uhg, saw a post literally on my dash of the “if you’re not for banning content on ao3 just admit that you like CP” ilk and it’s just so frustrating because

i don’t want ao3 to ban certain kinds of content specifically because i do not like and do not want to see underage content.

fanfiction.net bans explicit adult content, but i know for a fact that there is still explicit adult content on fanfiction.net because i often unwittingly came across it in fics where it’s not labeled! there’s good reason i don’t go there to read fics anymore!

banning content doesn’t stop it from existing on that website, it simply makes it harder to moderate. part of why ao3’s system is so loved is because we are able to specify our searches to include and exclude multiple elements, but we’re only able to do so when those elements are labeled.

If we ban the “content” what will actually be banned are the labels that allow us to avoid it.