(updated) - was: WARNING! AO3 PHISHING SITE PSA (Fannish Fifty #38)

[verushka70]

ETA #2: I reported this to AO3 Technical Support because I thought they should know. They eventually replied back to me that THIS IS a legitimate AO3 site that points to the actual AO3; it exists for those in whose countries the actual ao3.org domain is blocked. It won't steal your AO3 credentials because it is AO3. Whew! I am so happy to be wrong about everything below!

Just saw this warning about a fake AO3 phishing site coming up in searches - the original PSA about this was posted on Tumblr (reblogged from Tumblr OP doubly_magic by mekare):

The domain is "https://I🖤ao3.ws" and they even use the AO3 logo. DO NOT CLICK ON THIS SITE. DO NOT BE FOOLED.

As the original post says, that fake site exists solely to steal your AO3 login credentials.

In some browsers, as in the Duckduckgo browser the OP shows in the original post, phishing links can be blocked by right-clicking (RIGHT click! don't just click on it!) on the site itself and selecting "Block this site from results". You can also choose to report it (which I did).

I'm going to report this to AO3, too. I know they can't stop another site from existing - but they can warn AO3 users (and maybe take legal action? IDK).

Also, I truly would not be surprised if that site was created solely to fuck with AO3 (and AO3 users) due to ongoing legal activism and court fights by AO3/OTW & DW against increasingly draconian Republican/right-wing-drafted legislation that this increasingly authoritarian federal government and various red states have enacted, wherever they could. But that's just me.

(And feel free to drop a comment if you, like me, find this timing highly suspicious, given the court fights DW is currently battling in Tennessee and Mississippi. Putin and his supporters are notoriously anti-LGBTQ+ and would likely view any sites housing or discussing slash and femslash - as DW and AO3 do - as suitable targets, plus we already know that Putin's Internet Research Agency and Social Design Agency - as well as private Russian non-governmental troll farms actually working for the Kremlin - are happy to do the bidding of our traitorous dictator and his cult-worshipping Republican bootlickers if it suits Putin/the Kremlin too. This also tracks with the recent surge in trolling and scamming comments on AO3.)

I realize this may easily sound super paranoid. Surely DW & AO3 must be small potatoes to Putin's Russian troll farms - right? But are they, really?

Remember, DW surged with new users when the exodus from LJ began after it was taken over by a private Russian company (and in Putin's Russia, private companies often exist with his blessing only if they can be of service to his agenda). Plus AO3 just recently reported a new milestone of 9 million users. And lets not forget Russian trolls were even propagandizing in spaces like Roblox and other online games.

So. What other people call paranoid, I just call pattern recognition.

Please signal boost this, if you can!

ETA: So far, it's only coming up as a result in Duckduckgo searches, not Google and not Brave browser's own search. Those may have more anti-phishing code built in to their search engines. But just... be careful.

Comments

[amedia]

Thank you for the warning. ♥

[verushka70]

You're welcome!