TechieHux

longstoryshortikilledhim:

the-arkadian:

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.

While videos and photos are more likely to be under scrutinity, it’s better to be safe than sorry: fic writers might want to use Google Drive’s takout function to mass-save their files (attention: it doesn’t really work for collabs.) Zoho Docs is an excellent alternative for Google Drive: you can synch Google with Zoho and continue to work with Google, using Zoho to manage backup copies, or switch to Zoho altogether. (Since the company is India-based, US legislation doesn’t threaten it.) 

I wouldn’t worry too much about AO3, but be assured that if the worst happens and your work gets deleted for whatever reason, you will recieve a HTML and a PDF copy of your work with the notification email. (Speaking of experience here.) Also, AO3 is very good at communicating with its users, so I’m sure we’ll be getting news about the site’s fate, should they be facing any legal threat.

tl;dr: now is a good time to make backup copies of your fics, either by downloading them or storing them in a non-Google-owned cloud