Jennifer Maslowski writes \”Unleash your imagination and free your soul.\”
Well, only if your imagination and soul contain absolutely no sexuality, violence, or other non-vanilla elements. This week, members logged on to FanFiction.net to find much of their work removed with no notice. The following appeared on the start page:
“NC-17 based entries will no longer be accepted. Though they are very small portion of the site the adult stories have generated almost all of the complaints filed on record in the past year. Moreover, the highest concentration of them are growing in areas with subjects targeted to younger readers and with increasingly controversial subject matters. However, not all NC-17 based stories fall into the description but as result of their increasing volume a decision has been made to resolve this problem. Innocent writers will be affected but this has to be done considering the non-filtering scheme of the site.”
Jennifer Maslowski writes \”Unleash your imagination and free your soul.\”
Well, only if your imagination and soul contain absolutely no sexuality, violence, or other non-vanilla elements. This week, members logged on to FanFiction.net to find much of their work removed with no notice. The following appeared on the start page:
“NC-17 based entries will no longer be accepted. Though they are very small portion of the site the adult stories have generated almost all of the complaints filed on record in the past year. Moreover, the highest concentration of them are growing in areas with subjects targeted to younger readers and with increasingly controversial subject matters. However, not all NC-17 based stories fall into the description but as result of their increasing volume a decision has been made to resolve this problem. Innocent writers will be affected but this has to be done considering the non-filtering scheme of the site.”
FanFiction.net is a long-established site drawing huge traffic of both paying and non-paying members. Utilizing a system of self-rating, writers including explicit sexuality, violence, or other adult material designate their work as NC17. This rating is clearly displayed before the reader clicks the title, and an additional age disclaimer must be validated before the page will open.
FanFiction.net has been running for four years based on fees paid by members, and advertising geared towards adult visitors. The content is contributed entirely by the members. But these members were not consulted or even notified in advance. Because of a few complaints by readers who were duly warned before opening NC17 material, it was eliminated in one sweep.
The overwhelming petition at www.petitiononline.com/KEEPNC17/petition.html, as well as many emails to [email protected] and [email protected], have elicited no response. Apparently, the wants and needs of the adult writers are of no interest to the owners. There major concern seems to be time spent reading the complaints of those who chose to read works clearly labeled as NC17.
And so another outlet for free expression on the Internet bites the dust.
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