Had this in an open tab for a while

[olivermoss]

NPR Podcast on the banning of Ao3 in China and the events that caused it.

It's a good overview and listen. In normal times we'd be talking about all this a lot more, but life is fucking nuts.

Comments

[muccamukk]

I remember catching the outline of that when it first hit. I felt so bad for the Chinese fans! But there also didn't seem like there was a lot to be done about it

[olivermoss]

Not much that can be done about it, but the gamification of fandom by the brands has been embraced by lots of English speaking fans of Asian fandoms. BTS isn't Chinese, but they have a similar gamification and it's why the ARMY drives everyone up a freaking tree on twitter.

I remember when Ao3 was having slowness from China discovering it and mass uploading fic. At least the fic is safe somewhere.

[muccamukk]

I'd have to make a timeline, but I remember CCP's censorship shutting down all the Chinese fan sites and driving people to AO3 what 6 months before this? A year? And at the time I thought, "I don't understand why people aren't worried about AO3 getting blocked!?" Everyone was talking about AO3 saving Chinese fandom (which I think it did in that it preserved all those fic that'd be taken down if hosted in China), and it seemed so weird that there wasn't more public conversation about how the CCP blocking AO3 so that Chinese fandom couldn't get to the fic was more or less inevitable. It almost felt like they were herding everyone onto AO3, letting them settle in, and then shutting it down too to completely destabilise fandom. That's probably more organisation than went into it, but my reaction to AO3 getting blocked this year was only surprise that it'd taken them that long.

But it's possible I'm fundamentally unknowledgable about how censorship works in China, and therefore talking out of my ass.

[olivermoss]

I know some people who work for Ao3, or did for long times and are still in some of the loops. I don't remember who public any of this was, including the site slowness problems being the mass uploading. I do remember people having the attitude from the start of 'well, at least the fic will be safe even if they can't get at it, because no way the CCP is letting this go on.'

I don't know much about censorship in China, but I have heard that getting caught writing certain things is dangerous. ... And that makes Untamed getting made just so freakin' weird, and now it's gone on on to be make billions for Chinese companies. I wonder if it's like a release valve, letting people have this one thing.

[sperrywink]

Thanks for the link. Yeah, with how crazy life is, I forgot all about that happening.

[olivermoss]

It's weird how most of the time this would be a major topic. I feel bad because when I heard about this when it was going on I didn't recognize the names. When I watched Untamed I didn't realize that was them, but now listening to the podcast I was all 'oh shit!'