Popular fan fiction website Archive of Our Own, more commonly known as AO3, has been inaccessible to readers for more than a week since a cyberattack on October 29.
According to The Organisation for Transformative Works (OTW), a nonprofit organization which runs the website, no posted fanfiction has been deleted or lost, but it is possible that a database with the users’ email addresses, IP addresses, usernames, and passwords may have been compromised.
Naomi Novik, one of AO3’s co-founders, assured that the fan fiction library will be back soon.
“I’m not worried about AO3 itself because our tech team are amazing heroes who keep one of the top 20 sites in the world running on 30 Altairian dollars a day in their free time,” she said.
“I just hope they don’t run themselves ragged to get it up quicker.”
“Right now, thanks to the irresponsibility of AI companies, virtually the entire tech world is being slammed at once and having to get fixes at a breakneck speed.”
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Writers, readers slam unauthorised reuploads of fan fiction
With readers unable to access their favourite fan fiction, some have uploaded works into Google Drives which can be publicly accessed.
Several platforms mimicking AO3 also emerged, which included published as well as unpublished drafts and deleted stories from the original site as noted by users.
Others also converted the published stories into artificial intelligence-generated audiobooks which can be purchased.
While some supported the initiative, other readers as well as writers slammed the unauthorised distribution of the fan fictions.
“Obviously, these works are all public… But I think there are people who, once they’re done with a fandom, they want to delete all their works and they never want it to be accessed by anyone else. They don’t want there to be any remnants of it online,” said Monia Ali, author of the newsletter Fandom Exile, which explores the interactions and dynamics within fan communities.
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