Internet fan-fiction repository AO3 might be down for a month due to "security incident"

Organizers of the massive archive of fan works said it could be as long as four weeks before the site is back up.

By William Hughes  |  October 30, 2026 | 3:47pm
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Internet fan-fiction repository AO3 might be down for a month due to

We can, have, and will continue to make a lot of jokes about fan-fiction site Archive Of Our Own (a.k.a. AO3), given its status as one of the internet’s premiere locations for finding out who the online masses would really like to see have lovingly described, intimate moments with Goku from Dragonball Z. (Pretty much everybody, as it turns out.) But AO3 is also, undeniably, one of the largest collectives of human creativity on the internet; a platform where veteran authors explore ideas about the characters they love, while fledgling writers can find a community encouraging them to develop their skills. (And that’s before you get into the business of it all, as ideas and character dynamics that germinated on AO3 increasingly find themselves imported into mainstream fiction, and even Hollywood films.) All of which makes it a genuine bummer to hear that the site is facing some fairly serious infrastructure issues, apparently, causing it to go down for what its organizers are saying could be as long as a month.

This is per Gizmodo, reporting on a statement from the Organization For Transformative Works, the nonprofit that runs and administers AO3. When the site (which hosts more than 18 million works, running the gamut from microfiction to full-length novels) went down on Thursday, it was supposedly for “maintenance.” But it’s stayed down ever since, as the OTW says it’s “detected evidence of a security incident on AO3. We are still in the early stages of response to this security incident and determining its scope.”

The statement goes on to say that, while AO3 doesn’t collect real names, its database does log “your username, email address, IP address, and a hashed version of your password,” and that, while the site has no direct evidence said database has been stolen, it also can’t “rule it out.” The upshot is that AO3 will apparently be offline for at least the next two weeks, and possibly as long as four; although organizers said they may be able to put the site online earlier than that in a “degraded state,” it would be with limited features, or in a read-only mode.

AO3 assured its more than 11 million users that no data has been deleted; all works, messages, bookmarks, and other features of the site are “safe.”

 
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