2026-wang-precarious-but-active
findings extracted from this paper
Fans in Chinese transformative fandom developed systematic coded language to reference banned platforms and circumvent link blocking: AO3 was referred to as 'the red and white website whose name cannot be mentioned,' direct URLs were converted to text passwords posted in comments, and fan communities used numeric codes (e.g., '123456') to identify celebrity pairings in ways opaque to platform keyword filters. These community-maintained encoding conventions were required knowledge for platform access.
Contrary to an apathetic response to surveillance, fans actively constructed collective 'red lines' — community-shared threat models distinguishing definitely dangerous activities from acceptable gray-area behaviors. This community-level threat modeling was shaped by real incidents (e.g., the 2024–2025 Haitang author arrests) and operated in tension with privacy solutions: individual circumvention (e.g., accessing AO3 via VPN) did not restore community function because the broader fandom remained trapped on domestic platforms.
Blocking of AO3 in China since 2020 produced a fraudulent mirror-site ecosystem that deceived users: one social media post documented financial extortion through a mirror site, mirror sites charged for fanworks (exposing original authors to legal risk), and critically, mirrors collected domestic phone numbers—which are legally linked to government identity—unlike the real AO3 which requires only an email address. Users could not reliably distinguish mirror sites from the canonical platform.
Chinese platforms employ keyword-based algorithmic censorship that produces unexpected false positives even on self-censored content: one participant reported that a 4,000-word work posted as a whole was blocked, but splitting it into two 2,000-word segments caused both halves to be blocked, while splitting the same content into three parts allowed all three to post. The participant interpreted this as the algorithm learning to recognize their work over time, and ceased testing for fear of 'feeding the AI.'
Among 10 interviewed overseas members of Chinese transformative fandom, 7 used a VPN to access banned sites while in China, yet VPN distrust was a documented adoption barrier: one participant stated, 'I am considering whether the VPN might be under government surveillance. Some VPNs seem like they are fully monitored by the government, while others, which are more private, feel safer to use.' Separately, many fans inside China lacked awareness of VPNs entirely, assuming blocked platforms were permanently inaccessible.