The following journal has been copied from the user  Shulker who should be commended for their vigilance and protection of FA writers!


There is an issue where writers on Furaffinity (and probably other websites) doxx their full legal names by uploading written work often in form of .pdf files which in metadata contain their full legal names. This happens because programs they use to write (the most common offender is Microsoft Word) embed this information into every document exported with given program.

Most writers likely use Windows operating system which nowadays often pushes the creatures to give their full legal names or use Microsoft account connected with the computer to use it, and because office suite is connected with Windows OS, as well as has a default to include authorship information in files - this results in those files having this kind of metadata added in with every single file often without knowledge or consent from the author.

I've been downloading works of many creators on Furaffinity for years, and in January I've noticed this issue because my operating system shows all file metadata while selecting/hovering over the files. And so I've been contacting some writers on the website for whom I've noticed this happens. Out of 6 notes I've sent, 4 writers replied, all of them didn't intend for the files to have their full legal name and confirmed this was unintentional. And it's not like I download a lot of works like that.

The scale of this issue is big, because Microsoft Word is widely used program with a terrible default. I'll continue to contact writers about this issue, I've made recommendations to Furaffinity in a ticket to make writers aware of this issue (show metadata in uploading process right in the face, make artists aware it exists and it will become available to anyone who downloads their work, optionally strip all metadata altogether - though some metadata might be good so it's less wanted option for me).

Writers, if you write under a pseudonym and you want to keep it this way, please make sure your writing program of choice doesn't do the same thing. You can view metadata of files in numerous ways, you can strip the metadata off your old files using various methods (just search for this or ask me in notes, I'm happy to help!) and reupload them in place without removing comments and statistics which would normally happen if you did that the manual way. You can also use simple .txt files that don't have metadata fields if your story doesn't need special formatting.

In furry community we often prefer to use pseudonyms as our online identities, lets keep it this way, I do not want to know your legal name.

OPSEC is important and I care about your safety.