Overview
Archive of Our Own (AO3) is a fan-fiction publishing platform operated by the volunteer-run Organization for Transformative Works. Hosts millions of works across thousands of fictional universes; widely read by LGBTQ+ teens and adults; described in Bad Internet Bills Campaign sources as a critical refuge for queer youth in conservative households. Central organizing community for opposition to KOSA and the broader internet-bills cluster; described by participants as a “lifeline” — see testimonials in This Bill Purports to Protect Kids From Big Tech — Bonesteel and This Bill Threatens Access to LGBTQ+ Online Communities — Philips.
Key Facts
- Volunteer-run; operated by Organization for Transformative Works (501(c)(3))
- Mid-July 2023 outage: 24+ hour DDoS attack by attackers with religiously and politically motivated intent against queer fandom — documented in This Bill Threatens Access to LGBTQ+ Online Communities — Philips
- Grassroots organizing hub: Fandom communities organized hundreds of thousands of constituent calls/emails to Congress against KOSA (per This Bill Purports to Protect Kids From Big Tech — Bonesteel)
- TechCrunch (July 2023): Documented fan-fiction writers rallying fandoms against KOSA
- Reddit r/AO3 mobilization noted in Bad Internet Bills — Fight for the Future Campaign Hub
Newsletter Relevance
AO3 is the case study for how queer youth use the internet as a survival resource — and how the political project to dismantle that infrastructure (KOSA, age verification) is opposed not just by professional civil liberties orgs but by the actual users. The mid-2023 DDoS attack is the symbolic event: state-sanctioned censorship via KOSA would do permanently what those attackers achieved temporarily.
For any newsletter piece on KOSA’s grassroots opposition, AO3 is the single most concrete community to anchor the story.
Connections
- Fight for the Future — coalition partner mobilizing AO3 community
- Sara Philips / Sarah Philips — FtF organizer; longtime AO3 reader
- KOSA — primary policy threat
- FOSTA — historical precedent (Tumblr 2018 ban) directly affected related fandom communities
Source Appearances
- This Bill Threatens Access to LGBTQ+ Online Communities — Philips — central narrative anchor; July 2023 DDoS context
- This Bill Purports to Protect Kids From Big Tech — Bonesteel — fandom mobilization context
- Bad Internet Bills — Fight for the Future Campaign Hub — Reddit r/AO3 listed as community node
Open Questions
- Concrete user demographics — published estimates of LGBTQ+ user share? AO3 doesn’t publicly release detailed user data.
- How AO3’s volunteer governance model would respond to KOSA-imposed age-verification requirements — Section 230 protection is foundational to the platform’s legal viability.
- The international dimension — AO3 hosts content from and serves users in jurisdictions with very different LGBTQ+ legal regimes.