What’s Going on With AO3, and Will Fandoms Survive It?
AO3, or Archive of Our Own–a popular donation-funded website dedicated to the self-publication of fan fictions–has crashed and isn’t expected to be up again for two to four weeks. These AO3 crashes aren’t uncommon, so much so that the fandom communities tend to make inside jokes about the website’s crashing all over social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. However, AO3 has yet to experience a crash like this one, and neither have the fans. This crash is leading both AO3 creators and users lost and hopeless in the wake of this fan-fiction blackout. All of which leads to the question of what is going on with AO3 and will fandoms survive it?
#Hacked
October 29th, AO3 experienced what would typically be their normal form of internet crashing. Many users testify to their experiences with the initial crash that took place that Tuesday, claiming they were swiping from one page to the next when suddenly their screen was flooded with the information that the platform would be down for roughly twelve hours to complete routine maintenance. Again, this wasn’t unusual for AO3, or its users, but as twelve hours turned into forty-eight and routine maintenance became an announcement on the website that the site would have to be down for two to four weeks in order to resolve issues, users became distraught.
It is unclear exactly what issues the website is dealing with, but with its donor-funded technology AO3 doesn’t have the abilities to clear internet hacks like larger foundations such as Google or Facebook. So, AO3 and its users are forced to put on their patient hats while they await the revival of the website.
Fandom uproar
Upon hearing the news of the long-term shutdown of AO3 many users took to posting fully-formed fan-fictions on platforms like Google Docs. These Google Docs are then able to be shared publicly allowing fandom members to continue their reading.
However, this back-door publishing has caused an uproar, mostly from AO3 writers. Many of these writers claim that this has taken their previously housed pieces (belonging only to AO3 and its users) to the public without their consent. The beauty of a platform such as AO3 is that writers’ works live solely in that space, allowing them control over the deletion or editing of their writing. Although AO3 is a public domain in which anyone can access these fanfictions it is still a space of privacy for writers to upload their fanfictions. To have these works of writing posted via Google Docs and any other forms of back-door publication, writers no longer have control over their writing. They are unable to delete or edit them at any time, thus leaving the writing out of their hands and instead solely in the hands of the public.
This has negatively impacted the trust that AO3 writers used to have with their readers. This leaves the question of whether AO3 will ever be the same once the website is back in the hands of users. Has too much damage been done to come back from?
What now?
In the meantime, AO3 writers and readers will continue their fight off the platform. And AO3 will work to patch the cracks that have been made in their server in hopes to get the platform back in users hands as soon as possible.