2022 OTW Board Election

The 2022 Organization for Transformative Works Board of Directors election took place between June 19th and August 16th, 2022.
On June 19th, 2022, the candidates for the 2022 OTW Board Election were publicly announced. Five candidates, one of whom had previously served on the Board, contested three available seats.2022 Elections Candidates Announcement, Organization for Transformative Works, published June 19th 2022 (Accessed August 15th, 2022). In alphabetical order by given name, the candidates were:
*Heather M
*Michelle S
* Natalia G
*Noémie B
*Tiffany G
For the first time, candidates’ full legal names were not to be publicly posted unless they were appointed or elected to the Board. This step was was likely taken due to the May 2022 incident in which an unknown party sent malicious emails containing CSAM to the organisation's volunteers. A Statement on Malicious Email Attacks Against OTW Volunteers, Organization for Transformative Works, published May 7th 2022 (Accessed August 15th, 2022).
On August 16, 2022, the Elections Committee announced the 2022 Elections Results. Heather McGuire and Natalia Gruber (in alphabetical order) were successfully elected to the Board of Directors and will begin their terms on October 1, 2022. In addition, Michelle Schroeder, the third place candidate, was appointed to fill the seat vacated by E. Anna Szegedi for the remainder of her term (two years), when she stepped down from her position on the Board prior to the 2022 election.2022 Election Results, Organization for Transformative Works, posted August 16, 2022. (Accessed August 16th, 2022). 
==Timeline== 
Key dates for the 2022 OTW Board Election were as follows: 
*June 17th: Candidacy deadline at 11:59pm UTC 
*June 19th: Candidates publicly announced 
*June 26th: Deadline to submit Q&A questions for candidates 
*June 30th: OTW membership deadline for prospective voters 
*August 12th: Voting begins at 12:01am UTC 
*August 15th: Voting closes at 11:59pm UTC 
*August 16th: Election results announced 
*October 1st: Board turnover begins. Election Timeline 2022, Organization for Transformative Works, posted May 1st, 2022. (Accessed March 1st 2023).
For a more detailed timeline of events for the OTW 2022 Election, refer to the 2022 Election Timeline.
==Candidates' Platforms== 
Members of the public were able to submit questions for the candidates via the Elections Committee and in four candidate chats involving the five candidates. The five candidates responded to three batches of Q&As. Category: 2022 Candidate Chat, Organization for Transformative Works, posted August 5th, 2021. (Accessed August 15th, 2022). Category: 2022 Q&A, Organization for Transformative Works, posted 6th - 28th July. (Accessed August 15th, 2022). 
==Election Statistics==
The 2022 Election had a total of 11643 eligible voters, of whom 4574 cast a ballot, representing 39.3% of potential voters. The number of ballots cast increased 98.4%, from 2305 ballots in 2021, and the percentage of members voting also nearly doubled, from 20.5% in 2021., Organization for Transformative Works, posted August 24, 2022. (Accessed 24 August 2022.)
==Controversy==
A controversy regarding one of the candidates, Tiffany G., went viral in August. Many fans feared that AO3 was in danger of being censored. 
During the August 1 live chat on Discord with the candidates, fans became concerned regarding some of Tiffany G's answers, starting with this one:
This answer (later amended in Discord itself to "...the fact that they think some works contain...") prompted several followup questions from the audience about whether she was proposing to restrict content, to which Tiffany responded:
At this point, the moderator added, "Archive of Our Own does not host any works that contain materials that are illegal in the United States, such as child pornography." More followup answers from Tiffany:
And finally:
Although she did not name the country explicitly, this country was generally assumed to be China, who had banned AO3 two years previously (see Blocking of AO3 in China). Furthermore, her description of the banning incident was recognizable to fans familiar with the 227 incident in China, including another user in the Discord chat itself, who referenced the Great Firewall of China in response, which she did not refute.
===Initial Reactions===
Most OTW elections are fairly uneventful, so the number of people who noticed Tiffany's comments was initially very limited, including people who attended the chat itself and fail_fandomanon, where a long discussion thread occurred. The chat transcript was not posted to the OTW website until August 5, and there are no comments on it until August 9. On August 9, a tumblr fan posted, "I am voting because there is a person running who in the chat transcripts really concerns me because it is anti language and I do not fucking want that anywhere near the board.", by anarchycox, 9 August 2022. On August 11, one of the people who reblogged the post also shared the information on twitter, and that's when the news truly went viral.
Several users felt that she was quite naive and didn't understand how the AO3 worked, and expressed concern over her statements:
 
 
===Escalation===
Many fans thought the candidate's language was similar to that of an anti-shipper, and began to believe that the candidate would encourage censorship on the AO3.
 
The ongoing pro-shipper vs anti-shipper conflict only inflamed the issue, and the issues with the candidate became exaggerated and fell into traditional conflict beats; namely that the candidate wanted to censor queer content on the AO3, didn't understand fandom history, and would be the harbinger of AO3's capitulation to and destruction at the hands of pro-censorship bodies (primarily the PRC government). Users started to make callout posts and spread information about the candidate. Some of the information that was being spread only partially true, or was an exaggeration of what the candidate actually said.
Because she stated her support for maximum inclusiveness of content and refuted the questions assuming that she was proposing content restrictions, Chat Transcript – August 1, Organisation for Transformative Works, posted 5th August 2022, accessed 15th August 2022, many fans argued that the candidate did not support censorship or wish to restrict content, but many others argued that she did. A number of fans took her comments regarding "child pornography" to mean that she secretly wanted to censor and remove queer content.
 
Tiffany G.'s candidate bio mentions that "she is working as a technical support person in a governmental organization.", 2022-06-19. (Accessed 16 September 2022.) The bio does not say what country Tiffany currently lives in or which government she works for. Nonetheless, a number of fans started believing that she worked for the Chinese government and that once in power she would censor all controversial works and would send information on Chinese users to the PRC government. There was no evidence for this claim.
 
While this claim gained traction, other users pointed out how unrealistic these claims were.
 
===227 Incident===
Much of the wank also inflamed old tensions regarding the Blocking of AO3 in China, often referred to as the 227 Incident.
The August 11 tweets about Tiffany G. were spread to the Chinese social media site weibo within hours, where Chinese AO3 fans also expressed concerns about her as a candidate., tweet by Karenkk_axel, 11 August 2022. Chinese fans' frame of reference was not anti-shipping, but their personal experience with government censorship in general and the 227 incident in particular. 
On weibo, as well as on international platforms, they expressed the belief that Tiffany G. was an xfx (also known as "prawn" or "shrimp"), one of the fans who took part in the original 2020 mass reporting of the AO3 and are widely believed to have caused the PRC government to ban the AO3 from China.
 
Twitter user MuZhiYou explained to the international audience that suspicions were raised among Chinese fans because Tiffany mentioned in the August 1 chat that AO3 is mainly used to post adult content. This practice (also called "using AO3 as parking lot" (停车场). Original tumblr post by olderthannetfic. Reblog by direwolf-summer explains the phrase 停车场/"parking lot". Posted 11 August 2022.) is a way for Chinese fanfic writers to bypass the censorship of local fanfic platforms by posting the sex scenes on AO3 and including the link within the story on Lofter, Weibo, jjwxc etc. One of the arguments xfx used to justify their actions was that AO3 was an illegal porn site, and to Chinese fans Tiffany's statements sounded very similar. Posted Aug 11, 2022
Another point that caused mistrust in her was the fact that the information she provided about the mass reporting of AO3 was not correct. AO3 was not reported for hosting child pornography, but due to a conflict generated in The Untamed RPF fandom.. Collection of Weibo posts and machine translated by Aethel on Dreamwidth. Posted 12 August 2022. Accessed 17 August 2022.
===Voter Ineligibility===
OTW supporters who were motivated by the recent controversy to cast a vote in the election soon realised another problem - many of them were not eligible to vote. Many had been making small monthly donations to the OTW, however as the minimum donation for membership was $10 (USD) and their contributions per month were often less than this, they were not considered OTW members.
This resulted in a Change.org petition started by River Noble which demanded that not only should the OTW fire volunteers with pro-censorship views and bar pro-censorship candidates from taking Board positions, but also to reform the election proceedure to allow those who had made frequent small donations to become full voting members.
===Racism Allegations===
A number of users called out the escalating claims as racist and sinophobic, particularly the claims regarding Tiffany G being a Chinese spy, and the portrayal of her as someone who was going to doxx Chinese users and censor anything controversial on the AO3.
 
 
Some fans disagreed with this assessment, asserting that it could not be racist as Chinese users were also using the same rhetoric. Some also claimed that it couldn't be sinophobic as they believed the claims to be true.
 
===Aftermath===
Following the announcement that Heather McGuire, Natalia Gruber and Michelle Schroeder had been elected, the reaction on social media quickly turned from congratulating the candidates to celebrating that Tiffany G had not been elected. 
 
 
 
Many fans also continued calling for tighter restrictions on who could run as a board member, such as ensuring candidates "demonstrated commitment to the organization and its values." and were not pro-censorship.
Some users went further and advocated for anyone working for the Chinese government or other "oppressive" governments to be barred from running for Board. 
A number of users called this take out as being sinophobic and unimplementable.
===Statements from the OTW===
At the September 25 public Board meeting, a guest asked the Board if they would consider changing the rules in future Board elections. Elections chair Marion answered, 
The Board also reported that they had shared a message about the election internally with volunteers. That message thanked the candidates for running, expressed appreciation for all the volunteers, and condemned the hostile, racist rhetoric on social media.
At the January 2023 public Board meeting, another guest referenced the 2022 election and asked whether there were plans to prevent people whose beliefs were antithetical to the OTW's mission from getting onto the Board. The meeting minutes contain the following statement from the Board:
===2023 OTW Board Election Controversy===
During the 2023 OTW Board Election, social media rumors spread quickly about another candidate, a white American, after it was revealed that she had run (and lost) in a primary election as a Republican. A day later, the Elections Committee posted a statement on the OTW website: 
Fans discussed the contrast between OTW's failure to protect Tiffany and the speed at which they produced an official response to mistreatment of the white candidate; many interpreted this incident as another example of the OTW's racist double standard (see 2023 OTW Management Controversy). Meanwhile, one current OTW volunteer said that the public statement was made in part due to his insistence: "but one of the reasons they said something is that I voiced my very unhappy position [in] the Org chat tool that they're setting up a wonderful pattern of leaving candidates hanging - first Tiffany, now Audrey - and that at this rate, they'd not get candidates in future terms." by samjohnsson, 2023-07-26.
==References==
Category:OTW Board Elections 
Category:2022 Events