The AO3 Shutdown Is Pitting Fanfic Readers Against Authors

Key points

• • Allegra Rosenberg, an Ellipsus employee and writer, says that new sign-ups are up more than 500 percent since the outage began and views of its public reader links, the ways in which authors can share work, have increased heavily.
• • But finding alternatives has caused friction in the community, as some authors are unhappy with the way their works are being distributed without their permission, breaking fanfic norms and exacerbating fears about AI scraping.
• • Some people claimed it was a privacy violation and could put AO3 users at risk of doxing. “It’s about basic respect,” one user wrote , while others demanded their fics be removed from the list.