Well, now I'm rethinking my rethinking and am generally unsure here, lol. On the post about offensive content, the mention of harassment made it sound like I shouldn't report an RPF work that basically insulted someone else in the fandom. As purely insulting, there was no calls for violence or anything like that. But it *was* essentially a call-out post.
However, in a case where a person is infamous in the fandom for doing some public things regarding a celebrity (and the user is, as far as we know, not an AO3 user), is a work denigrating that person considered a call-out post, or a legitimate RPF work insulting a public person, the way one might for a politician one despises? Where is the line between "this is a famous person and therefore this is acceptable RPF" and "this is a call-out post and isn't permitted"? Does it depend on whether the person is an AO3 user, or whether they're famous for anything else besides the fandom interactions with the celebrity and/or on other social media?
We allow users to write fictional content about real people (Real-Person Fiction) that portrays those people in a negative light. Posting a negative fanwork about a real person is not inherently harassment, whether that person is a public figure or not.
By contrast, a call-out post is a non-fictional statement targeting a specific person with the intent to direct others' behavior toward them, often to shame, ostracize, or punish them. If the content is not clearly fictional or crosses into real-world accusations or incitement, it may be considered harassment and therefore not permitted on AO3.
Comment on TOS Spotlight: Harassment
Doranwen Sun 15 Jun 2025 01:31AM UTC
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AO3_Policy_and_Abuse (Official) Sun 15 Jun 2025 06:46AM UTC
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