Ficbook (Книга Фанфиков)

Книга Фанфиков (Kniga Fanfikov, Book of Fanfics), usually referred to as "Фикбук"/"Ficbook" by the Russian-speaking fans, is a Russian-language-only website for publishing fanfiction and original fiction. The site allows Russian translations of fics originally published in another language elsewhere, but only if the original author has given permission.
Ficbook also allows the posting of "Articles", which are non-fiction works or meta related to fanfiction or to a specific fandom; as examples they list titles like "Death Note: Is Light a villain or a hero?", "Why do we want to write fanfics?", and "Why Naruto behaves implausibly".Rules, accessed May 18, 2018
Since August 2011, Ficbook has an official Twitter account, @ficbooknet. A group on VK was created in 2012, and the site also has an official telegram channel.
==Site Statistics==
Number of stories on the site as of June 2022:
*Gen - 1,319,379
*Slash - 1,226,765
*Het - 1,097,783
*Femslash - 138,214
*Multi - 178,744
*Other - 67,808
*"Article" - 14,329, archive.is, Jun 19, 2022.
==Impact of Russia's LGBT propaganda law==
On December 5, 2022, a law banning "LGBT propaganda" (an expansion of the 2013 law) came into effect. One effect of the law was to ban LGBT literature in Russia.
In October 2022, Ficbook posted to assure its users that slash and femslash hosted on Ficbook would not be affected because Ficbook's servers were not in Russia (the site is hosted in Latvia) and that Ficbook would not give user data to the Russian authorities. The post recommended installing a VPN in case Ficbook was blocked., 19 October 2022.
Keen-eyed users noticed on December 5 that Ficbook's TOS had been updated with no warning and now contained clauses banning slash and indicating that ficbook would share users' personal data with law enforcement. There was widespread panic on twitter and users declared they were deleting their ficbook accounts and migrating to AO3., 5 December 2022. On the Holiwarka forum, anons expressed their anger at the site admin's betrayal and discussed downloading their favorite fics before they got deleted., Holiwarka forum, 6 December 2022."Мерзко от того, что фикбук живет за счет авторов, которые несут ему контент. И вот так плевать им в лицо, меняя пользовательское соглашение тихо, за спиной, делая их виновными в нарушении закона и крайними, если что. Не сообщают об этом нигде. При этом орали на все соц.сети, что они не в юрисдикции РФ и авторам ничего не будет... так мерзко поступают." (It's disgusting that the ficbook lives at the expense of the authors who bring content to it. And so spit in their faces, changing the user agreement quietly, behind their backs, making them guilty of violating the law and extreme, if anything. It is not reported anywhere. At the same time, they yelled at all social networks that they were not under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation and nothing would happen to the authors ... they act so vilely.) , Holiwarka forum, 6 December 2022. Anons also discussed how the new TOS had simply copied parts of the Russian law and whether the new verbiage constituted illegal discrimination against LGBT people in the jurisdiction where ficbook was supposedly located., Holiwarka forum, 6 December 2022. By the afternoon of December 6, one anon estimated that 10% of the slash on the site had already been deleted."Судя по тому, как опустели мои сборники 'прочитано№...', добитые до тысячи, за последние 12 часов с сайта удалили или скрыли 10% всего слэша. Примерно столько же ушло за всё предыдущее время с начала обсуждения закона." (Judging by how empty my collections of "read # ...", finished to a thousand, over the past 12 hours, 10% of the entire slash has been removed or hidden from the site. Approximately the same amount has gone over the entire previous time since the beginning of the discussion of the law.) , Holiwarka forum, 6 December 2022. Meanwhile, other ficbook users started adding disclaimers in their profiles that their slash fics weren't propaganda., 6 December 2022.
Some fans expressed disappointment that Ficbook had chosen profit over principle, 6 December 2022., r/Fanfiction, 10 December 2022. (others thought these fans were naive, 6 December 2022.).
Ficbook, aware of the reactions on social media, posted a short update on December 6 trying to reassure users and received many upset comments on their VK page., 6 December 2022. Finally, Ficbook posted a detailed announcement about upcoming site changes: All the slash and femslash would be migrated to a separate URL under the name Слэшбук (slashbook) and the main Ficbook's TOS would be updated to prohibit material illegal in Russia. This way, Ficbook expected that the main site would not be blocked in Russia even if slashbook was. The announcement ended as follows:
 
Although many users were reportedly satisfied with this explanation, others were unimpressed by the change itself or how the site communicated the change., 6 December 2022., 6 December 2022.
Despite the assurances, people remained suspicious about whether Ficbook would cooperate with Russian authorities, 6 December 2022."С фикбука бежали потому, что никто не верит, что там не выдадут личные данные." ("They fled from fikbuk because no one believes that personal data will not be given out there.") , 6 December 2023. and continued to migrate to AO3. English-speaking AO3 users noticed the influx of Russian-language fanfic. by Clem2605 in r/Fanfiction subreddit, 11 Feb 2023. Ironically, when AO3 was blocked in Russia a few months later, it further popularized the website as a place that the fans can trust not to give their data to the Russian government."Я наоборот успокоен, что ао3, выходит, не отдал таки никакие личные данные, теперь на практике это видно." ("On the contrary, I am reassured that ao3, it turns out, did not give away any personal data, now it can be seen in practice.") , Holiwarka anon thread, 15 April 2023.
The wank was reported on by the Russian SF magazine Mir Fantastiki., www.mirf.ru, 7 December 2022. 
As of April 2023, slash fanfic is still visible on the main ficbook URL.
Approximately on July 12, 2024, Ficbook was banned in Russia altogether., 12 July 2024., 12 July 2024.
==References==
Category:Russian-Speaking Fandom
Category:Multifandom Archives