Wattpad Purge 2024
| Event | |
|---|---|
| Event: | "Wattpad Purge 2024" |
| Participants: | Wattpad management, fanwriters |
| Date(s): | April 7, 2024 and after |
| Type: | Purge |
| Fandom: | all |
| URL: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Wattpad Moderation Announcement
As of April 7, 2024, the Wattpad publication site posted an official message: "Updating our moderation capabilities" which stated that:
This week, our teams deployed new moderation tools that will help us identify content violations faster and at a larger scale than was possible before. Our new moderation process will make Wattpad safer for everyone, while also making it easier and faster for our teams--who work day in and day out to keep the platform safe--to identify and remove Content violations. Users can rest assured that only Content violations will be actioned by our teams, and content not prohibited by our Content Guidelines will remain on the platform. Our teams are in the process of removing confirmed content violations from the platform, and also reviewing stories that have been flagged for potential violations. Writers who believe their stories have been removed in error can appeal the decision by submitting a request via our Help Center. If a story is in review, it will not appear in search or story rankings until our team completes its investigation. We also encourage writers to regularly review our Content Guidelines to ensure their stories do not contain violations. [1]
Age of Consent in Fiction on Wattpad
In addition, they announced rules against anything explicitly sexual involving people under 18, no matter the local age of consent
On April 15th, 2024, we will update our Content Guidelines by raising the age of consent in stories to 18+. This change will clarify how Teen Fic and YA writers should approach romance storylines, and better reflect the diverse cultural standards and expectations of our global reading and writing community. [1]
Wattpad Authors and Readers response
Users in the comments and replying to a related post on the "Fandom" account[2] report that stories have been removed suddenly, including stories that were on the site for ten years.
The Wattpad Subreddit has a post Megathread on this toppic and responses include many authors who have had stories taken down: there seems to be no rhyme or reason, removals include origfic and fanfic, old and new, slash and het.[3]
A Wattpad author reports on Reddit that their book was removed, despite being in the official Wattpad Creators program[4]
Removal of Private Direct Messages among users
Wattpad announced, "Direct messaging is a way for Wattpad to communicate with you directly. Only Wattpad-affiliated accounts will be able to reach out to you to inform you of any upcoming changes to your account, potential research you can be a part of, or program opportunities. " [5] ...
What happens to old messages?
All direct messages will be deleted once the Direct Messaging feature is removed on May 6, 2024.
Can I save my direct messages?
There is no download feature for existing messages and we cannot retrieve this data for you.
References
- ^ a b Wattpad announcement, retrieved 2024-04-10 archive.is 2024-04-10
- ^ https://www.wattpad.com/user/Fanfic/conversations archived https://archive.is/g5iMt
- ^ MEGA-THREAD: Wattpad's New AI Review System and The "Purge" Originally posted 2024-04-04, retrieved 2024-04-13
- ^ Book Removed on Reddit/Wattpad April 23, 2024, retrieved 2024-04-24
- ^ Private Direct Messages on Wattpad retrieved 2024-04-28