Avery has been writing fan fiction for about six years, now mainly focused on the gay hockey romance Heated Rivalry. Until last month, it all lived in one place—Archive of Our Own. Then, on October 29 the fan fiction behemoth went dark due to a “security incident.” Within days, Avery was alarmed to find her works on mirror sites she hadn’t posted them to.
\n\n“To me it’s a security risk,” Avery, who did not want her real name used due to fears of backlash on social media, tells WIRED via DM. “One bad actor could put malware in that drive.”
\n\nShe emailed the sites—Squidgeworld and AO3.Life—and the stories were removed, though she’ll never know if she has found every copy online. (AO3.Life has since been taken down, and Walter Hopgood, president of Squidge.org, which hosts Squidgeworld, told WIRED it removes works that are posted without an author’s permission.)
\n\nAvery’s problem is one shared with many fanfic authors since the team behind AO3 announced the site will remain offline for up to four weeks.
\n\nHosting more than 18.8 million fan works across hundreds of thousands of fandoms, AO3 is among the most visited websites in the world. When it went down…
Original source: https://www.wired.com/