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What Fanfiction Tells Us About the Dangers of Censorship · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Sanny and smitha and ofcome stuff. Will
0:07
Speaker 1: never told you production, but I heard you. And today,
0:19
Speaker 1: as Samantha's voice is still on the.
0:21
Speaker 2: Mend, getting better, getting a little.
0:23
Speaker 1: Better, getting a little better. But on the mend, we
0:26
Speaker 1: are postponing our concluding question Mark episode on Ice that
0:33
Speaker 1: was scheduled for the day. This is coming out and
0:37
Speaker 1: doing something where I get to do most of the
0:40
Speaker 1: talking instead. And that is because we are talking about
0:45
Speaker 1: fan fiction, one of my very favorite things, and there
0:49
Speaker 1: is a lot going on in not only the fan
0:52
Speaker 1: fiction space, but the online space. And so what I'm
0:56
Speaker 1: going to be talking about is largely about fan fiction,
0:59
Speaker 1: but a lot of it does impact a lot more
1:02
Speaker 1: outside of fan fiction, and a lot of it could
1:09
Speaker 1: be used specifically to target queer people. So I've said
1:15
Speaker 1: it before, I'll say it again. The fanfit community is
1:19
Speaker 1: a very gay space. Honestly, I'm surprised when people tell
1:23
Speaker 1: me they read straight fan fiction. I'm like, where did
1:25
Speaker 1: you find that? Certainly it is dominated by women, non
1:31
Speaker 1: binary and trans folks. Now, for this we are going
1:36
Speaker 1: to be doing an overview of some of the proposed
1:38
Speaker 1: legislations that folks are watching some official stances on AI
1:44
Speaker 1: and some stuff that I've witnessed personally as an avid
1:48
Speaker 1: reader and writer of fan fiction, and some updates of
1:52
Speaker 1: my own. Disclaimer, I am going to be largely pulling
1:59
Speaker 1: from archive of our own, which is called AO three
2:02
Speaker 1: for short, a nonprofit fan fiction site that is primarily
2:06
Speaker 1: what I use, and I feel like what a lot
2:08
Speaker 1: of people in my age group use. Younger people too.
2:13
Speaker 1: I think it's probably one of the biggest ones. Watpat
2:15
Speaker 1: is generally that one skew's younger, and I've never touched
2:19
Speaker 1: that one. I don't know what it's like. I feel
2:20
Speaker 1: like it's more mobile based, mobile phone based. But I
2:25
Speaker 1: used to be an oldfanfic dot net girl old days,
2:29
Speaker 1: but now I'm AO no yes, and it's still around.
2:34
Speaker 1: It's still there. Also, I feel like fan fiction has
2:41
Speaker 1: gone way more mainstream since the last time we talked
2:44
Speaker 1: about it. People are advertising their fan fiction on social media.
2:50
Speaker 1: That's a whole thing now. I remember when it was
2:54
Speaker 1: a shameful thing you hid, and now people are like,
2:57
Speaker 1: go to my TikTok to get excerpts. Good for you, guys,
3:02
Speaker 1: good for everybody, so you can see our past episodes
3:07
Speaker 1: we did with Joey about Kosa. You could also see
3:11
Speaker 1: the one that I did with Bridget on Fosta Sesta,
3:15
Speaker 1: which was about sex workers and how they advertise on
3:19
Speaker 1: the online space, and the Monday many I did about
3:22
Speaker 1: the history of AO three specifically, also several more fan
3:28
Speaker 1: fiction episodes, but related to this, it's been AO three
3:33
Speaker 1: has been kicking around since two thousand and eight, and
3:36
Speaker 1: it was created after Tumblr and a couple of other
3:39
Speaker 1: platforms started removing content without warning, in this case fan
3:44
Speaker 1: fiction related content and specifically LGBTQ plus contents, which was
3:51
Speaker 1: more likely to be targeted for being too sexual, and
3:55
Speaker 1: that is still true, which we're going to talk about.
3:57
Speaker 1: That is still the case. Queer relationships were seen as
4:00
Speaker 1: inherently more sexual as opposed to straight ones, so that
4:05
Speaker 1: kind of content required a higher rating or it was
4:07
Speaker 1: just simply taken off. And so people made archive of
4:12
Speaker 1: our own, and a huge shout out to the volunteers
4:16
Speaker 1: running the sites and compiling this information, because a lot
4:20
Speaker 1: of what I'm going to be talking about I pulled
4:22
Speaker 1: from them. So it's these volunteers who are looking at
4:28
Speaker 1: these issues and making sure we're updated, keeping us informed.
4:33
Speaker 1: So shout out to the volunteers. Thank you, thank you,
4:35
Speaker 1: thank you. Also, this is just to reiterate an overview.
4:40
Speaker 1: I did look into the laws we're going to be
4:43
Speaker 1: talking about, but a lot of them are in kind
4:46
Speaker 1: of legislative limbo, like maybe it passed the Senate, but
4:50
Speaker 1: nothing's happened since then. It's been two years or something
4:52
Speaker 1: like that. But certainly we could come back and do
4:57
Speaker 1: a bigger episode on age raification and what's going on
5:02
Speaker 1: with that. I'm going to mention it in here, but
5:05
Speaker 1: a lot of moving pieces there. So today is April second,
5:12
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. Just want to put that out there
5:14
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of moving pieces. And before
5:18
Speaker 1: we get into this, I do want to mention that
5:21
Speaker 1: AO three has their own policies around the age at
5:24
Speaker 1: which people can use their site. It's thirteen unless the
5:29
Speaker 1: user lives in certain countries in Europe where it's sixteen.
5:33
Speaker 1: And this has to do with laws around children and
5:35
Speaker 1: data collection. Because AO three is a nonprofit, this is voluntary,
5:42
Speaker 1: but also because probably because they're a nonprofit, they do
5:46
Speaker 1: not want to store certain information. For instance, in some
5:51
Speaker 1: countries you can get a written permission from a parent
5:54
Speaker 1: for certain sites that have you're like, Okay, yes they're
5:58
Speaker 1: under sixteen, but I give my permission, but AO three
6:01
Speaker 1: does not allow that. In November of twenty twenty five,
6:06
Speaker 1: AO three posted an update highlighting some legal issues they
6:10
Speaker 1: were keeping an eye on. Not all of them are
6:13
Speaker 1: strictly fan fiction based, but they do. Slash would impact
6:17
Speaker 1: the ecosystem that fan fiction exists in, and could. It's
6:21
Speaker 1: a very all of this is a very slippery slope
6:24
Speaker 1: kind of situation. So here are a handful. Over four months,
6:29
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five, at least thirty authors of Boys
6:33
Speaker 1: Love Fiction or Done My were arrested in China under
6:38
Speaker 1: their obscenity laws. Nearly all were young women. Some were jailed,
6:44
Speaker 1: some were questioned. One of the arrested writers later described
6:47
Speaker 1: the experience on social media, quote, I'll never forget it
6:50
Speaker 1: being escorted to the car in full view and enduring
6:53
Speaker 1: the humiliation of stripping it naked for examination in front
6:56
Speaker 1: of strangers, putting on a vest for photos in the chair,
7:00
Speaker 1: shaking with fear, my heart pounding. Another wrote, I'm only
7:05
Speaker 1: twenty so young, and I've already ruined my life so early.
7:09
Speaker 1: This news story went viral before it was largely censored.
7:14
Speaker 1: So nobody could really see that much about it. The
7:18
Speaker 1: targeting of don my authors is not new, but isn't
7:21
Speaker 1: this is a marked escalation. Officials have cited the quote
7:26
Speaker 1: negative impact on teenagers, which, as we're going to get into,
7:30
Speaker 1: is an argument that comes up a lot. They've also
7:33
Speaker 1: pointed to it as a reason for the declining birth rate,
7:38
Speaker 1: which we've also discussed. And while heterosexual erotica is sometimes
7:44
Speaker 1: targeted as well, it is much much more likely for
7:47
Speaker 1: gay content to be targeted. And just to say, some
7:51
Speaker 1: of this don my has been really successful, like made
7:56
Speaker 1: into TV shows and stuff. So anyway, age ravication laws
8:03
Speaker 1: this has obviously been a huge conversation recently. As of now,
8:08
Speaker 1: AO three has no intention of introducing age verification for
8:12
Speaker 1: its site, but multiple countries, states, and businesses have adopted
8:17
Speaker 1: these laws, and in some cases are trying to pass
8:21
Speaker 1: extreme forms of them. AO three, along with Wikimedia and
8:27
Speaker 1: other organizations, have jointly filed amicust briefs against some stricter
8:31
Speaker 1: proposed age verification laws in Utah and Mississippi. Both laws
8:36
Speaker 1: were of course framed as protecting the children, but also
8:40
Speaker 1: would severely hinder the distribution of free information and in
8:47
Speaker 1: February of twenty twenty six, Discord announced the Phase four
8:53
Speaker 1: rollout of their age ravocation program. It was pretty intense.
8:57
Speaker 1: It called for things like video selfies to verify your
9:00
Speaker 1: age group or submitting a form of ID, and this
9:04
Speaker 1: was to guarantee under age users got quote teen appropriate
9:09
Speaker 1: experiences that filtered and restricted content. The backlash was immediate.
9:16
Speaker 1: Many pointed out a data breach Discord had had only
9:19
Speaker 1: months prior that exposed thousands of users government IDs. So
9:24
Speaker 1: Discord backtracked, claiming that they won't require a facial skin
9:29
Speaker 1: or photo ID and that ninety percent of users won't
9:32
Speaker 1: have to verify their age at all. From what I read,
9:36
Speaker 1: they are still planning to push Phase four out though,
9:40
Speaker 1: and I'm very interested about this ten percent.
9:43
Speaker 2: That needs to right.
9:48
Speaker 1: From what I read, there being kind of vague about it,
9:53
Speaker 1: so something to keep an eye on as well. The
9:57
Speaker 1: UK and Canada also have some age verification that could
10:00
Speaker 1: put people's security at risk or just bar them from
10:03
Speaker 1: a huge chunk of the Internet. Essentially, if you don't
10:08
Speaker 1: upload your ID for if you're worried about security, then
10:12
Speaker 1: that's just too bad. You can't access all of this stuff.
10:16
Speaker 1: So from I checked where both of those laws were,
10:20
Speaker 1: and from what I could tell, they are still slow moving.
10:24
Speaker 1: But nothing's really happened with them. But if any listeners
10:27
Speaker 1: from either of these countries, if you want to write
10:31
Speaker 1: in and say, if you know what's going on better
10:34
Speaker 1: than I do, then we have Russia's LGBT ban. So
10:42
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen, Russia enacted a law originally geared towards Quote,
10:46
Speaker 1: protecting minors from queer content. But a decade later, the
10:51
Speaker 1: Russian Supreme Court named the Quote international LGBT movement as extremists,
10:58
Speaker 1: and this has made engaging in anything in the queer
11:01
Speaker 1: community illegal. So obviously that's terrible, but it clearly it
11:11
Speaker 1: would impact something like fiction, although interestingly I see a
11:15
Speaker 1: lot of fan fiction written by it's in Russian. I
11:19
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe they're not in Russia, but it's in Russian.
11:23
Speaker 1: One thing that they didn't really get two and two
11:25
Speaker 1: on this AO three post, but they did mention was
11:27
Speaker 1: the social media bands that some countries are doing, just
11:33
Speaker 1: because that is related and how this could play out.
11:40
Speaker 1: And so we know, like Australia is the big the
11:43
Speaker 1: big one right now, and we'll kind of see what
11:46
Speaker 1: goes down there, and I mean the youths are advertising
11:52
Speaker 1: their their fan fiction on social media. So here's a
12:06
Speaker 1: quick update on COOSA. But yeah, see the episode Joey
12:10
Speaker 1: did about COOSA are the Kids Online Safety Act, But
12:14
Speaker 1: it's still kicking around and is now associated with the
12:16
Speaker 1: Kids Internet and Digital Safety Are Kids Act, first proposed
12:21
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five. As it is, this would only
12:25
Speaker 1: impact for profit companies, but as I said, a lot
12:29
Speaker 1: of these are very slippery slope kind of situations. There
12:33
Speaker 1: is a pretty wide range of people and platforms supporting it,
12:37
Speaker 1: but also very many against it. Like you would be
12:39
Speaker 1: shocked at how many people on different sides of the
12:41
Speaker 1: aisle are that they're in alignment, and you're like, what
12:49
Speaker 1: The problem here is largely that if it's implemented, it
12:53
Speaker 1: could restrict access to information, particularly focused on marginalized communities
12:57
Speaker 1: like racism, abortion, transition, use, LGBTQ plus issues. It is
13:03
Speaker 1: extremely vague about what constitutes harmful contents, and it's that
13:09
Speaker 1: makes it rife for abuse. We've already seen politicians do this,
13:14
Speaker 1: so that's the concern. A lot of these things are
13:16
Speaker 1: framed in a way where like on surface level, you're like, oh, yeah, cool,
13:20
Speaker 1: but then when you think about it, like, no, that
13:22
Speaker 1: could be really really bad. Yeah, there's something I hadn't
13:29
Speaker 1: heard of. This one, the nonprofit Killer. This is a
13:34
Speaker 1: bill proposed in late twenty twenty five, and here's a
13:38
Speaker 1: quote from AO three about it. Section four of HR
13:42
Speaker 1: nine four nine five would give the US Secretary of
13:45
Speaker 1: the Treasury unilateral power to revoke the five OHO one
13:49
Speaker 1: C three status of any nonprofit with minimal due process
13:53
Speaker 1: simply by claiming it is affiliated with terrorism. The bill
13:57
Speaker 1: allows the Secretary to limit the disclosure of evidence against
14:00
Speaker 1: an accused nonprofit and places the burden of proving its
14:03
Speaker 1: innocence on that nonprofit, meaning a nonprofit could be forced
14:07
Speaker 1: to defend itself without being told why it has been
14:10
Speaker 1: accused in the first place. Yeah, that's troubling.
14:14
Speaker 2: Yeah.
14:15
Speaker 3: There was a lot of nonprofits obviously that are specifically
14:19
Speaker 3: working with trans kids as well as specifically trans kids
14:23
Speaker 3: and reproductive rights that knew that were very vocal about this.
14:27
Speaker 3: I think mutual aid programs were also really concerned with
14:31
Speaker 3: this conversation as well, because obviously right now people anybody
14:36
Speaker 3: is being called terrorists. If you're helping a trans a
14:39
Speaker 3: person that is considered a terrorists if you're helping, if
14:43
Speaker 3: you're protesting things like Black Lives Matter, if you're in
14:47
Speaker 3: that product protest, that is being seen as terrorist act.
14:51
Speaker 3: If of course, Antifa was declared a terrorist act and
14:55
Speaker 3: Antifa does not exist, but yet they can say this
14:59
Speaker 3: organization is an antifault organization. So, which is what was
15:03
Speaker 3: recently talked about in Texas with them going after a
15:06
Speaker 3: group of people for their zines saying that they were
15:10
Speaker 3: publishing terrorist propaganda because it was anti fascist. So yes,
15:17
Speaker 3: it's a big, like all interconnected, scary scary scary thing.
15:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I mean, ultimately, what we're talking about here
15:25
Speaker 1: is censorship and who controls who gets access to what information.
15:32
Speaker 1: Some of the examples I didn't even get to are
15:37
Speaker 1: like larger platforms. I think gaming services like Steam, we're
15:43
Speaker 1: being pressured to remove certain games because they use vendors
15:51
Speaker 1: like Visa, and as we've discussed before, these payment processors
15:57
Speaker 1: are very inconsistent and who they target and what type
16:02
Speaker 1: of content they target, but a lot of it is
16:06
Speaker 1: usually queer, and so they will push platforms to remove
16:10
Speaker 1: that content, and you then that's a form of censorship
16:14
Speaker 1: that that's you're not getting access to the content you
16:17
Speaker 1: might not even note exists. It's not there anymore. Yeah.
16:22
Speaker 1: Also just a note, a personal note from me. Uh.
16:27
Speaker 1: With the whole FCC and like paramount deal thing, this
16:34
Speaker 1: is all impacting what gets made, what gets canceled, and
16:40
Speaker 1: what we see and a lot of queer content is
16:43
Speaker 1: getting mixed or acted. And I believe this is why
16:49
Speaker 1: I's queerbited. I have learned recently I can blame Trump
16:54
Speaker 1: for that. Well, yeah, I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure.
17:00
Speaker 1: I'm like ninety percent sure. As I said, this is
17:04
Speaker 1: just a handful of things that are going on. It's
17:07
Speaker 1: like they also break it down state by state, and
17:10
Speaker 1: that scared me. I was like, oh my gosh, every
17:14
Speaker 1: state almost has something that they're trying to pass, especially
17:18
Speaker 1: in the like age verification arena, and some of them
17:24
Speaker 1: are really intense. I think the one Utah, which whoa.
17:29
Speaker 1: I was taken aback by how intense it was. And
17:34
Speaker 1: so we are going to have to come back to
17:39
Speaker 1: this in a non fan fiction kind of way one day,
17:42
Speaker 1: but for now, that's a brief overview of some of
17:45
Speaker 1: the big ones. I did want to talk about AI
17:49
Speaker 1: and fan fiction because I did bring it up in
17:51
Speaker 1: our recent episode with Bridget I can't help myself. I
17:54
Speaker 1: brought it up several times, but I didn't get to
17:57
Speaker 1: go into some of the things. I don't want to
18:01
Speaker 1: make it the whole when bridge it comes on the
18:03
Speaker 1: whole Annian or fan fiction thoughts episode. So I found
18:09
Speaker 1: this on kind of their AO three's terms of service
18:12
Speaker 1: and it's presented as a very FAQ situation. So this
18:15
Speaker 1: is a question answer. So here is the quote about AI.
18:21
Speaker 1: Do you have a policy on bots are scraping? These
18:24
Speaker 1: are ways of extracting information from or indexing websites. The
18:28
Speaker 1: use of bots are scraping for spam, commercial promotion, are
18:31
Speaker 1: other purposes that violate our policies is forbidden. This includes
18:35
Speaker 1: scraping AO three for the purposes of obtaining material for
18:37
Speaker 1: commercial generative AI are creating an app that host our
18:42
Speaker 1: paywalls AO three content. The use of bots are scraping
18:46
Speaker 1: for purposes that do not violate our policies is generally allowed. However,
18:50
Speaker 1: we reserve the right to implement robots dot txt or
18:54
Speaker 1: other protocols limiting what bots can do, or to notify
18:58
Speaker 1: you and ask you to discontent If a bot or
19:01
Speaker 1: scraping program is causing problems for the site. As for discretion,
19:06
Speaker 1: we may also ban specific bots or other programs from
19:09
Speaker 1: accessing an three. So in the episode we did with
19:13
Speaker 1: Bridget that was about the whole thing with Shy Girl
19:16
Speaker 1: and kind of this anxiety we have about content being
19:20
Speaker 1: created by AI, I had it. I had a thing
19:23
Speaker 1: in there where I said, you know, now, on a
19:27
Speaker 1: lot of fan fiction spaces they're saying, don't use Google
19:30
Speaker 1: Docs because it'll it'll scrape your Google Docs. But I
19:34
Speaker 1: should have also said I am not convinced at all
19:37
Speaker 1: that it won't just scrape your fiction, like right, but
19:42
Speaker 1: like people and I love, I feel, I feel for you,
19:46
Speaker 1: and they'll put little notes and they're like, please don't
19:49
Speaker 1: I do not give permission for you to scrape this
19:52
Speaker 1: for AI, and I'm like, HEYI does not care, my friend,
19:56
Speaker 1: I was gonna take it. I get it. And it's
20:03
Speaker 1: a lot of things change in the fan fiction space
20:05
Speaker 1: when AI became more prominent. One of them was again,
20:12
Speaker 1: I don't think this will really help, but maybe it does.
20:14
Speaker 1: But a lot of people made their accounts private, so
20:18
Speaker 1: that means that you can't if I wasn't logged in,
20:22
Speaker 1: and you have to get an invitation to get on
20:24
Speaker 1: AO three. By the way, to have an account, you
20:27
Speaker 1: can go. But if you just go and you don't
20:29
Speaker 1: have an account, you can't read anybody who's made their
20:33
Speaker 1: account private. So a lot of fewel made their accounts
20:36
Speaker 1: private after AI became a really big thing. I have
20:42
Speaker 1: not done that yet. I did talk about how I
20:48
Speaker 1: had experienced what I believed were AI reviews, but now
20:54
Speaker 1: I probably should specify. I don't know if it was
20:57
Speaker 1: AI or bots. I just know it wasn't a person. Hmm,
21:00
Speaker 1: there's no way a person wrote that, because I got
21:03
Speaker 1: the same review on multiple.
21:06
Speaker 2: What's the difference between AI and bots?
21:09
Speaker 1: I think AI, like ABOD is a more simplistic like
21:14
Speaker 1: it has a more simplistic this is your whole thing.
21:18
Speaker 1: Your whole thing is you go in, you respond and
21:21
Speaker 1: with this one comment, whereas AI is kind of isn't
21:26
Speaker 1: it that the thing is like it's learning. Maybe I'm
21:29
Speaker 1: totally wrong, but I just felt.
21:31
Speaker 2: Like I just didn't think about that.
21:32
Speaker 3: I mean, they are we obviously have two terms for them,
21:35
Speaker 3: and there are two different things. So I just didn't
21:38
Speaker 3: think about this. But because bots you use AI, I
21:43
Speaker 3: know that.
21:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean maybe they were one and the same.
21:47
Speaker 1: I feel like maybe they're one and the same now.
21:50
Speaker 1: I feel like at one time there was a pretty
21:52
Speaker 1: big distinction in them. Yeah, but anyway, And I also
21:58
Speaker 1: said I had been accused of being a and I
22:00
Speaker 1: didn't like that. But what how do you? I don't
22:03
Speaker 1: think I do the AI things. I don't know.
22:07
Speaker 3: If you use Google and you have any kind of autogorright,
22:10
Speaker 3: it'll assume its AI.
22:11
Speaker 1: I don't.
22:12
Speaker 3: I told you, Oh yeah, you don't use Google. Do
22:15
Speaker 3: you use it on your word?
22:17
Speaker 1: My spell check doesn't work? Oh yeah, this listeners. This
22:22
Speaker 1: is actually a long running problem, and it's all so
22:25
Speaker 1: many issues for me. My spell check does not work.
22:39
Speaker 1: Here's my honest opinion. I think sometimes if somebody doesn't
22:47
Speaker 1: like something, they're just going to say it's AI. I
22:49
Speaker 1: think that's the stage we've reached where accusations will come
22:58
Speaker 1: out of like, oh, it's AI because they don't like
23:01
Speaker 1: what he wrote. I don't think that's the majority of
23:05
Speaker 1: what's happening at all. I think it's a minority. But
23:08
Speaker 1: I do think it happens. Like we were talking about
23:12
Speaker 1: with Bridget I have no idea in the case of
23:14
Speaker 1: Shy Girl, but I guarantee you. Some people probably just
23:16
Speaker 1: didn't like it and were like, it's Ai. Some people
23:20
Speaker 1: legitimately are like, no, I think it's Ai. But some
23:23
Speaker 1: people just no, I don't like it must be Ai.
23:26
Speaker 1: You're lazy. Yeah, but it is a bit. It's a
23:33
Speaker 1: hot but an issue in the fan fiction space. People
23:37
Speaker 1: go out of their way to prove it's not Ai.
23:41
Speaker 1: I've said before in AO three, there's a lot of
23:43
Speaker 1: tags that you can click on and kind of see
23:46
Speaker 1: what the story is about. Now there are a lot
23:49
Speaker 1: of tags that people put in and that are like,
23:52
Speaker 1: it's not Ai. I like M dashes, it's not Ai.
23:56
Speaker 1: Non native English speaker, it's not Ai. Like. People really
24:01
Speaker 1: go out of their way. Usually there's a note about
24:04
Speaker 1: it at the top, like I just like M dashes,
24:07
Speaker 1: I promise you. But that was I didn't even know
24:13
Speaker 1: about that, but only because of fan fiction I realized
24:17
Speaker 1: it was a thing.
24:18
Speaker 3: Mine autocorrects is for me because when I will use
24:20
Speaker 3: a dash and not realizing it's supposed to be an
24:22
Speaker 3: M dash and then it'll auto cray, I'm like, oh, that's.
24:25
Speaker 1: Cool, hmm interesting, Like.
24:33
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, that's what I'm supposed to be. No not
24:35
Speaker 2: my bad.
24:38
Speaker 1: I don't think I use M dashes correctly.
24:41
Speaker 2: Anyway, obviously I don't.
24:44
Speaker 1: Occasionally I will say this, most people go out of
24:47
Speaker 1: their way to prove they don't use AI. Some people
24:52
Speaker 1: will be really upfront and say, I used it for grammar,
24:58
Speaker 1: or I used it for bring Storming. So some people
25:01
Speaker 1: will say that, and I usually don't read those stories,
25:06
Speaker 1: not because I'm a like offended or anything, but because
25:10
Speaker 1: they're usually pretty short, and I don't like it, like
25:13
Speaker 1: six hundred words. I don't know. You gotta give me
25:18
Speaker 1: more than that. I've got standards, I got deep plots.
25:25
Speaker 2: I needed to get to know the characters. I need that.
25:28
Speaker 1: Stormy got little six hundred words. I've got my specifics. Okay,
25:33
Speaker 1: you do. I like it, yes, but I have seen that.
25:38
Speaker 1: But it's an ongoing conversation. And also, I don't typically
25:44
Speaker 1: look at fan art, but people post fan art too
25:50
Speaker 1: on on AO three and other fan fiction sites. But
25:54
Speaker 1: I feel like the rules are stricter actually around fan art.
25:57
Speaker 3: I find that interesting again because I'm so into the
26:01
Speaker 3: Korean world right now, with like everything and webtoons. It's
26:05
Speaker 3: that huge obviously, and webtoons is basically comics. But novel comics,
26:12
Speaker 3: I guess, and I don't think they're necessarily a fan fiction,
26:14
Speaker 3: but they definitely ride that line.
26:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I from what I was reading, it felt
26:24
Speaker 1: like a lot the images were much more there were
26:31
Speaker 1: a lot more rules around them.
26:32
Speaker 2: Huh.
26:33
Speaker 1: But there was also a law in Tennessee called the
26:37
Speaker 1: Elvis Law, and it was supposed to be it was
26:45
Speaker 1: it was again a very vague law, but I guess
26:47
Speaker 1: the overarching thing was it was supposed to be you
26:50
Speaker 1: can't reproduce a person, an actor or singer, their image
27:00
Speaker 1: as it passed their likeness. Yes, and that obviously, you know,
27:05
Speaker 1: because then the concern is does that mean if you're
27:07
Speaker 1: describing you're kind of describing a character, but an actor
27:11
Speaker 1: who played that character, Like how far does that go?
27:16
Speaker 1: But there's a lot more specific things around images that
27:20
Speaker 1: have been legalized in the US. So that's sort of
27:26
Speaker 1: what's going on with AI on AO three. I love
27:29
Speaker 1: other listeners who use like wapad or something to write
27:33
Speaker 1: in I've never stepped foot over there. I don't know
27:36
Speaker 1: what would happened to me if I went over there.
27:39
Speaker 2: Get your friend really into it?
27:41
Speaker 1: Oh?
27:44
Speaker 3: I never who talked about what pad? Pretty like detailed
27:48
Speaker 3: at one point. It's been a minute, but.
27:51
Speaker 1: I feel like I have some friends who are who
27:53
Speaker 1: were at one time. Like I said, it's kind of
27:55
Speaker 1: a younger space, and not that there are plenty of people.
28:02
Speaker 1: When I'm reading AO three, I'm like, you are young.
28:05
Speaker 1: I can tell. And in fact, when we were talking
28:10
Speaker 1: about how do you pick up? What do you think? AI?
28:13
Speaker 1: Is one of the things I'm I'm kind of wondering,
28:17
Speaker 1: is is it some of this? I wonder if it's
28:22
Speaker 1: just younger people write more differently than I'm accustomed to.
28:26
Speaker 1: There are some phrases I see all the time now
28:28
Speaker 1: that I'm like, is that just a like lands differently?
28:32
Speaker 1: Is that a young person thing? It's all over the place,
28:36
Speaker 1: like all over some version of that.
28:39
Speaker 2: Huh.
28:40
Speaker 1: But watpad is especially like it's like mostly younger young people. Yes,
28:47
Speaker 1: in my experience that could have changed. That was many
28:49
Speaker 1: years ago, but I did have some friends who kind
28:51
Speaker 1: of were there, and now they've moved to AO three. Oh.
28:54
Speaker 1: Another thing I want to mention before we move on
28:56
Speaker 1: from the AI bit. Something else that has changed is
29:00
Speaker 1: that authors have become really preemptive about proving, not only
29:06
Speaker 1: proving they're not AI but they're also more likely to
29:08
Speaker 1: cite inspirations like I was inspired by this tweet, I
29:12
Speaker 1: was inspired by this story, I was inspired by this
29:14
Speaker 1: TikTok or whatever it is that's new, like that's that
29:19
Speaker 1: wasn't that way when I first started reading fan fiction,
29:22
Speaker 1: And I think that's a good thing. I'm not mad
29:24
Speaker 1: about that. But people are much more likely to say, no,
29:28
Speaker 1: it was this, here's the inspiration. And when you use
29:31
Speaker 1: AO three you can there's a there's a like function
29:35
Speaker 1: where you can say inspired by. But yeah, okay, so
29:42
Speaker 1: back to we're kind of moving into my personal more
29:47
Speaker 1: of my personal experiences now, but back to that whole
29:51
Speaker 1: thing about images. So one thing I've seen playing out
29:57
Speaker 1: right now is a huge fight about underage under age sex.
30:06
Speaker 1: So a quick reminder here. We've talked about it in
30:11
Speaker 1: past episodes, but as of now, AO three has archive
30:14
Speaker 1: warning tags that you're supposed to use if your work
30:17
Speaker 1: includes any of those topics. Otherwise you can be reported
30:22
Speaker 1: unless you say, like chose not to warn. But I'll
30:25
Speaker 1: get into that in a second. They are rape, slash,
30:29
Speaker 1: non con major character death, underage sex which is under
30:34
Speaker 1: eighteen in this case, or graphic depictions of violence. There
30:39
Speaker 1: is also no archive warnings apply, and creator chose not
30:44
Speaker 1: to use archive warnings. I find people usually use that
30:47
Speaker 1: one to avoid major character death spoilers, or if they're
30:51
Speaker 1: not quite sure where it's going. So you would say,
30:56
Speaker 1: you know, when you see no archive warnings, supply she's like, Okay,
31:00
Speaker 1: somebody either dies or they haven't finished writing this story.
31:05
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, those are like the big things. On
31:10
Speaker 1: top of that, there is a rating system similar to
31:14
Speaker 1: movies or TV, but I have never used it and
31:17
Speaker 1: I've never paid attention to it once in my life,
31:19
Speaker 1: except when I was younger and the default was not
31:24
Speaker 1: to include works rated MA unless you change the setting.
31:28
Speaker 1: Then I paid attention because I'd change it. People also
31:32
Speaker 1: use chapter specific warnings and author's notes and will often
31:36
Speaker 1: ask what folks think they should tag if they miss something.
31:40
Speaker 1: So I talked about this when we did our book
31:42
Speaker 1: club on Dubcon. But usually in my experience, people are
31:50
Speaker 1: very careful about that stuff. They do care about the
31:56
Speaker 1: reader having a good experience. They don't want somebody to
31:59
Speaker 1: report them, they don't want you to feel miserable. And
32:03
Speaker 1: sometimes people will say, I think you should add in
32:07
Speaker 1: this tag, and people will do it usually if somebody wrote,
32:11
Speaker 1: if somebody left a comment online and I was like,
32:13
Speaker 1: I really think you should add this I and I agreed,
32:19
Speaker 1: like it wasn't just completely out of left field, I
32:21
Speaker 1: would add it. So sometimes the author's notes serve as that,
32:28
Speaker 1: especially if it's like not a big part of the story,
32:31
Speaker 1: but anyway, those are kind of the main things. So
32:38
Speaker 1: when it comes to this underage thing that I'm seeing
32:42
Speaker 1: playing out, Here's what AO three has to say about
32:45
Speaker 1: what content they allow. AO three was designed to be
32:49
Speaker 1: a permanent home for all transformative fan works. We will
32:52
Speaker 1: not remove content from AO three solely because it contains explicit, offensive,
32:56
Speaker 1: or upsetting material, as long as it doesn't violate any
32:59
Speaker 1: other part of the content policy, such as the harassment
33:02
Speaker 1: policy or the non fan work policy. We allow content
33:05
Speaker 1: of any rating and all kinds of fictional topics. Users
33:08
Speaker 1: are responsible for reading and heating the ratings and warnings
33:11
Speaker 1: provided by the creator. If there's a type of content
33:14
Speaker 1: that you don't want to encounter, you should avoid opening
33:17
Speaker 1: any work tagged or rated to indicate that it may
33:20
Speaker 1: contain such content. Risk averse users should keep in mind
33:24
Speaker 1: that not all content will carry full warnings if you
33:28
Speaker 1: want to know more about a particular fan work, you
33:31
Speaker 1: may also want to consult the bookmarks that people other
33:34
Speaker 1: than the creator have used to categorize it. I didn't
33:38
Speaker 1: know this was a thing. This is news to me,
33:41
Speaker 1: and I'm too scared to look. But apparently when people
33:45
Speaker 1: bookmark your story, they can write a little note like, oh,
33:50
Speaker 1: this story is where this cute thing happens. But I
33:54
Speaker 1: guess some people are really mean in there, which I'm like,
33:57
Speaker 1: why would you bookmark a story that you don't want
34:00
Speaker 1: can leave a really mean note? But anyway, I didn't
34:04
Speaker 1: know that was the thing. I'm too scared to look.
34:06
Speaker 1: But people are into it. I've seen a lot of
34:09
Speaker 1: people commenting about I love going through the bookmarks and
34:12
Speaker 1: reading what people around. Yes, maybe I'll get the courage someday.
34:21
Speaker 1: This has always been an issue, this whole thing, because
34:26
Speaker 1: as long as images slash photorealistic images of children aren't
34:30
Speaker 1: being used in any way, it is legal in the
34:33
Speaker 1: United States to depict children in sexual situations and CSA,
34:37
Speaker 1: so it's legal on AO three and a big policy
34:41
Speaker 1: on any fan fiction side is don't like to read
34:44
Speaker 1: and as I said, tagging things appropriately. If you don't.
34:48
Speaker 1: Someone can report you, but otherwise it is legal. In
34:52
Speaker 1: my experience, people, as I said, they take it pretty
34:55
Speaker 1: seriously and they air on the side of caution. Of
35:00
Speaker 1: what I'm seeing this play out is they're they're like seventeen,
35:07
Speaker 1: Like it's not like young young kids, but they're under eighteen,
35:12
Speaker 1: and so it can get caught up in that, especially
35:13
Speaker 1: if there's a shipping war involved. Oh my goodness. But yeah,
35:21
Speaker 1: that's mostly what I'm playing out, but it is, it's
35:26
Speaker 1: really big right now. I just wanted to include the
35:30
Speaker 1: scope of what AO three is dealing with here, though,
35:33
Speaker 1: because this is from their terms of service. What about robots,
35:38
Speaker 1: computer simulations, elves, aliens, vampires who are three hundred years
35:43
Speaker 1: old but who were turned into vampires at age twelve, etc.
35:49
Speaker 1: The answer. The primary use of the underage sex warning
35:52
Speaker 1: is to identify fan works depicting sexual activity involving humans
35:56
Speaker 1: under the age of eighteen as measured in Earth years.
36:00
Speaker 1: Please use your judgment for other situations. If the fan
36:04
Speaker 1: work does not include a depiction of sexual activity with
36:07
Speaker 1: a human under eighteen years old, then we will not
36:10
Speaker 1: generally consider it underage sex, though creators may use the
36:14
Speaker 1: archive warning if they feel it accurately represents their intent.
36:19
Speaker 1: As always, we encourage creators and bookmarkers to be more
36:23
Speaker 1: specific in tags or summaries where this would be useful
36:26
Speaker 1: to potential audiences. I love that. I never even considered
36:32
Speaker 1: this funny.
36:33
Speaker 2: Earth years, Earth Years, you got to.
36:37
Speaker 1: It's true, though, There's all kinds of stuff being written.
36:41
Speaker 1: I mean, I just was not expecting to read this
36:45
Speaker 1: when I was researching yesterday. I know, you got to.
36:52
Speaker 1: You got to. They have a lot more that that
36:56
Speaker 1: was like the in my opinion, the funniest one, but
36:58
Speaker 1: they have a lot more. Goes into detail about robots
37:01
Speaker 1: and aliens, if you would like to look it up.
37:05
Speaker 1: Another thing I want to mention, I'm not going to
37:07
Speaker 1: go into detail here, but they have a lot of
37:14
Speaker 1: things you're not supposed to do, things that can get
37:17
Speaker 1: you reported, things that are violations. And one of them
37:21
Speaker 1: that I read and was like, oh, that's not getting
37:23
Speaker 1: reported because I see that all the time is violations
37:27
Speaker 1: of the violent joke tag. So that's basically like, oh,
37:33
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding, it's just a joke, but it's very violent.
37:36
Speaker 1: I see that all the time, as far as the
37:39
Speaker 1: eye could see. I see it and the thing is
37:41
Speaker 1: like in less somebody reports them, then it's largely based
37:46
Speaker 1: on who reports so, and maybe they did get reported.
37:51
Speaker 1: I don't know. A lot of times I see it
37:52
Speaker 1: and I'm like, whoa, you need to go outside, I think,
37:56
Speaker 1: but I don't for it, but maybe somebody else did.
38:04
Speaker 1: Maybe somebody else did. But I just when I was
38:06
Speaker 1: reading through their terms, I was like, oh, that one
38:10
Speaker 1: I see all the time, the commercial, Like you're not
38:14
Speaker 1: supposed to do anything commercial on AO three either. For
38:18
Speaker 1: a while I was seeing that all the time too,
38:20
Speaker 1: where people would like leave a review and be like
38:23
Speaker 1: I love if your work, it's great, you should pay
38:25
Speaker 1: me to make a comic for it, or something like that.
38:28
Speaker 1: And that's not a lout. Okay. So just to round
38:41
Speaker 1: this out, these are some of my personal updates. First
38:47
Speaker 1: of all, everybody's yelling at me. I've gotten several angry
38:52
Speaker 1: comments because I have not updated since November. As listeners know,
38:58
Speaker 1: I went into it to p and then a hypervexation
39:03
Speaker 1: soon after. So yes, I have not updated. I am
39:08
Speaker 1: not going to abandon it. I have like five stories
39:12
Speaker 1: there they're going to be finished. But I do know
39:16
Speaker 1: what it's like. I know the pain when you have
39:19
Speaker 1: a story you really love and you're just desperately hoping, oh, oh,
39:24
Speaker 1: they haven't gone away. It's kind of funny because there's
39:29
Speaker 1: like two sides of this coin. Where As the author,
39:35
Speaker 1: sometimes they'll say something and I've never personally liked this,
39:39
Speaker 1: but sometimes they'll do something where they're like, unless I
39:41
Speaker 1: get I don't know, five reviews, I'm not going to
39:45
Speaker 1: post another one. And now you know, as the reader,
39:51
Speaker 1: sometimes there's like, I'm going to abandon this story if
39:53
Speaker 1: you don't update it within this amount of time, some
39:57
Speaker 1: kind of like blackmailing stuff going on. Yeah, I do
40:03
Speaker 1: feel bad, and one of the it's already half written.
40:08
Speaker 1: I just have to finish. I just have to finish it.
40:11
Speaker 3: Didn't you have a story where someone you've like, I
40:13
Speaker 3: think they might have passed away?
40:16
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I'll talk about this. Okay. So when I
40:20
Speaker 1: was reading, I don't know that they did. But when
40:25
Speaker 1: I was reading the terms service for this for this episode,
40:30
Speaker 1: I learned that AO three has something called the Fanish
40:32
Speaker 1: next of kin, and this is someone you can name
40:38
Speaker 1: as the person that if you die, has access to
40:43
Speaker 1: your account and they can't update your stories or anything.
40:46
Speaker 1: They can't do anything like that, but they can post
40:49
Speaker 1: like hey, sorry she's dead. Yes I'm thinking about doing it.
40:57
Speaker 1: You worry about illness, death or hyperfixation, which I didn't
41:04
Speaker 1: talk about, but it's true. You lose, You lose your
41:07
Speaker 1: authors to some other fandom you go into like see
41:10
Speaker 1: what they're reading, and they're like no, yes. And it's
41:16
Speaker 1: called the AO three curse because usually a lot of people,
41:20
Speaker 1: you get really excited at the beginning and you're like,
41:22
Speaker 1: I have all these ideas post chapter, and then something happens,
41:26
Speaker 1: or you get tired, you no more chapters written, and
41:29
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, well now I got to sit down
41:31
Speaker 1: and actually write some stuff. So the AO three curse
41:35
Speaker 1: is real. AO three curse is real. But whoa, I
41:38
Speaker 1: got a lot of angry comments. I got one today.
41:41
Speaker 1: I haven't read it yet, but I could tell by
41:43
Speaker 1: the subject line it was not happy. So I'm gonna
41:49
Speaker 1: have to deal with that. One Another thing. I've said
41:53
Speaker 1: this before, especially in light of all of what I've
41:56
Speaker 1: just been talking about. Download the pdf. I'm a big
41:59
Speaker 1: believe because they might. I don't know when it's going
42:03
Speaker 1: to go away, maybe it won't, but if you have
42:06
Speaker 1: the PDF, I've lost a lot of fan fiction actually recently,
42:13
Speaker 1: because I was in another fandom and it's a lot
42:15
Speaker 1: younger people, and they'll post something and delete it like
42:18
Speaker 1: the next day.
42:19
Speaker 3: It's not fanfic. But it did take Stephanie Meyer's book,
42:24
Speaker 3: which I think like has just was a published in
42:27
Speaker 3: the last five years. We talked about it, but where
42:29
Speaker 3: it was from Edward's perspective, it was ten years before then.
42:33
Speaker 3: I found it and I'll printed it off at work,
42:38
Speaker 3: hundreds of pages.
42:39
Speaker 1: I don't know how I got away with that, but
42:41
Speaker 1: I did good for you. You knew.
42:45
Speaker 2: You knew.
42:47
Speaker 3: I was like, I gotta get it and I know
42:48
Speaker 3: it's going to disappear because it was being like people
42:50
Speaker 3: were erasing it because it was her property. So you know,
42:55
Speaker 3: it is what it is when I found it, don't
42:56
Speaker 3: worry about me. I try to have a copy of it.
42:58
Speaker 1: We're here the future book CLI perhaps yeah, I can.
43:07
Speaker 2: Commit to that again. The movie is the one thing,
43:09
Speaker 2: but the books that I don't know.
43:16
Speaker 1: I'm curious if people can tell when they when you
43:22
Speaker 1: download their PDF because AO three actually has a lot
43:26
Speaker 1: of like ways you can track stats. Yeah, in some
43:30
Speaker 1: ways that creep me out. Not in uh, I mean,
43:34
Speaker 1: it's like normal stuff. It's like how many people have
43:36
Speaker 1: clicked on it, how many people have bookmarked it, how
43:38
Speaker 1: many people have done that. But I guess what creeps
43:41
Speaker 1: me out about it is some authors are so focused
43:45
Speaker 1: on it that they'll like comment on it, and that
43:48
Speaker 1: kind of creeps me out that they're paying so much attention.
43:52
Speaker 1: But you know they're doing this for free until some
43:56
Speaker 1: of them, until they get a book deal. But which
44:00
Speaker 1: is another thing, And that's why I think the social
44:02
Speaker 1: media aspect has become so huge. I've never seen it.
44:07
Speaker 1: I've tried to figure it out. I don't think people
44:10
Speaker 1: can tell when you download the PDF, but listeners right
44:13
Speaker 1: in if I'm wrong, because I'm a that's what I do. Like.
44:16
Speaker 1: If I like a story, I'm downloading it. I'm not
44:19
Speaker 1: gonna let that get deleted and I'll never be able
44:22
Speaker 1: to read it again. Something else. I did join a
44:26
Speaker 1: fan fiction discord. Unfortunately, actually I went through all of
44:31
Speaker 1: these steps to get in. Not only do I not
44:34
Speaker 1: really understand how discord works, but that's when I went
44:38
Speaker 1: into my depression and hyperfixation. So I haven't really been
44:41
Speaker 1: back in. But I will so proud because you were,
44:45
Speaker 1: like I know, I know the timing was terrible, but
44:49
Speaker 1: I did get a mysterious message from the discord server yesterday.
44:53
Speaker 1: I didn't read it because I thought it might be
44:54
Speaker 1: an April Fool's Day prank. And I'm very suspicious of
44:59
Speaker 1: April fl Day everybody, so I like, Nope, don't contact
45:03
Speaker 1: me on April first. Okay, that's not Gooday.
45:07
Speaker 2: I realized it yesterday.
45:10
Speaker 1: You won't get me, Samantha.
45:12
Speaker 2: I won't get me either, because again I didn't know
45:14
Speaker 2: what day was. I'm fine a bunch.
45:17
Speaker 1: I got several text messions to yesterday from people where
45:19
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, it's April Fool's Day, right,
45:21
Speaker 1: That is not true and everybody clearly forgot about April
45:25
Speaker 1: Fool's Day. Uh, just all right. Another thing. I I'm
45:32
Speaker 1: not going to get into this right now, but I
45:37
Speaker 1: did want to just mention I have seen what I
45:43
Speaker 1: considered a pretty troubling trope of Imagine you have two
45:51
Speaker 1: characters of the same sex, one is straight and one
45:54
Speaker 1: is gay. One loves the other one. The gay one
45:57
Speaker 1: loves the other one, I mean, in my opinion, the
46:02
Speaker 1: straight and loves the other one too. But anyway, in
46:05
Speaker 1: these stories, somehow the straight person is able to like
46:13
Speaker 1: wish that the gay person is the opposite gender so
46:17
Speaker 1: they can be together, and I just it makes me
46:21
Speaker 1: really uncomfortable. I've seen it in a lot of places.
46:25
Speaker 1: Sometimes the point of the story is the straight person
46:29
Speaker 1: realizes they're not so straight after all, and they don't
46:32
Speaker 1: need them to be the opposite sex. But sometimes it
46:36
Speaker 1: feels very like wishing away somebody's a part of somebody's
46:41
Speaker 1: identity against their will. And to be clear, this is
46:45
Speaker 1: not like trans like the gay person in question didn't
46:49
Speaker 1: want this. Some kind of like ruminating on that and
46:54
Speaker 1: what that might mean and what to say about that.
46:57
Speaker 1: But that is one trope I've seen that I hadn't
47:00
Speaker 1: seen a lot of until recently. I was like, ooh,
47:04
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know how I feel about that.
47:06
Speaker 1: I don't like that. I'm one one last thing podfic.
47:12
Speaker 1: So this is when somebody takes your fan fiction mixup
47:14
Speaker 1: podcast of it and you have to ask for permission
47:21
Speaker 1: because technically you are the copyright holder with fan fiction.
47:27
Speaker 1: At this we didn't get into copyright laws. That's something
47:29
Speaker 1: that else that AO three and other fan fiction sites.
47:33
Speaker 1: Our fantish sites are very active and monitoring. But technically
47:40
Speaker 1: I own the copyrights on my stories, so you have
47:46
Speaker 1: to get permission from me. But somebody, somebody has made
47:51
Speaker 1: a podfick of three of my fan fictions. Really yep?
47:56
Speaker 1: Do you know they ask me or if I don't
48:00
Speaker 1: give them permission, they can't do it. I haven't listened
48:04
Speaker 1: to them, but they're pretty popular, so I trust that
48:08
Speaker 1: they're not like terrible. But maybe maybe I'm wrong.
48:13
Speaker 2: What's it good? What's it called?
48:15
Speaker 1: No? Never? Never get it out of me? I know
48:19
Speaker 1: some listeners have figured it out, but no. Okay. So
48:24
Speaker 1: in conclusion, I understand that a lot of what we
48:29
Speaker 1: talked about is really messy. I think it's hard to
48:33
Speaker 1: police what kids see on the Internet, and a lot
48:35
Speaker 1: of adults don't know how to or don't know the dangers.
48:39
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I think a lot of
48:42
Speaker 1: these things that we talked about are masquerading as protecting
48:46
Speaker 1: the children, and they're not about that at all. They're
48:49
Speaker 1: instead restricting access to information, to queer content, to anything
48:54
Speaker 1: those in power don't want people to have access to.
48:57
Speaker 1: And even if the person who is in now you
49:00
Speaker 1: agree with, you don't know who's going to be empowered next.
49:04
Speaker 1: And I know that yes, we're talking about fan fiction
49:07
Speaker 1: right now, but really we're talking about so much more.
49:09
Speaker 1: This does impact all of us. This impacts what we
49:13
Speaker 1: can access, This impacts our internet landscape, and it's frightening
49:20
Speaker 1: to see what is proposed and what could happen. And
49:29
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just think that there are so
49:33
Speaker 1: many big organizations that are against these laws, and when
49:37
Speaker 1: you read why, it makes sense. So if you have questions,
49:41
Speaker 1: you can look that up online. Thanks again to the
49:45
Speaker 1: volunteers that run AO three. If you want more information
49:49
Speaker 1: our ways to speak up against these acts, they have
49:52
Speaker 1: links on their site. They also discuss a lot of
49:56
Speaker 1: legal issues around copyright, like I said, so if you're
49:59
Speaker 1: interested in that, and they did provide a lot of
50:02
Speaker 1: the information for this episode, so shout out to them.
50:07
Speaker 1: All the kudos to them. That's what it's called when
50:10
Speaker 1: you leave a heart on a fan fiction on a review.
50:14
Speaker 1: But yeah, listeners, we would love to hear from you.
50:17
Speaker 1: If you know anything about any of these laws, anything
50:20
Speaker 1: we missed, anything in the fan fiction world you'd like
50:23
Speaker 1: us to talk about. Please let us know. You can
50:26
Speaker 1: email us at Hello at stuff iever told you dot com.
50:28
Speaker 1: You can find us on Blue Sky at mom Stuff
50:29
Speaker 1: podcast or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I've Never
50:32
Speaker 1: Told You for us on YouTube. We have some merchandise
50:34
Speaker 1: at comp Bureau and we have a beck you can
50:36
Speaker 1: get wherever you get your books. Thanks as always to
50:38
Speaker 1: our super just Christina or Executive for U, to my
50:40
Speaker 1: and your contributor Joey, thank you, and thanks to you
50:43
Speaker 1: who're listening Stuff I Never Told You question of my
50:45
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio, you
50:47
Speaker 1: can check out the heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or
50:48
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows