Forums » Smalltalk » Archive of Our Own is back up after DDOS attack!

They said they're back up but still working on Cloudflare stuff. You can keep an eye on their Twitter for updates!

I actually made this thread to warn about the cyber attack and suggest that people stay off the servers to help keep the overload off, but, I checked Twitter and they're happily back online! There was a cyber attack going on, but they managed to revive things after a day or two. Looking forward to reading and listening to some more soothing media and fascinating stories.

I'm not very familiar/semi-familiar with how such attacks work. Do you have any info on why would anyone do that? I mean, yeah, there are some weird, disturbing, or controversial stories, but I've mostly seen just classic nerdy, cool stories and fanfics on Archive of Our Own. I don't really see a reason for such a thing. Was it some sort of blackmail attempt, hate-based attack, or something else?

From the screenshots I saw, they were a religious group claiming to be cleaning the internet of filth, as the Ao3 is 'full of homoerotica and smuts'. )))) Just your average jerks deciding to take down the server in an attempt to feel some power over a group of people they don't like, I suppose?
They could also have been trying to call attention to the fact that it exists in an attempt to get it removed, I'm not positive. We have a Hugo award, though, so I don't think that'll probably happen.

The archive did get banned in China, from what I read, because of an incident where some Twitter users took a piece of art out of context, harassed an actor, and made the site out to be some sort of website where we profane people's reputations. A lot of nasty stuff, which is unfortunate. But for now it's back to being at least nearly as usable as usual, not sure if they have applications for new accounts open again or not.

If they think about themselves as some 'heroes' and want to clean the Internet out of the filth, they should focus on actually harmful websites, lmao... They could at least lie and say that they do that because of violence normalization stories or something, but they just made themselves look foolish. As far as I know, it's not for China to ban websites. Not sure if it's true, but I saw people talking about Animal Crossing being banned from China? Sadly, a lot of writing and art-based websites have bad reputations, because art often features unpleasant topics, and no one can control artists. Some artists handle it well and create art that teaches something, and other ones normalize tragic topics, whether the creator does it purposefully or due to a lack of education/experience. Even if the website is full of amazing art, the "controversial side" is often the loudest.

So, from fanlore.com,
"On February 29, 2020, the website archiveofourown.org (AO3) became inaccessible in mainland China. The reason for the block has never been officially acknowledged, but occurred shortly after fans of Xiao Zhan, who starred in The Untamed, objected to his portrayal in one fanfic hosted on the site and sent reports to the Chinese government. Chinese AO3 fans then retaliated against Xiao Zhan's fans by boycotting the actor himself, blaming him for not reigning in his fanbase."
that's true! Some fans made controversial art of a real actor, and other fans of that actor said that part of his fan base was shaming/slandering him. He ended up making an apology, although it was unclear to me what for... Maybe his company wanted someone to apologize for art like that existing and causing ruckus, or he was apologizing to Ao3 fans, I don't remember the whole message.
I remember seeing people complaining about the art on Twitter (it was him putting on make-up and stockings) but perhaps it was the fanfiction they had more of a problem with.


(Edit: sorry I messed up the Quotes somewhere and I wasn't sure how to fix them most efficiently )