Timeline of Fandom Purges and Site Restrictions

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This is a timeline of incidents in which platforms (usually official for-profit, but sometimes fan-run) used by fan communities have cracked down on fanworks, discussion by fans, and fansites with "inappropriate" content.

For a list of fans banning each other's content, see List of Content Banned by Archives.

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

1970s

1977

• The editors of the Star Trek zine Dreadnought Explorations received the first of several letters from Paramount demanding that the zine cease publication due to copyright infringement with Paramount. See Dreadnought Explorations and the Cease and Desist Letters (1977)

1980s

• George Lucas proves he's no Gene Roddenberry with his Open Letters to Star Wars Zine Publishers (1981)
• A Chicagoan comic store is fined $750 and its manager arrested for selling Omaha the Cat Dancer, an early furry comic, for being obscene, leading to the creation of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

1990s

• Cease and Desist Letter sent to KnightWriter Press regarding Rat Patrol fiction (mid-late 1990s)
• Issues of Omaha the Cat Dancer seized by police in Canada and New Zealand on the grounds of containing bestiality and being indecent

1991

• The Beauty and the Beast Cease and Desist Letters (1991)
• Lucasfilm has issues with the zine Report from the Star Wars Generation (1991)

1992

• Marion Zimmer Bradley Fanfiction Controversy (1992)
• Anne McCaffrey begins making a lot of fanwork rules (1992)
• P.N. Elrod also makes some fanwork rules (1992)
• Chelsea Quinn Yarbro brings the hammer down on a fan regarding a zine, see A Matter Of Willful Copyright Infringement (1992)

1995

• Cease and Desist by FOX against fan sites, and The X-Files Cease and Desists (around 1995)
• The Viacom Crackdowns (1995)

1997

• Fox and Lucasfilm go after fansites (1997)
• fiction was ordered removed from the zine Flightpath #7 (likely 1997)

1998

• Burned Furs - campaign against certain types of furries and furry art (1998-2001)
• AOL goes after X-Files fansites (1998)
• Rangerphiles Against Gadget Erotica aka R.A.G.E. is founded to protest against NSFW/porn art of Gadget Hackwrench character from Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers

1999

• Horizon Fan Club's 1999 Discussion Regarding Adult Fanworks (1999)
• fans are hassled regarding Fandom, Inc. (1990-2001)

2000s

2000

• Anne Rice goes after fan fiction based on her characters, see Spec Writer Massacre and Rice's Attitudes Regarding Fans and Fanfiction Based on Her Work: Official Policies. (2000)
• the Forever Knight novel is canned, see On Holy Ground (2001)
• Lists and posting boards continue the practice that began on many newsgroups in earlier decades by banning the posting of fanfiction because the "creatives see this list." In example: "Discussion list for all things SHEENA, a syndicated fantasy-action TV starting Fall 2000...Because we have producers/writers of the show on the list, fan fiction cannot be allowed. Anyone who posts fan fiction will be immediately unsubbed. They will be reinstated if they promise not to do it again. We are a kinder, gentler list."

2001

• Tripod Massacre (March 2001)
• Anne Rice goes after IWTV fic on FanFiction.net, other authors also ban their fans from posting to the site (Archie Comics, Dennis L. McKiernan, Irene Radford, J.R. Ward, Laurell K. Hamilton, Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb, P.N. Elro,d, Raymond Feist, Robin Hobb, Robin McKinley, and Terry Goodkind), see FFN's specific author bans (2001)
• The Bronze shut down as Buffy changes networks, see The Bronze Posting Board (2001)
• PotterWar (2001-2002)

2002

• FanFiction.Net's NC-17 Purges: 2002 and 2012 (bans explicit adult and RPF) (2002)

2003

• Gryffindor Tower implodes due to fan feuds, see Gryffindor Tower's closure (2003)
• the Harry Potter site received a cease and desist letter after the press article Web of fantasy turns the boy wizard blue was published. (shortly after January 2003)

2004

• FanFiction.net bans script format (2004)

2005

• The Viacom Crackdowns (2005)
• Robin Hobb has a Fan Fiction Rant (2005)
• FanFiction.net bans CYOA, Readerfic, 2nd person, Songfic (2005)
• Sheezyart bans adult content; y!gallery founded (2005)
• LionHeart Distribution was ordered by Warner Bros. to stop selling zines (2005)
• April Furs Day - furries banned from 4chan
• The Acorn Cafe, the most important (and maybe unique) Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers message board, migrates to phpBB and introduces anti-LGBT rules, disbanding fans occurs

2006

• Sakura Lemon Fanfiction Archive suddenly closes (2006)
• Quizilla's Purge (2006)

2007

• The Express Page webhost shuts down (Feb-March 2007)
• Strikethrough/Boldthrough (May-August 2007)
• Youtube institutes Content ID, deleting many fanvids (2007)
• Digimon Hentai Zone goes dark (early 2007)

2008

• Slash Cotillion closes, taking much historical m/m (slash) with it (2008)
• Mercedes Lackey doesn't want fans posting fic to the internet, and fiction in her universe must be approved.
• Paraíso Fanfiction, a fanfiction archive in Spanish, crashes. (June) The admin reopens the page but is unable to restore the stories. She promises to mail their fanfics to authors upon request. (Dec)

2009

• FanDomination.Net closes (2009)
• GeoCities Shutdown (2009)
• Greatestjournal shuts down; RPGs deleted (2009)
• Marvel gets scans_daily deleted (2009)
• imeem, major vidding hub, closes suddenly (2009)
• Paraíso Fanfiction closes for the second time, this time for good. (Dec)

2010s

2010

• George R.R. Martin is Angry on the Internet
• Fanfiction.net forums are purged for inactivity
• Literate Union goes after Twilight fandom on FFN
• DeviantArt purges adult fanfic
• FurAffinity bans cub art after payment provider cancelled their donation account (November)

2011

• tagging policy decisions at Delicious (2011)
• Delicious is destroyed by Yahoo’s incompetence (2011)

2012

• FanFiction.Net's NC-17 Purges: 2002 and 2012 (2012)
• Megaupload deleted for piracy; also destroys vids, podfic, rebranding few years after like MEGA with new rules against piracy (2012)
• FortuneCity ends its free website hosting service
• TV Tropes initiates a purge of adult and rape-related content following an AdSense suspension.

2013

• Max-Dan-Wiz.com purged of fan-generated content (2013)

2014

• Quizilla shuts down (2014)
• Blip.tv deletes vids (2014)
• Viddler deletes vids (2014)

2015

• Journalfen deletes Fandom Wank (2015)

2016

• y!Gallery goes down due to hacking (2016)
• Elfwood goes offline (2016)
• Audiofic Archive corrupted; major blow to podfic (2016)

2017

• Parents get queer Warrior Cats fic purged from Wattpad (2017)
• Photobucket started charging for third party hosting, watermarking and blurring untold amounts of edits, icons, banners, and many other fannish images posted on LJ, forums, and other websites.
• Patreon begins to make it increasingly harder for NSFW content creators

2018

• The Snappening in Tumblr (2018)
• Tumblr NSFW Content Purge and Tumblr deletes pro-shipper blogs (2018)
• Wattpad deletes accounts/fics without warning (2018)
• SoFurry bans adult art depicting underage human characters (July 2018)

2019

• Charahub, host to many original character profiles, shuts down (March 1)
• Yahoo! Groups Content Purge (2019)
• 8tracks, home of myriad fanmixes, announces it will cease running (December 26)

2020s

2020

• Patreon bans Human x furry content.
• Pastebin bans adult content and sets all pastes that contain adult content to private. This also means that anonymous uploads that contain adult content are permanently gone. (December)

2021

• PotterFics closes, leaving only ten days notice for people to save their works. No e-mails were sent (March 22)
• SoFurry bans and purges all underage (furry) adult content that survived the 2018 purge (May)
• OnlyFans almost bans adult content
• Wikia removes all wikis (such as the Monster Girl Encyclopedia Wiki) that it deems to "contain large amount of sex, nudity and/or fetish material". (November 24)

2022

• LiveJournal TOS update promises to remove every user and community with 2 years of inactivity ongoing (January)
• Fanfic Es an archive for het fanfiction in Spanish language shuts down, leaving just a week notice for users to save their works (March)
• Flickr locks all NSFW pictures behind a paywall. (March)
• Saint Seiya Yaoi, a message board in Spanish to discuss Saint Seiya BL closes after 19 years online, purging thousands of stories and art. (November)

2023

• Image-hosting service Imgur announces the banning of adult uploads and deletion of uploads not linked to an account. (April)
• Both Twitter and Google announces they will start purging inactive accounts. Twitter's window of inactivity is only 30 days. Google's is two years. (May)
• FurAffinity announces that from July 1st "any reports we receive of Pokémon or Digimon who have childlike body proportions or appear as adolescent animals will be treated as any other when in the presence of sexual activity, sexual objects, nudity, or fetishized in a sexual way." FA management explicitly refuse to clarify any specific affected species.
• Tumblr is found to be enforcing rules that it inserted into the TOS in November of 2022, banning any content related to the sexualization of child characters or characters who are considered to appear childlike. This causes a mass termination of blogs without understanding the reason why until the cause is publicized in late May of 2023.

2024

• Gumroad bans sexually explicit content due to pressure from Stripe and PayPal. (March)
• Wattpad Purge 2024: Wattpad deletes numerous stories, many of which include smut or queer content (April).
• Pixiv blocks R18 content for users in the United States and United Kingdom due to pressure from Visa and Mastercard. (April)
• e621 purges all human underage content without any warning. (July)
• Etsy bans adult content. (July)