Ao3, fanfiction.net, Discord, Youtube, Novel Updates, Wattpad, Space Battles, Sufficient Velocity, and a lot of fanfiction sites, novel sites, manga sites and forums, all of them are suffering with bot attack.
In the last week, at least 4 websites that I know of and that are associated with Cloudflare have been taken down due massive traffic.
Cloudflare is notorious for not being the best of services: a forum I use used to have Cloudflare but my God, it was absolute bootycheeks.
As for Wattpad and FF.Net, they've been having bots for as long as I've been doing fanfic. That's not new. Discord also has had bot trouble for years, but that's to be expected with their shady practices as of late.
I haven't heard of the other sites, so I can't give a thought on those. I wish I knew other fanfic sites but meh. Tumblr and Dreamwidth are really the only other places, but even Tumblr has bot issues.
This is just what happens when, as you said, these sites get massive traffic. A shame.
I joined FFNet back in 2020-ish and users were super active then! I never got many comments, but I did get some from actual users. It was only in 2024-2026 where AI spam bots took over and pretty much all the active users left. I try to comment on every fic I read to make up for the bot accounts, but I know I've been unable to do much. Part of the reason I went here instead.
I mentioned this in my previous reply to you, but those spam comments have been around for at least a decade at this point (and I can back it up with experiences from my friend, who has been doing fanfic since around 2005). FF.Net has steadily dropped users since their ban on explicit/taboo content back in the mid-late 2000s. I remember back in 2012, it was still relatively active, but having looked there for fics during these past few years, I've noticed less and less. I think, honestly, it's not active users leaving, but more that fandoms lose their popularity on FF.Net as those fandoms gain traction on here.
Also, TikTok and Twitter have been making a shit ton of content centered around AO3 and fanfics in general. The recent boom with Heated Rivalry has really brought even MORE attention, so the spambots are coming in absolute droves now compared to, say, 2024.
Commenting culture has changed significantly since I started fanfic. I think part of it stems from users being too afraid to comment for various reasons, or feeling they won't be appreciated by the author if the author hasn't responded to comments. Of course, I don't blame some of these authors, as I've seen (and gotten) those "this is so good, I hope you don't [insert pseudo fun insult here]" comments, and they turn me off from responding to comments. TikTok (yes, I'm mentioning it again, sue me LOL) has really changed how commenting works, and it sucks donkey balls.
Fandom and fanfic as a whole are going in a really different direction, but I get the feeling that once the bots get taken care of and tickets about content that goes against TOS finally get fucking answered, the pendulum will swing and we'll zoom back to how it was before. Maybe. I dunno, don't quote me on that, I can be a bit delusional LOL. I'm so fed up with this bot shit, it's unbelievable. Something needs to happen, and I want to see it happen.
In the case of FF.Net, it's not just a case of massive spam from bots or constant harassment from scammers.
It's a whole active criminal scheme.
To give you an idea, one day I was in the comments section of a Harry Potter fanfic and there was an anonymous commenter explicitly offering child pornography in the comments, with a link and everything. I was so horrified that I didn't even want to read the fic anymore, out of sheer disgust.
FF.Net is on its deathbed at this point, since it's clear the site owners DGAF. I never experienced those criminal schemes, but Jesus Christ, that is vehemently horrifying. If you see a comment like that, ALWAYS report it to the online tiplines. Shit like that needs to get taken down ASAP. Praying that the spambots/predatory users don't start pulling that shit here, damn, you gave me a new fear! And what's even scarier is I've seen a predatory author on here, so it isn't like they don't exist. Holy shit!!!!
Omga, that is horrifying! ,:( Thankfully I usually have Explicit stories unavailable (makes me uncomfortable) and I haven't seen any comments like that on T or lower stories, but I can see how that can drop a lot of user interaction, even if that's not the case specifically.
I'm glad that FFNet is dying because that usually means the few people who remain tend to be pretty decent people, but it's gotten annoying how it's all bots now. I haven't read much on here yet since I'm still getting used to the site (and I have a bad habit of being too lazy to start reading a new story lol) but from what I have seen, those bots haven't really been around. I know they're still a problem and all, but really shows how AO3 takes better care of their site than FFNet.
Speaking of app negligence, I had to stop using CapCut for a similar reason. I had problems importing videos and tried all their suggestions but the app didn't fix and they refused to look into the problem and kept claiming it was my phone. Then they had the nerve to send me a "creator" invite afterwards when I said I couldn't get any work done of their app. `:[ Really displays how a lot of sites put profit over efficiency and I'm glad AO3 isn't at that point.
A think a big problem was that 2020 was around the time that FFN's issues with its email server went from 'it occasionally didn't work' to 'it occasionally did', which meant that when someone reviewed a fic or sent a PM or posted in a discussion forum, it was pure luck if anyone that should've been notified actually was. The result was that reviewers felt their reviews weren't appreciated (even aside from the whole "What do you mean, my story isn't 11/10 you hater?" thing that's always put people off) and writers didn't know they were getting any unless they happened to check the slow way.
They did fix that problem, eventually, but they also turned everyone's alerts notifications off in the process, which meant people still had to log in to push the 'I would like to receive email notifications' tag. If someone didn't know they needed to do that…
I didn't know about all of that, but apparently that's still a problem on the app. I have to have app and emil notifs on at all times because sometimes I get an email for an app notification that never popped up.
Comment on February 2026 Newsletter, Volume 208
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