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.
If this is news to anyone else, listen, whatever happens in the world of politics, backing up your stuff is always a good and necessary thing. Do it and do it often. Be wise. Nothing is certain. Nothing is stable. Even data decays. In a world of rapidly-decreasing hard copies, you must perform backups. It’s not paranoia, it’s prevention.
@tisfan@27dragons I know you both use it so I thought it would be a good idea to tag you but I’m not sure if anyone else does so, please, be safe and save everything you can wherever you can.
If they touch Ao3 I fucking hope there will be a revolution overseas to bring it back, killing of everyone who tried to get us off of our drug.
Creators should beware of google for more than just their privacy policies and any “decency” enforcement. Pay attention to the terms of service. They state:
“When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps).” [emphasis mine]
I will never use google docs for any of my creative work.
omfg *gathers all my fics and safe guards them because i worked hard on them and don’t want no social justice corn chips deleting my blood sweat and tears*
Google’s TOS are exactly why I won’t use their services except my freakin’ email.
Um. Point of order: Can anyone show me a website that allows user-submitted content that *doesn’t* have that bog-standard piece of legal boilerplate in its TOS?
Yeah, the ToS is boilerplate with expansion for blanket coverage of Google’s services (e.g. the business listing on Google Maps example). It’s the same song and dance that’s had every time someone bothers to read a ToS and sounds the alarms. As for the content purge, it was real but the sources that I can find on it specifically refer to targeting sex workers sharing explicit video and photo content via Drive.
To clarify – you’re going to find a similar clause in basically every single website with user-submitted content has that. They need something like that in so that they can host your content, cache it, let people use Google Translate on it, use spellcheck, and have it appear on search engines. As above, every few months someone finds a clause like that and starts raising alarm bells for no good reason. Google has no interest in like, stealing your god damn fanfic, and even if it tried I’d like to see that hold up in court.
That being said, the way Google did their ToS is irritatingly broad (to me anyway) and while I’m 100% certain it’s because they have overzealous lawyers, it’s nothing I’d worry about myself. But I’m just saying, if people are going to look a website without something like that, they’re in for a rough time, and also barking up the wrong tree.
TL;DR the ToS, while over-broad, is meant only meant to cover Google Drive’s hosting capabilities. People still retain intellectual property over their works.
All the same, if you’re really worried about this, you can back up your works and content and store them in a secondary or tertiary location as well.
The most notable thing for me in here doesn’t relate to fannish content, that wasn’t targeted, but to sex-workers, who were.
Six porn performers I talked to and more on social
media said that they suddenly can’t download adult content they keep on
Google Drive. They also said they can’t a share that content with other
accounts or send to clients. In some cases, the adult content is
disappearing from Drive without warning or explanation. The porn
performers I talked to started sounding the alarm on Twitter last week.
They said that Google Drive no longer seemed sex-trade friendly,
detailing error messages and sharing cloud storage alternatives with
each other.
When I asked about sexual content being blocked on Drive, a spokesperson for Google directed me to the Drive policy page—specifically
the section on sexually explicit material, which says, “Do not publish
sexually explicit or pornographic images or videos…. Additionally, we
do not allow content that drives traffic to commercial pornography.” Writing about porn and sex is permitted, the policy states, as long as
it’s not accompanied by sexually explicit images or videos. According to
Google, Drive uses a combination of automated systems and manual review
to decide what’s in violation.
Once again, we have another platform crushing sex workers’ ability to spread and monetize their content in a safe online environment, due to the stinking turd that is FOSTA/SESTA and every single fucker who supported it and signed it into law.
women writing horror that focuses on the fears of women in a society that is a constant danger to their mental health and well-being? genius. men writing horror where women suffer for shock value? garbage.
to clarify they do this to people who pirate movies, shows, or songs, they got exposed by 4chan and some high level leaks, and they STILL do this because most of the people working for “justice” dont believe that the high fines for pirating are enough, better to put em in prison for two decades and then theyre a creepy registered sex offender until they die. thats what they get for sharing a copy of Zootopia, right? totally deserved
Reminder that the government exists solely to defend the institution of private property, and any other actions they take are extraneous and/or meant to justify its existence
When selling n*des always ask the buyer their age. Screenshot that shit. Screenshot their bio. Make sure the time/date is visible in the shots. THEN, send the photos. Just in case any legal issues come up because someone lied about their age. That way there’s proof that you were told they were old enough to receive these photos, and there was nothing to prove otherwise.
And kids? Don’t. Do. This.
I know you’re curious.
But don’t.
Dont lie and put someone in that situation. Just give your real age.
Midnight Caffeine 