The fanwork does not have to be long - it can be a 100-word fic, a quick sketch, a podfic of a ficlet, a 20-second vid/edit, a short piece of meta, etc. In the summary or first/top creator’s note, provide a link to this post

If updating any WIPs with a new chapter, add ‘End Racism in the OTW’ to the title and provide a link back to this post in your summary or first/top author’s note

Update your AO3 icon using the profile pic graphic in our Social Media Toolkit

Plan to maintain these changes until May 31, 2023, or longer if you wish

Send a message to the OTW asking for an update on their 2020 commitments!

For Readers: leave encouraging comments on fanworks with the "End Racism in the OTW" title to show your support of this initiative.

On tumblr

Reblog this Call to Action with the tag #End OTW Racism

Update your profile pics and banners using the graphics in our Social Media Toolkit

Follow this account for updates and signal boost our posts

On Twitter

Follow @/EndOTWRacism (remove the backslash) and signal boost our pinned tweet

Update your profile pics and banners using our graphics, and change your display name to include #EndOTWRacism

Use sample tweets and graphics from our Social Media Toolkit to tweet about your fanworks, and use the hashtag #EndOTWRacism

Help us make this a long-term campaign - sign up to help with other anti-racism projects and future actions!

What Do We Want?

Since their June 2020 statement, OTW has been working on updating their Terms of Service (TOS) to address racist and bigoted harassment, but with little transparency and only the vaguest of updates. It has been three years since their commitment to this update - we want to see the results of their work implemented in the next 6-12 months. Their TOS updates and complementary policies should include:

Harassment policies that can be regularly updated to address both on-site harassment and off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users, with updated protocols for the Policy & Abuse Team to ensure consistent and informed resolutions of abuse claims

A content policy on abusive (extremely racist and extremely bigoted) content; by abusive, we are talking about fanworks that are intentionally used to spread hate and harassment, not those that accidentally invoke racist or other bigoted stereotypes

These points are not particularly new and are not our own innovation; please refer to Stitch's article written over two years ago, asking for several of these very things.

OTW has also already committed to various process-based actions for longer-term works towards centering antiracism, including hiring a Diversity Consultant. The last update that OTW published said that the consultant would be hired within the next five years (after already having had three years to work on it since their original commitment). That is not soon enough. We want to see the following process-based actions implemented:

Hiring a Diversity Consultant within the next 3-6 months

Committing to a policy of transparency on this topic, with quarterly updates on the progress of these projects including challenges and their plan for overcoming those challenges. These quarterly updates should be published on OTW News page and newsletters, not solely discussed in Board meetings

Why Are We Doing This?

16 years ago, Astolat famously published her manifesto calling for a fandom Archive of One’s Own. In that time, AO3 has grown to be a central pillar of fandom, likely far outstripping its founders’ original vision. It is more than just an archive now; it is a central hub of the modern fannish experience. AO3 and the OTW must continue to grow and evolve with fandom over time to remain a healthy and functioning pillar of fandom. To that end, there are several areas in which the organization, as it admits itself, is lacking.

In June 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd protests and the uprising of the Black Lives Matter Movement, The OTW published a “This Week in Fandom” referencing the works of Dr. Rukmini Pande and Stitch, among others in which they discussed ‘making change for a better society’ through ‘conversations about race and racism’. In response, Dr. Pande and Stitch submitted a letter to the OTW calling for a more formal public statement than an offhand reference in a News Roundup that only served to call for thoughts and discussion without any indication the organization intended to do anything, policy wise, to address the issues being raised.

Eventually, the organization did remove the references to the works of Dr. Pande and Stitch and then made an official statement on the issue of racism within the organization and AO3. In it, they identified several things they would be prioritizing to combat harassment and benefit users. Some of those have been implemented (notably those that were already under development). However as of this writing, little else has been done especially in regards to:

Improving admin tools for the Policy & Abuse team

Reassessing the current mandatory archive warnings with the possibility of implementing others

And, most importantly, reviewing the Terms of Service (TOS) to allow the Policy & Abuse team to address harassment that is currently not covered by the existing TOS

By their own admission, the current tools and policies of the OTW are not sufficient to deal with issues of harassment and racism.

Several people who were involved in the founding of the OTW, including previous OTW Board members and staff on the original OTW Content Policy Committee, acknowledge that the founding of the OTW in 2008 and early board iterations failed us as a fandom by not doing enough, and by not even considering the way racism is perpetuated in fannish spaces, despite a long history of racism in fandom.

It has been nearly three years since the original commitment by the organization with little visible, measurable progress on these three crucial issues and a complete lack of transparency on where they are in regards to even beginning to deal with these issues. In fact, in Q&As, it was heavily implied by a member of the board that those calling for OTW to deal with issues of racism (which OTW had already acknowledged as a problem!) were not really fans but outside agitators.

This has cast significant doubt on the organization's sincerity and commitment to their stated goals, and on their position as leaders of a central fan tent-pole. Fans of color are not outsiders. They are right here, members of our community, and they are being harassed and targeted and driven out while space and platforms are being given to racists.

We, as fans of color and our allies, find the current state of fandom and current actions (and lack thereof) unacceptable. Fandom is our space, all of ours. We, as a fandom, have a right to a racism-free space and have a duty to our fellow fans to create that space. Unlike so much of the world, this is a space we can control and make better. It is a space we must make better. To read even more about this movement, visit our FAQs.