This is just plain sad. Fanfiction.net is a place for people to go to share their creations and by not allowing certain types of fiction, they are killing what they set out to do. We were given a place to exercise our freedom of expression and speech and now it's being taken away bit by bit. By not being able to write how I want, I feel that my rights as an American are being infringed upon. I also find it extremely hypocritical of FFN to close for the day to honour the victims of September 11, but then open up on the 12th to announce that they are going to monitor our civil liberties of freedom and expression in their patriotism.
My fear is that NC-17 fics are only the beginning of it all. Will R fics fall next? The point of FFN is to 'unleash your imagination and free your soul.' How are some of us supposed to do that when what is in our souls is banned? Perhaps the logo should be rewritten as: "Unleash your imagination, but only within what we think is acceptable." Get back your backbone FFN! The site was created as an open forum for authors and it should stay that way! The banning of certain types of fiction causes some authors to be discouraged from their writings, so FFN is, therefore, crushing imagination. "Censorship causes blindness, open your eyes" (I found this somewhere, but I can't remember who said it).
I understand the NC-17 ruling has good intentions, but many good fics will be lost as a result. While some NC-17 fics are tasteless and poorly written, there are those that are truly gems and only have the NC-17 content (sex, violence, gore) on the sidelines of the story. It's true that there are good fics out there that are rated G to PG-13, but I can count how many there are on one hand (okay, so maybe add the other and hand and a couple of toes). In my opinion, most of the excellent fiction out there is rated NC-17. I'd much rather read a fic dark, angsty fic over one about cute and cuddly animals. I don't know, maybe I'm just a sicko. All I'm saying is just let the people decide for themselves if they don't want to read a certain type of story and don't hide the best authors out there.
All stories are rated and a message box even pops up to make certain a reader knows what they are doing, so it's their own fault. Shouldn't that be enough to ward off the people not mature enough or who just don't like that sort of fiction? Obviously not. NC-17 fiction maybe offensive to some people, but the filtering option at the top of all FFN pages doesn't allow anything over PG-13 to be displayed. Because of this, one would have to search for the R and NC-17 material. Not only are the fics marked as NC-17 by FFN, but most authors also warn their readers that there are mature themes and adult situations in their works, so if they don't like that sort of thing just don't click! Why would a person even bother wasting their time reading something they don't like unless they are intending to complain to FFN or flame the author?
If parents don't want their children reading 'smut' and 'trash', they shouldn't allow their children on the internet in the first place because, I assure you, there is much worse out there. If you have ever been goat scxed, you know what I'm talking about. *shunders* Some of the most wonderful fics out there will be lost as a result as these parents not watching their children. Just because these 'good' parents haven't realized that their children have grown up and developed a little thing called a sex drive, doesn't give these parents the right to 'purify' the interent. These parents should take responsibility for their children and monitor their children's actions and leave us the rest alone! I believe the parents should be proud of their kids for no longer wanting to be naive morons and broadening their horizons.
Fanfiction.net has got to remember that it is impossible to not offend someone. I've most likely offended many people just by writing this little rant. If they tried to ban everything that offended anyone, they wouldn't have anything but a fics that were basically like:
"Hey, how are you today?"
"I'm good. How are you?"
"I'm fine."
"That's good."
How boring would that be? There will always be the people that look for a way to complain about something, so not everyone will always be happy no matter what anyone does. There is no point in making individuals suffer because a few people cannot listen to many simple warnings.
Whether or not FFN is doing this for the children is questionable, however. While they're eliminating the adult oriented fanfiction, there are still adult pop ups. Promises of "Hot Girls in Hot Bikinis" bombard the site at every turn. While these stories are easily filtered out, these offensive ads still remain.
Banning this type of fiction is a very bad move on FFN's part. I've heard from several different people that they intend on removing all of their fics, not just the NC-17 ones, and moving to mediaminer. FFN may believe that these fics are only a small portion of the site, but they fail to realize the amount of traffic this small section receives. As a result, they will lose many visitors and members. There are also those who pay for certain features on FFN that are planning to unsubscribe as a result of this irrational decision causing FFN to lose the funding it so desperately needs to stay open.
Instead of deleting these fics, FFN could easily come up with a better solution. They could possibly have a completely different section for the NC-17 fics and not mix them in with the G to R rated fics. They could also have people submit valid ID through the mail to prove their age much like Virtual City does. Accounts won't display the 'offensive' material until this ID has been received and approved. This would be a major pain for the FFN staff, but they have to decide if they would rather lose many of their members instead.
To put all of the above simply: lift the stupid ban!