In another fell swoop MCMC blocks FanFiction.net, a site home to thousands of fan-created stories that are written by fans for their respective fandoms.

The only other country in the world who has FanFiction.net blocked is Indonesia, who also blocked access to over 100 sites, including Imgur, Reddit and Vimeo, amidst an anti-online pron crackdown in 2014.

For those not familiar with it, FanFiction.net came about in 1998, and acted as a one-stop archive for fan-created stories from pre-existing shows, games, literature, you name it. It is literally the largest place to find fanfiction on the internet and is home to over 2.2 million users as of 2010 (and is probably home to plenty more!)

The ban was confirmed by sister site FictionPress on Twitter, stating that the site has been blocked for breaching the Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998; which criminalises the use of network facilities or services to create or distribute content that is “obscene, indecent, false, menacing, or offensive”.

However, the ban didn’t take effect today, as Malaysian users haven’t been able to access the site since last week. The MCMC has blocked over 5,044 sites between 2015 and October last year, and those websites were blocked due to either being pornographic, obscene or seditious or in other cases contained elements of gambling, prostitution, cheating, and piracy.

So it’s quite likely that FanFiction.net got the banhammer simply because some stories tend to contain 18SX elements or what some would consider “obscene” by some standards. However, do bear in mind that not all fanfictions are like this and plenty are quite tame.

But what’s troubling is that the MCMC is getting more proactive in blocking sites that they deem unsafe so where exactly does this end, especially since the fiasco involving Fight of Gods that happened earlier last month?

We can only hope they don’t start targeting other sites that fans know and love.