#PLEASE SHARE!!!

[sanamustdie]

🇵🇸 ZINE FOR PALESTINE GOING LIVE 🇵🇸

ZINE4PALESTINE.BIGCARTEL.COM

Z4P is a non-profit artistic initiative aimed at raising funds for Care For Gaza, an organization providing direct support to families of Palestine. The zine showcases exclusive creations from 10 French artists from diverse backgrounds, all contributing their talents to support Palestinian families.

with the participation of @heuffopla @towwypng @1bt1cem-blog and many others who don't use tumblr

Aware that many of you would like to contribute providing humanitarian aid in the face of the atrocities Palestinians are enduring, we've chosen to create art. This way, you can still be a part of it –essentially, you make a donation by purchasing, and in return, you receive cool art made with love while helping a great cause!

Individual prints of the artworks are also available on the website —reblogs and shares are deeply appreciated!

[wishtual]

[stirlinqs]

what are some songs you all associate w/ dps & its respective characters? i’m curious (and wanna make a playlist)

[draculaugust]

designing a dnd/ttrpg character by democracy

[maluceh]

Hello, I am Omar Muhammad Ayyad from Gaza Al-Shujaia - I and my brothers Yasser, Maryam, Jana and Sarah live a very difficult life 😭😭😭 Because of the genocide war, we lost our childhood, we lost our dreams, our education, and everything, and because of the war and the lack of medical care, we lost the most precious thing we own, my dear grandmother, and we lost the house that shelters us. Displaced from one place to another, my father’s situation is difficult and he cannot meet our basic needs - we ask compassionate hearts to stand by us and provide sufficient support for my father’s donation link to provide us with a decent and safe life - please donate if you can and share widely🙏🙏http://gofund.me/e7c7528a

!!!!!

[frociaggina97]

iam lana from Palestine, Gaza, and I need help to get out of the war. We have a war of death and hunger for the sake of my children. I ask you to help me with any amount of money or help me publish the account I hope to be on your list or pin the post. Thank you for your humanity. Relly Need Your Help To Evacuate Them To A Safe Plece As Soon As Possible Outside Gaza ❤️🖤🤍����❤️🖤🤍💚❤️🖤🤍💚❤️🖤🤍💚 To donate please click here

vetted by mushroomjar here

vetted by freewatermelon0  here

vetted by fairycosmos here

1$ = 10.5 SEK. | 5$ = 52.5 SEK .** 10$ = 105 SEK. | 20$ = 210 SEK . ** 100$ = 1050 SEK. | 50$ = 525 SEK . ** 1000$ = 10500 SEK . | 500$ = 5250 SEK

I'll share the link and post!

I´m so sorry i can't do more

[cant-shake-it]

Hi friends I’m trying to make rent this month so here are some of my wares I’ll be selling to make ends meet!!

Ceramic ashtrays: $35

Custom band posters: $20

Custom paintings: 60$

NOT PICTURED: home made patches: $5 (dm for pics)

Shipping included for orders outside of Utah. If anything seems interesting to you or u want more info please shoot me a dm! You can also check out my art acc @squaretodoroki for more examples of my art. Thank you!!!!

[orrsoared]

The Boston Bruins are raising money for Lewiston. If you can, please donate or if you can’t at least share. You can donate: here

[skriblee-ksk]

Hello Dear, I hope you get my message while you're fine.🙏

I'm Ola, a graduate student from the faculty of science at Al-Azhar university Gaza, Palestine. I'm a dedicated and passionate student, striving to become a good researcher and teacher.

Unexpectedly, our life took a drastic turn with the commencement of the cruel war on Gaza, transforming me from a passionate student to a person struggling for survival. 🥺

I have created a campaign to help my family provide basic needs of food, drink, etc.. and also to complete my education.

All I ask of you is a reblog of the pinned post on my page and donate if you can 🙏🥺.

I sincerely hope you can empathize with my dire situation and consider supporting me. Be sure that you can make asignificant difference.💔

My compaign vetted by @90-ghost and

@el-shab-Hussien and @nabulsi's vetted list, line 205.

I am waiting a message from you🥹

This is my GFM link:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/empower-olas-pursuit-of-education-amid-crisis?qid=30ec4c502382b9962b96d698a687d9a8

Please donate and/or share🥺🙏🇵🇸

Sincerely,

Ola

Vetted by multiple!!! Help them recieve the aid they need!!!

[theliteralmoon]

Did you guys know I’m selling cyanotype pride shirts? Sizes XS-XXL available 20% proceeds will be going to a local lgbt org and you’d be supporting a black lesbian artist! Find them at:

[jackiesnats]

Do we like Natasha Romanoff because um I also have dark Nat thots

-💜

OH ABSOLUTELY

[thebraindump2]

US Bill S.686 is really really bad. people are calling it the "tik tok ban bill" but it's SO MUCH MORE. it's called the Restrict Act and it allows the US govt to collect information about US citizens and they don't have to tell us anything about it. And they can ban technology and tech services as they wish without having to justify their decisions to us. and it's bipartisan, endorsed by the current WH admin.

all bad.

[godforbidfate]

breaking news: i just added the tortured poet department to this quiz AND i gave it a little face lift since it's somehow four years old??

also over 330,000 of you have taken this silly quiz i'm shocked

updated descriptions of every album are below the cut!

🩵 debut — everybody overlooks you, but you're trying not to mind so much. you're the mia thermopolis of your friends, always forgotten but never underestimated. you're the kind of person everyone wants to be around, and you have a lot of wisdom for someone your age. you've seen things and you know things, but you don't let any of it harden you. no matter how many times the world knocks you down, you get back on your horse and ride into the sunset. even if it seems hopeless, even if you feel like nobody sees you, know that you're making your mark. you're setting the stage for something magical that not even you can see yet. keep valuing yourself and your own worth and don't give up. you're gonna get there someday babe, i promise.

⭐️ fearless — you were the kid who always got caught daydreaming in class instead of paying attention. you were reading your books under the desk, writing notes to your friends, thinking about who you were going to take to prom if you ever got the chance to go. your soul is young, still clinging to childlike whims and hoping beyond hope that the world isn't at terrifying as it seems. you have a lot of lessons to learn, even now, but you're doing your best and that's huge. there's a nervous energy pulsing through your veins, reminding you that you're alive, reminding you that the best things worth having are sometimes the scariest things to reach for. you spend a lot of time living in the present to avoid your impending future, but remember that the only way out is through. embrace your courage, my dear sweet lion. you'll come out of it stronger than ever.

🏰 speak now — you've always been teased for being a little too whimsical. you're one of those hopeless romantic types, and people are quick to break your heart and pull your head out of the clouds. but you love movies and art and music and you're always looking for a new way to express yourself. there's a new journal on your desk and a candle in the windowsill and this time you feel like it's a new start. no matter how many times the world tries to convince you that magic isn't real, do not lose your spark. remember that belief is a powerful thing, that sometimes all you need is hope and that hope will carry you far. don't believe the naysayers and don't let them push you down. hold onto that childlike wonder because we need you to inspire us when the night gets dark.

🧣 red — contrary to popular belief, you are not an overly emotional person. i mean, you FEEL a lot of things. all the time. deeply. but you don't like…cry all the time. (i said ALL the time.) you get hurt a lot because you wear your heart on your sleeve and you just want to know people. you just want to be known in return. but no matter how many times your heart breaks, there is power in being vulnerable. there is strength in letting people in. no matter how many times you get burned, do not forget that life is meant to be lived and loved. keep putting yourself out there even when it hurts, even when you don't want to trust anyone with your heart again…feelings aren't your enemy. they will lead you to freedom.

🗽 1989 — man, you've really been through it, huh? like, you're fine now (ish) but you have things in your past that keep coming back and haunting you. every time you think you're gotten over them, worked through them, they just creep back in. you can't run away from the person you used to be and no matter how much you wish you could go back in time and change things, you can't. sometimes people leave and they don't come back. not everyone understands you, but that's okay. you are so much stronger on your own, stronger with people who WANT to be with you. so lean into that. move out, find yourself, learn how to make a good drink. you have to let yourself live in order to grow.

🐍 reputation — some people might call you…misunderstood. that's not really how you see yourself. like sure, you hide the best parts of you from the rest of the world, but you're not misunderstood. because you have people in your corner. and you love them FIERCELY. more than that, you protect them whenever you can. and sometimes in order to do that, you have to be a snake. there's nothing wrong with standing up for yourself and fighting back against rude accusations. deep down, know that you are good. and you're better now that you're stronger. self-care isn't selfish baby. you take care of you, the world doesn't need another pushover.

🦋 lover — a lot of people overlook you because you're not what people expect. you're too soft, you're too emotional, you're too much. but in actuality…you're not. just because you feel a lot, that doesn't mean you need to hide yourself away. you're like a bright sunrise, setting the world on fire. you put yourself in harm's way to save the people who mean the most to you, but you also know when to save yourself. sometimes you're afraid. afraid of where you're going, afraid of what comes next, but at the end of the day, please know that you have a support system to hold you up. they don't think you're too much to handle. they want you to be your best self. don't forget where you came from, but know that there are far better things ahead than what you left behind.

🕯️ folklore — you are made out of stories. sometimes you feel like you're living the lives of every person you meet. and even though it's exhausting, it's also comforting. you can create a home just about anywhere, but there's one special place that you think of more often than not. your soul is so old, darling, and that means you have seen some things. but you haven't let that darkness consume you. instead, you've used it to anchor yourself, to see the world in a thousand different shades. you have a wisdom inside you that other envy. but don't forget what it was like when you were young. please don't forget all the people you were that led you to this point. they're rooting for you.

🍁 evermore — you're not where you thought you'd be. a long time ago you had a dream, a vision of the person you'd become, but that vision hasn't come true. not yet, anyway. and while that hurts, there's also a kind of freedom that's blossoming within you. you are no longer contained to that expectation you built for yourself. you know what it's like to be left behind, but you're no longer afraid to be alone. you want to be more than that. you're open to new adventures, new people, new stories. remember where you came from, little dreamer, but don't allow your past to haunt you anymore. just like the people who left you, you can also leave them. save the good memories, but let the rest go. time stops for no one and you deserve so much more.

💫 midnights — for a long time you thought you'd never be okay. you grew up believing in fairytales and true love, but somewhere along the way you got lost in a labyrinth of broken relationships, late night anxieties, and impossible dreams. you've been hurt by a lot of people, but the person who's hurt you the most is yourself. even though you lie awake at night trying to fix things or unbreak your own heart, you just can't. the only way you're going to feel okay is by realizing that you didn't deserve any of the bad things that happened to you. you are your truest love no matter how many people you fall for. do not allow the darkness to take your light, and don't let anybody dim your sparkle. revenge is best served cold, in your best dress and your sharpest heels. don't underestimate yourself. you're stronger than you think.

🖋️ the tortured poets department — fuck it, you’re an oversharer. but not in a bad way, in a “take no shit” way. you’ve spent years of your life being looked down on and walked all over, and you just don’t have the time or the patience for it anymore. people think they know who you are and what you want, but the truth of the matter is that they just see what they want to see. people take advantage of your kindness and they know they can criticize you because you don’t like fighting back if you can help it. you’d rather try to fix things and fix people than accept defeat. but people will always disappoint you, even the ones who claim to love you the most. eventually that chain is going to snap and you will realize that the prison you’ve been stuck in is one of your own making. you’ve allowed this self-fufilling prophecy to carry on too long, so maybe it’s time to give in to the little voice inside your head that says you're allowed to be happy on your own terms. maybe you should start caring less what other people think. you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t, and since other people aren’t obligated to cater to you, maybe you should stop catering to them.

okay fam take my quiz and figure out which taylor album you really are

[ekingston]

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

I am on my knees begging you to reblog this post and to stop reblogging the original ones I sent out yesterday. This is the complete account with all the most recent info; the other one is just sending people down senselessly panicked avenues that no longer lead anywhere.

IN SHORT

Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify and (aspiring?) voice actor, used AI to scrape thousands of popular, finished works off AO3 to list them on his own for-profit website and in his attached app. He did this without getting any kind of permission from the authors of said work or informing AO3. Obviously.

When fandom at large was made aware of his theft and started pushing back, Weitzman issued a non-apology on the original social media posts—using 

his dyslexia; 

his intent to implement a tip-system for the plagiarized authors; and 

a sudden willingness to take down the work of every author who saw my original social media posts and emailed him individually with a ‘valid’ claim,

as reasons we should allow him to continue monetizing fanwork for his own financial gain.

When we less-than-kindly refused, he took down his ‘apologies’ as well as his website (allegedly—it’s possible that our complaints to his web host, the deluge of emails he received or the unanticipated traffic brought it down, since there wasn’t any sort of official statement made about it), and when it came back up several hours later, all of the work formerly listed in the fan fiction category was no longer there. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

1. Cliff Weitzman (aka Ofek Weitzman) is a scumbag with no qualms about taking fanwork without permission, feeding it to AI and monetizing it for his own financial gain; 

2. Fandom can really get things done when it wants to, and 

3. Our fanworks appear to be hidden, but they’re NOT DELETED from Weitzman’s servers, and independently published, original works are still listed without the authors' permission. We need to hold this man responsible for his theft, keep an eye on both his current and future endeavors, and take action immediately when he crosses the line again. 

THE TIMELINE, THE DETAILS, THE SCREENSHOTS (behind the cut)

Sunday night, December 22nd 2024, I noticed an influx in visitors to my fic You & Me & Holiday Wine. When I searched the title online, hoping to find out where they came from, a new listing popped up (third one down, no less):

This listing is still up today, by the way, though now when you follow the link to word-stream, it just brings you to the main site. (Also, to be clear, this was not the cause for the influx of traffic to my fic; word-stream did not link back to the original work anywhere.)

I followed the link to word-stream, where to my horror Y&M&HW was listed in its entirety—though, beyond the first half of the first chapter, behind a paywall—along with a link promising to take me—through an app downloadable on the Apple Store—to an AI-narrated audiobook version. When I searched word-stream itself for my ao3 handle I found both of my multi-chapter fics were listed this way:

Because the tags on my fics (which included genres* and characters, but never the original IPs**) weren’t working, I put ‘Kara Danvers’ into the search bar and discovered that many more supercorp fics (Supergirl TV fandom, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor pairing) were listed.

I went looking online for any mention of word-stream and AI plagiarism (the covers—as well as the ridiculously inflated number of reviews and ratings—made it immediately obvious that AI fuckery was involved), but found almost nothing: only one single Reddit post had been made, and it received (at that time) only a handful of upvotes and no advice. 

I decided to make a tumblr post to bring the supercorp fandom up to speed about the theft. I draw as well as write for fandom and I’ve only ever had to deal with art theft—which has a clear set of steps to take depending on where said art was reposted—and I was at a loss regarding where to start in this situation.

After my post went up I remembered Project Copy Knight, which is worth commending for the work they’ve done to get fic stolen from AO3 taken down from monetized AI 'audiobook’ YouTube accounts. I reached out to @echoekhi, asking if they’d heard of this site and whether they could advise me on how to get our works taken down.

While waiting for a reply I looked into Copy Knight’s methods and decided to contact OTW’s legal department:

And then I went to bed.

By morning, tumblr friends @makicarn and @fazedlight as well as a very helpful tumblr anon had seen my post and done some very productive sleuthing:

@echoekhi had also gotten back to me, advising me, as expected, to contact the OTW. So I decided to sit tight until I got a response from them.

That response came only an hour or so later: 

Which was 100% understandable, but still disappointing—I doubted a handful of individual takedown requests would accomplish much, and I wasn’t eager to share my given name and personal information with Cliff Weitzman himself, which is unavoidable if you want to file a DMCA.

I decided to take it to Reddit, hoping it would gain traction in the wider fanfic community, considering so many fandoms were affected. My Reddit posts (with the updates at the bottom as they were emerging) can be found here and here.

A helpful Reddit user posted a guide on how users could go about filing a DMCA against word-stream here (to wobbly-at-best results)

A different helpful Reddit user signed up to access insight into word-streams pricing. Comment is here.

Smells unbelievably scammy, right? In addition to those audacious prices—though in all fairness any amount of money would be audacious considering every work listed is accessible elsewhere for free—my dyscalculia is screaming silently at the sight of that completely unnecessary amount of intentionally obscured numbers.

Speaking of which! As soon as the post on r/AO3—and, as a result, my original tumblr post—began taking off properly, sometime around 1 pm, jumpscare! A notification that a tumblr account named @cliffweitzman had commented on my post, and I got a bit mad about the gist of his message :

Fortunately he caught plenty of flack in the comments from other users (truly you should check out the comment section, it is extremely gratifying and people are making tremendously good points), in response to which, of course, he first tried to both reiterate and renegotiate his point in a second, longer comment (which I didn’t screenshot in time so I’m sorry for the crappy notification email formatting):

which he then proceeded to also post to Reddit (this is another Reddit user’s screenshot, I didn’t see it at all, the notifications were moving too fast for me to follow by then)

... where he got a roughly equal amount of righteously furious replies. (Check downthread, they're still there, all the way at the bottom.)

After which Cliff went ahead & deleted his messages altogether. 

It’s not entirely clear whether his account was suspended by Reddit soon after or whether he deleted it himself, but considering his tumblr account is still intact, I assume it’s the former. He made a handful of sock puppet accounts to play around with for a while, both on Reddit and Tumblr, only one of which I have a screenshot of, but since they all say roughly the same thing, you’re not missing much:

And then word-stream started throwing a DNS error.

That lasted for a good number of hours, which was unfortunately right around the time that a lot of authors first heard about the situation and started asking me individually how to find out whether their work was stolen too. I do not have that information and I am unclear on the perimeters Weitzman set for his AI scraper, so this is all conjecture: it LOOKS like the fics that were lifted had three things in common:

They were completed works;

They had over several thousand kudos on AO3; and

They were written by authors who had actively posted or updated work over the past year.

If anyone knows more about these perimeters or has info that counters my observation, please let me know!

I finally thought to check/alert evil Twitter during this time, and found out that the news was doing the rounds there already. I made a quick thread summarizing everything that had happened just in case. You can find it here.

I went to Bluesky too, where fandom was doing all the heavy lifting for me already, so I just reskeeted, as you do, and carried on.

Sometime in the very early evening, word-stream went back up—but the fan fiction category was nowhere to be seen. Tentative joy and celebration!***

That’s when several users—the ones who had signed up for accounts to gain intel and had accessed their own fics that way—reported that their work could still be accessed through their history. Relevant Reddit post here.

Sooo—

We’re obviously not done. The fanwork that was stolen by Weitzman may be inaccessible through his website right now, but they aren’t actually gone. And the fact that Weitzman wasn’t willing to get rid of them altogether means he still has plans for them. 

This was my final edit on my Reddit post before turning off notifications, and it's pretty much where my head will be at for at least the foreseeable future:

Please feel free to add info in the comments, make your own posts, take whatever action you want to take to protect your work. I only beg you—seriously, I’m on my knees here—to not give up like I saw a handful of people express the urge to do. Keep sharing your creative work and remain vigilant and stay active to make sure we can continue to do so freely. Visit your favorite fics, and the ones you’ve kept in your ‘marked for later’ lists but never made time to read, and leave kudos, leave comments, support your fandom creatives, celebrate podficcers and support AO3. We created this place and it’s our responsibility to keep it alive and thriving for as long as we possibly can.

Also FUCK generative AI. It has NO place in fandom spaces.

THE 'SMALL' PRINT (some of it in all caps):

*Weitzman knew what he was doing and can NOT claim ignorance. One, it’s pretty basic kindergarten stuff that you don’t steal some other kid’s art project and present it as your own only to act surprised when they protest and then tell the victim that they should have told you sooner that they didn’t want their project stolen. And two, he was very careful never to list the IPs these fanworks were based on, so it’s clear he was at least familiar enough with the legalities to not get himself in hot water with corporate lawyers. Fucking over fans, though, he figured he could get away with that. 

**A note about the AI that Weitzman used to steal our work: it’s even greasier than it looks at first glance. It’s not just the method he used to lift works off AO3 and then regurgitate onto his own website and app. Looking beyond the untold horrors of his AI-generated cover ‘art’, in many cases these covers attempt to depict something from the fics in question that can’t be gleaned from their summaries alone. In addition, my fics (and I assume the others, as well) were listed with generated genres; tags that did not appear anywhere in or on my fic on AO3 and were sometimes scarily accurate and sometimes way off the mark. I remember You & Me & Holiday Wine had ‘found family’ (100% correct, but not tagged by me as such) and I believe The Shape of Soup was listed as, among others, ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ and ‘love triangle’ (both wildly inaccurate). Even worse, not all the fic listed (as authors on Reddit pointed out) came with their original summaries at all. Often the entire summary was AI-generated. All of these things make it very clear that it was an all-encompassing scrape—not only were our fics stolen, they were also fed word-for-word into the AI Weitzman used and then analyzed to suit Weitzman’s needs. This means our work was literally fed to this AI to basically do with whatever its other users want, including (one assumes) text generation. 

***Fan fiction appears to have been made (largely) inaccessible on word-stream at this time, but I’m hearing from several authors that their original, independently published work, which is listed at places like Kindle Unlimited, DOES still appear in word-stream’s search engine. This obviously hurts writers, especially independent ones, who depend on these works for income and, as a rule, don’t have a huge budget or a legal team with oceans of time to fight these battles for them. If you consider yourself an author in the broader sense, beyond merely existing online as a fandom author, beyond concerns that your own work is immediately at risk, DO NOT STOP MAKING NOISE ABOUT THIS.

PLEASE check my later versions of this post via my main page to make sure you have the latest version of this post before you reblog. All the information I’ve been able to gather is in my reblogs below, and it's frustrating to see the old version getting passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.

Thank you all so much!

[turquoisemagpie]

Uk peeps!! Let’s get this going! 🏳️‍⚧️🇬🇧