Fandom: Difference between revisions

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===User freedom===

{{Quote|''"Admin or not, the staff doesn't care about it, neither do the filters. If Fandom staff wants the word censored: you don't have any rights to be against it. Not even us"'' - Message posted by one of the [https://archive.ph/IWuY5 SOAP moderators], which was sent following a complaint from Fandom's automated system.}}

Users on Fandom have little control over the content they upload to the platform. Furthermore, Fandom staff clarify that all content uploaded by users to the platform is their property,<ref name=":0" /> and they can modify or alter it without the prior consent of the writers involved.

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===Privacy===

When you create an account on Fandom, your information and data is shared with more than 300 advertising and media partners.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-08-20 |title=Fandom and the multimillion dollar business of monetizing volunteer work |url=https://frisk.space/posts/fandom-and-the-multimillion-business-of-monetizing-volunteer-work/ |access-date=2025-08-20 |website=Frisk.space}}</ref> Additionally, the data provided by users is used for training AI models, including posts in discussions as well as content provided to ~~pages. In addition, user-generated data is used to train AI models, including posts in discussions and content provided to wiki~~ pages. In 2025, Fandom confirmed to ''Inc Magazine'' that it had trained an AI model called ''“FanDNA Helix”'' using more than 50 million pages and user-generated posts so that advertising companies could target ads based on user consumption habits.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Sherry |first=Ben |date=2025-02-18 |title=How Fandom Uses AI to Turn Your Obsessions Into Gold |url=https://www.inc.com/ben-sherry/how-fandom-uses-ai-to-turn-your-obsessions-into-gold/91145315 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250312182852/https://www.inc.com/ben-sherry/how-fandom-uses-ai-to-turn-your-obsessions-into-gold/91145315 |archive-date=March 12, 2025 |access-date=2025-07-20 |work=Inc Magazine |language=en-US}}</ref>

When you create an account on Fandom, your information and data is shared with more than 300 advertising and media partners.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-08-20 |title=Fandom and the multimillion dollar business of monetizing volunteer work |url=https://frisk.space/posts/fandom-and-the-multimillion-business-of-monetizing-volunteer-work/ |access-date=2025-08-20 |website=Frisk.space}}</ref> Additionally, the data provided by users is used for training AI models, including posts in discussions as well as content provided to pages. In 2025, Fandom confirmed to ''Inc Magazine'' that it had trained an AI model called ''“FanDNA Helix”'' using more than 50 million pages and user-generated posts so that advertising companies could target ads based on user consumption habits.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Sherry |first=Ben |date=2025-02-18 |title=How Fandom Uses AI to Turn Your Obsessions Into Gold |url=https://www.inc.com/ben-sherry/how-fandom-uses-ai-to-turn-your-obsessions-into-gold/91145315 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250312182852/https://www.inc.com/ben-sherry/how-fandom-uses-ai-to-turn-your-obsessions-into-gold/91145315 |archive-date=March 12, 2025 |access-date=2025-07-20 |work=Inc Magazine |language=en-US}}</ref>

===Censorship===

Since Fandom is a company that relies on advertising to operate, part of the staff has to sanitize content to appeal to most of its brands and partners. This has caused certain clashes with editorial teams that discuss mature topics.

In 2017, Fandom attempted to censor a large portion of the sprites from the mainline ''Shin Megami Tensei'' games developed by Japanese studio Atlus after the company decided that most of the images did not qualify as artistic nudity.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2017-10-07 |title=Image censorship on Megami Tensei wiki by wikia employee |url=https://www.reddit.com/r/Megaten/comments/7bbii9/image_censorship_on_megami_tensei_wiki_by_wikia/ |access-date=2025-08-22 |website=r/Megaten via Reddit}}</ref> Starting in 2021, Fandom would attempt to maintain a much stricter policy for the platform as family friendly, as well as censoring any content. This caused several wikis to move to other services due to frequent censorship, including the ''South Park Archives'',<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024 |title=Blog:Farewell to Fandom |url=https://southpark.wiki.gg/wiki/Blog:Farewell_to_Fandom |access-date=2025-08-22 |website=South Park Archives via Wiki.gg}}</ref> where much of the scripts, characters, and scenes had to be censored to maintain a more family-friendly approach for advertisers, causing navigation errors as well as errors in the templates.

Later in 2025, the Siivagunner and Vocaloid Lyrics wikis migrated to different hosts, citing similar concerns where Fandom had removed a lot of content that could be controversial. The editorial team of the ''Siivagunner Wiki'' released a statement saying that part of the reason for moving the wiki to an independent host was due to the deliberate deletion of ''Mysikt Wiki'', another group dedicated to remixes and mashups, without prior notification from Fandom.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025 |title=Forking announcement |url=https://www.siivagunner.wiki/wiki/SiIvaGunner_Wiki:Forking_announcement |access-date=2025-08-22 |website=Siivagunner Wiki}}</ref>

===Anti-competitive practices===

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===Portable Infoboxes (May 2017)===

{{Quote|''"Honestly, what allowed me to never put 100% of my trust to the FANDOM Staff was the fact that they disregard the concerns of their userbase most of the time. They'd introduce certain features and implement them without considering all of the potential flaws that'd persist. Remember the Portable infoboxes? They didn't think of inserting official tabbers in them when they first introduced them. It took several months before tabbers in PIs finally became a thing."'' - Quote from [https://archive.ph/UUvUT @QueenPinksweets], former Vocaloid Wiki Moderator (2021)}}

In mid-2017, Spanish programmer Jesús Martínez Novo, who had been working on the WikiDex project since 2006, published a note discussing his experience with the platform as well as the forking of the largest Pokémon wiki in Spanish. Martínez explained that in 2017, Fandom had forced users to abruptly change the code of some of their templates. This decision was not previously consulted with the users who had previously coded much of the site voluntarily, and the company gave them one week to convert the rest of the templates.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Martínez |first=Jesús |date=2017-05-07 |title=Wikia — When the site you spend most of the time goes evil |url=https://medium.com/@martineznovo/wikia-when-the-site-you-spend-most-of-the-time-goes-evil-1ce9d3f79285 |access-date=2025-08-19 |website=Medium}}</ref>

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===Fandom Shop (September 2020)===

At the end of 2020, the company introduced links to "Fandom Shop" on various wikis, an initiative by the company to distribute merchandise. This measure was criticized by users, as the links were embedded in the site's navigation without prior consultation by administrators. In addition, some of the products included poor-quality bootlegs products.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-09-16 |title=Wikia/FANDOM are rolling out a "Shop" tab on Wikis, filled with affiliate (for profit) links to stores. I would like to make folks aware that nearly 99% of items in this tab are UNOFFICIAL/BOOTLEGS. |url=https://x.com/danganronpawiki/status/1306182977999732741 |access-date=2025-07-17 |website=Danganronpa Wiki via Twitter}}</ref>

===NFT Integration Plans (February 2022)===

In early 2022, Fandom CEO Perkins Miller announced the possibility of integrating NFTs into the platform, despite backlash from user surveys and concerns about the environmental damage it could cause.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-02-16 |title=Perkins Miller, the CEO of @getFANDOM, our Wiki host, has put out a statement on LinkedIN that the platform is considering getting into NFTs, despite the admitted extremely poor feedback from a community survey. |url=https://x.com/danganronpawiki/status/1494105070220292098 |access-date=2025-08-23 |website=Danganronpa Wiki via Twitter}}</ref>

===Online grooming and sexual harassment (November 2023)===

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===''Vishal Shah v. Fandom, Inc.'' (September 2024)===

In 2024, Vishal Shah sued Fandom for privacy violations, claiming that the company was sharing IP address information with external platforms, including [[Meta]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Brown |first=Christopher |date=2024-10-24 |title=Users Advance Fandom ‘Pen Register’ Suit Over IP Address Sharing |url=https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/consumers-video-privacy-class-action-against-fandom-can-proceed |access-date=2025-08-17 |website=Bloomberg Law}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Landis |first=Blake |date=2024-10-25 |title=Ninth Circuit Ruling Shows How CIPA Applies to Internet Tracking |url=https://natlawreview.com/article/invisible-data-real-consequences-navigating-ip-consent-dilemma |access-date=2025-08-17 |website=The National Law Review |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Proposed class says Fandom illegally tracked IP addresses |url=https://www.dailyjournal.com/article/376511-proposed-class-says-fandom-illegally-tracked-ip-addresses |access-date=2025-08-17 |website=The Daily Journal}}</ref>

~~==Products==~~

~~{{Ph-C-P}}~~

~~==See also==~~

~~{{Ph-C-SA}}~~

==External links==

*''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySXP4hxFNFw "The Minecraft Wiki vs Corporate Greed"]'' (2024) published by videographer "DIMM4" focusing on the history of the Minecraft Wiki and its relationship with Fandom and Curse

*''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcfuA_UAz3I "Stop using Fandom"]'' (2023) published by game developer "Mossbag"

*''[https://awa.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Anti-Wikia_Alliance Anti-Wikia Alliance]''

==References==

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[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]

__INDEX__

@@ Line 15: / Line 15: @@
 ===User freedom===
+{{Quote|''"Admin or not, the staff doesn't care about it, neither do the filters. If Fandom staff wants the word censored: you don't have any rights to be against it. Not even us"'' - Message posted by one of the [https://archive.ph/IWuY5 SOAP moderators], which was sent following a complaint from Fandom's automated system.}}
 Users on Fandom have little control over the content they upload to the platform. Furthermore, Fandom staff clarify that all content uploaded by users to the platform is their property,<ref name=":0" /> and they can modify or alter it without the prior consent of the writers involved.
@@ Line 24: / Line 25: @@
 ===Privacy===
-When you create an account on Fandom, your information and data is shared with more than 300 advertising and media partners.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-08-20 |title=Fandom and the multimillion dollar business of monetizing volunteer work |url=https://frisk.space/posts/fandom-and-the-multimillion-business-of-monetizing-volunteer-work/ |access-date=2025-08-20 |website=Frisk.space}}</ref> Additionally, the data provided by users is used for training AI models, including posts in discussions as well as content provided to pages. In addition, user-generated data is used to train AI models, including posts in discussions and content provided to wiki pages. In 2025, Fandom confirmed to ''Inc Magazine'' that it had trained an AI model called ''“FanDNA Helix”'' using more than 50 million pages and user-generated posts so that advertising companies could target ads based on user consumption habits.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Sherry |first=Ben |date=2025-02-18 |title=How Fandom Uses AI to Turn Your Obsessions Into Gold |url=https://www.inc.com/ben-sherry/how-fandom-uses-ai-to-turn-your-obsessions-into-gold/91145315 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250312182852/https://www.inc.com/ben-sherry/how-fandom-uses-ai-to-turn-your-obsessions-into-gold/91145315 |archive-date=March 12, 2025 |access-date=2025-07-20 |work=Inc Magazine |language=en-US}}</ref>
+When you create an account on Fandom, your information and data is shared with more than 300 advertising and media partners.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-08-20 |title=Fandom and the multimillion dollar business of monetizing volunteer work |url=https://frisk.space/posts/fandom-and-the-multimillion-business-of-monetizing-volunteer-work/ |access-date=2025-08-20 |website=Frisk.space}}</ref> Additionally, the data provided by users is used for training AI models, including posts in discussions as well as content provided to pages. In 2025, Fandom confirmed to ''Inc Magazine'' that it had trained an AI model called ''“FanDNA Helix”'' using more than 50 million pages and user-generated posts so that advertising companies could target ads based on user consumption habits.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Sherry |first=Ben |date=2025-02-18 |title=How Fandom Uses AI to Turn Your Obsessions Into Gold |url=https://www.inc.com/ben-sherry/how-fandom-uses-ai-to-turn-your-obsessions-into-gold/91145315 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250312182852/https://www.inc.com/ben-sherry/how-fandom-uses-ai-to-turn-your-obsessions-into-gold/91145315 |archive-date=March 12, 2025 |access-date=2025-07-20 |work=Inc Magazine |language=en-US}}</ref>
+===Censorship===
+Since Fandom is a company that relies on advertising to operate, part of the staff has to sanitize content to appeal to most of its brands and partners. This has caused certain clashes with editorial teams that discuss mature topics.
+In 2017, Fandom attempted to censor a large portion of the sprites from the mainline ''Shin Megami Tensei'' games developed by Japanese studio Atlus after the company decided that most of the images did not qualify as artistic nudity.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2017-10-07 |title=Image censorship on Megami Tensei wiki by wikia employee |url=https://www.reddit.com/r/Megaten/comments/7bbii9/image_censorship_on_megami_tensei_wiki_by_wikia/ |access-date=2025-08-22 |website=r/Megaten via Reddit}}</ref> Starting in 2021, Fandom would attempt to maintain a much stricter policy for the platform as family friendly, as well as censoring any content. This caused several wikis to move to other services due to frequent censorship, including the ''South Park Archives'',<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024 |title=Blog:Farewell to Fandom |url=https://southpark.wiki.gg/wiki/Blog:Farewell_to_Fandom |access-date=2025-08-22 |website=South Park Archives via Wiki.gg}}</ref> where much of the scripts, characters, and scenes had to be censored to maintain a more family-friendly approach for advertisers, causing navigation errors as well as errors in the templates.
+Later in 2025, the Siivagunner and Vocaloid Lyrics wikis migrated to different hosts, citing similar concerns where Fandom had removed a lot of content that could be controversial. The editorial team of the ''Siivagunner Wiki'' released a statement saying that part of the reason for moving the wiki to an independent host was due to the deliberate deletion of ''Mysikt Wiki'', another group dedicated to remixes and mashups, without prior notification from Fandom.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025 |title=Forking announcement |url=https://www.siivagunner.wiki/wiki/SiIvaGunner_Wiki:Forking_announcement |access-date=2025-08-22 |website=Siivagunner Wiki}}</ref>
 ===Anti-competitive practices===
@@ Line 34: / Line 42: @@
 ===Portable Infoboxes (May 2017)===
+{{Quote|''"Honestly, what allowed me to never put 100% of my trust to the FANDOM Staff was the fact that they disregard the concerns of their userbase most of the time. They'd introduce certain features and implement them without considering all of the potential flaws that'd persist. Remember the Portable infoboxes? They didn't think of inserting official tabbers in them when they first introduced them. It took several months before tabbers in PIs finally became a thing."'' - Quote from [https://archive.ph/UUvUT @QueenPinksweets], former Vocaloid Wiki Moderator (2021)}}
 In mid-2017, Spanish programmer Jesús Martínez Novo, who had been working on the WikiDex project since 2006, published a note discussing his experience with the platform as well as the forking of the largest Pokémon wiki in Spanish. Martínez explained that in 2017, Fandom had forced users to abruptly change the code of some of their templates. This decision was not previously consulted with the users who had previously coded much of the site voluntarily, and the company gave them one week to convert the rest of the templates.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Martínez |first=Jesús |date=2017-05-07 |title=Wikia — When the site you spend most of the time goes evil |url=https://medium.com/@martineznovo/wikia-when-the-site-you-spend-most-of-the-time-goes-evil-1ce9d3f79285 |access-date=2025-08-19 |website=Medium}}</ref>
@@ Line 43: / Line 52: @@
 ===Fandom Shop (September 2020)===
 At the end of 2020, the company introduced links to "Fandom Shop" on various wikis, an initiative by the company to distribute merchandise. This measure was criticized by users, as the links were embedded in the site's navigation without prior consultation by administrators. In addition, some of the products included poor-quality bootlegs products.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-09-16 |title=Wikia/FANDOM are rolling out a "Shop" tab on Wikis, filled with affiliate (for profit) links to stores. I would like to make folks aware that nearly 99% of items in this tab are UNOFFICIAL/BOOTLEGS. |url=https://x.com/danganronpawiki/status/1306182977999732741 |access-date=2025-07-17 |website=Danganronpa Wiki via Twitter}}</ref>
+===NFT Integration Plans (February 2022)===
+In early 2022, Fandom CEO Perkins Miller announced the possibility of integrating NFTs into the platform, despite backlash from user surveys and concerns about the environmental damage it could cause.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-02-16 |title=Perkins Miller, the CEO of @getFANDOM, our Wiki host, has put out a statement on LinkedIN that the platform is considering getting into NFTs, despite the admitted extremely poor feedback from a community survey. |url=https://x.com/danganronpawiki/status/1494105070220292098 |access-date=2025-08-23 |website=Danganronpa Wiki via Twitter}}</ref>
 ===Online grooming and sexual harassment (November 2023)===
@@ Line 60: / Line 72: @@
 ===''Vishal Shah v. Fandom, Inc.'' (September 2024)===
 In 2024, Vishal Shah sued Fandom for privacy violations, claiming that the company was sharing IP address information with external platforms, including [[Meta]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Brown |first=Christopher |date=2024-10-24 |title=Users Advance Fandom ‘Pen Register’ Suit Over IP Address Sharing |url=https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/consumers-video-privacy-class-action-against-fandom-can-proceed |access-date=2025-08-17 |website=Bloomberg Law}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Landis |first=Blake |date=2024-10-25 |title=Ninth Circuit Ruling Shows How CIPA Applies to Internet Tracking |url=https://natlawreview.com/article/invisible-data-real-consequences-navigating-ip-consent-dilemma |access-date=2025-08-17 |website=The National Law Review |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Proposed class says Fandom illegally tracked IP addresses |url=https://www.dailyjournal.com/article/376511-proposed-class-says-fandom-illegally-tracked-ip-addresses |access-date=2025-08-17 |website=The Daily Journal}}</ref>
-==Products==
-{{Ph-C-P}}
-==See also==
-{{Ph-C-SA}}
 ==External links==
 *''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySXP4hxFNFw "The Minecraft Wiki vs Corporate Greed"]'' (2024) published by videographer "DIMM4" focusing on the history of the Minecraft Wiki and its relationship with Fandom and Curse
 *''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcfuA_UAz3I "Stop using Fandom"]'' (2023) published by game developer "Mossbag"
+*''[https://awa.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Anti-Wikia_Alliance Anti-Wikia Alliance]''
 ==References==
@@ Line 75: / Line 82: @@
 [[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
+__INDEX__