Attention fanfic writers: If you use Google Docs to write/store/back-up your fics, you might want to download anything you don’t already have backed up elsewhere. Google is apparently invading and deleting people’s personal drive content thanks to the FOSTA/SESTA bill that recently passed through Congress. Essentially, it criminalizes ANY platform where sexual content could be placed.
It may also be worth making sure you have offline back-ups of any and all fics you have posted here on Tumblr and on AO3, in case Yahoo get antsy (they’ve been cracking down on the porn bot tumblrs already) and OTW face a legal challenge to take down AO3. I’m hoping that’s not the case – but I was on LiveJournal during Strikethrough in 2007 and I remember the way that whole communities as well as individual LJ accounts were deleted and purged; it was instrumental in the founding of AO3 in the first place. That was a widespread purge of fanfic writers and communities, LGBT+ communities and writers and more, all due to legal threats that SixApart, the company that owned and hosted LiveJournal, received due to allegedly hosting paedophile content. After Strikethrough was over and LJ admitted they’d gone OTT, there were a number of communities and accounts that didn’t get reinstated. I’ve always been quite careful not to have my Tumblr flagged up as NSFW in part because of that. Given the number of Facebook accounts that get temporary or permanent suspensions thanks to malicious false reports, I have very little confidence that Tumblr’s staff won’t make mistakes.
I’m not sure what this means for collaborative fics; but Google Docs probably aren’t a safe platform for that anymore.
If this is news to anyone else, listen, whatever happens in the world of politics, backing up your stuff is always a good and necessary thing. Do it and do it often. Be wise. Nothing is certain. Nothing is stable. Even data decays. In a world of rapidly-decreasing hard copies, you must perform backups. It’s not paranoia, it’s prevention.
@tisfan@27dragons I know you both use it so I thought it would be a good idea to tag you but I’m not sure if anyone else does so, please, be safe and save everything you can wherever you can.
If they touch Ao3 I fucking hope there will be a revolution overseas to bring it back, killing of everyone who tried to get us off of our drug.
Creators should beware of google for more than just their privacy policies and any “decency” enforcement. Pay attention to the terms of service. They state:
“When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps).” [emphasis mine]
I will never use google docs for any of my creative work.
SIGNAL BOOST
I feel like a jerk for saying this, but as someone who’s had sites (dedicated to stories and poetry, fwiw) taken down without warning for “obscenity” before in various purges about various things, I find myself wondering what people expected.
Fandom people who like policing content: this is why we don’t. It’s not because we love pedophiles (or think there are no iffy things about sex work, or…) It’s because this is what happens. Whole swaths of stuff gets deleted, and there really isn’t much thought put into what that is.
You might be happy that someone’s underage fic goes bye bye… but your deeply personal fic about Csa you survived is likely to go too.
From the point of view of an overworked or disgusted censor (or an automated one), they’re the same.
Wow, this is scary.
I had only heard vague rumblings about this, like about CL closing their personals etc, and this finally got me off my ass to look into it. It sounds like it’s every single bit as bad as this post makes it out to be, if not worse, and that’s just for fandom content. Then there are the actual sex workers being put in actual danger by it.
i consider myself a very junior Fandom Old (fandom-middle aged?) – i’m still relatively young, but i’ve been creating fanworks & participating in fandoms for over half my life, so i’ve witnessed shit of this ilk come and go several times. Believe me when I say: this is real. This is scary.
Do like these good people say & back your shit up, on hard drives if you can. Back up the work of other fan creators (with appropriate credits & contact info attached yo, i’m not advocating theft) that you couldn’t stand to lose if they disappeared tomorrow.
Donate to AO3/The OTW – they exist not only to archive our shit, but to preserve & defend our rights to create & share derivative fanworks. With lawyers, y’all.
more importantly – yes, MORE important, because literal lives & livelihoods of sex workers, who often already belong to marginalized groups within society, are being directly and negatively impacted by this bill: SUPPORT SEX WORKERS. SEX WORK =/= SEX TRAFFICKING. EDUCATE YOURSELF ABOUT SESTA/FOSTA AND FIND OUT WHAT YOU CAN DO TO ACTIVELY & DIRECTLY GET THE BILL REPEALED. LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF SEX WORKERS FIRST & FOREMOST. LISTEN TO WHAT THEY NEED AND OFFER YOUR HELP IN THE WAYS THEY TELL YOU ARE ACTUALLY CONSTRUCTIVE, INSTEAD OF ONLY THE WAYS THAT MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD & VIRTUOUS. NOT JUST IN TIMES OF CRISIS, BUT ALWAYS.
got it? ok.
Fandom is usually slow to move on things like this with posts such as “oh don’t worry, they won’t come for us” and “why would they care about little ol’ me” and “I’d like to see them try” but newsflash:
They have before and they will again!
Maybe we’ll be lucky and this will mostly miss us or we’ll get blindsided by how much is taken down or lost. People in the notes of this post are already mentioning that their stuff has been taken down WITHOUT NOTICE. Don’t pretend not to notice how little the outer world actually cares about fandom or our interests. They will run right over us without a second glance.
A03 and the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) exists BECAUSE something like this happened before. Hopefully, their team of lawyers are already aware of what’s going on and working on ways to mitigate the damage it will cause. But there might not be much they can do outside of their own internal structures. Just in case… @ao3org
There are reasons ‘fandom olds’ like me are not happy with the current purity culture that’s infected fandom. Because of stuff like this! There is no nuance in these take downs. They won’t care what you wrote or why. If they think it’ll hurt their bottom line, with one blip on their radar they’ll scrub it from their site without a care. We need to support each other, not tear each other down.
Learn from fandom history so we aren’t doomed to repeat it. Back your shit up! That way, we can simply reupload to whatever new home fandom finds in the rubble.
C.A. Jacobs
C.A. Jacobs 