I didn’t wanna say anything about this because a part of me felt like I didn’t have all the context and that I wasn’t educated enough, but since I’ve been asked a lot by folks in my inbox about “ao3 allegedly deleting pro palestine works”, I thought I should make a post about this.
as far as I know, the works that were removed by ao3 weren’t removed because they were pro palestine. they were removed mostly because they didn’t follow ao3’s terms of service, which is that “no non-fan content is allowed on the platform”.
in other words, ao3 only allows fan contents (which includes fanfics, fan art, as well as original works) on their platform.
anything else — that isn’t fanfic, fan art, or original work — goes against its terms of service.
("dark fics", fics that involve taboo/disgusting/morally wrong/socially unacceptable topics, no matter how explicit these topics are portrayed, are rightfully allowed on the platform because dark fics are fan contents and ao3 does not allow censorship, therefore these works follow the platform's terms of service, therefore ao3 won't remove them.)
also, anything else that mentions donations, fundraising, anything that involves money, goes against its terms of service.
ao3 is an archive and a nonprofit organization, meaning your works will get removed if you post asking for donations on the platform or if the “work section” of your work isn’t fan content (political statements are not fan contents).
also, to my knowledge, ao3 legally cannot get involved in politics nor can it allow any expression of political stance on its platform if it wishes to remain its nonprofit status. (and ao3 has to remain nonprofit, or else they risk getting sued, since most of the works on their platform are fanfics of copyrighted characters). so that’s most likely why pro palestine works are being removed by the platform.
again, these are what I’ve learned, what I’ve read about. if anyone has any more information or if I got anything wrong, feel free to chime in.
