#bc i can't stress how ableist this screenreader is

[rivkae-winters]

Regarding lore.fm, an interaction with the creator through tiktok dm's

Apologies for potentially messy writing I was upset on receipt of this message and still am regarding the topic.

On the subject of lore.fm I was composing a post starting yesterday regarding the dm interaction below and their new TOS but the app is live far ahead of when I thought it would be. Since I feel I made good points regarding the TOS I’ll upload my post later tonight but I wanted to get this portion of the post up as soon as possible. Here’s the brief incident I had in direct messages with the official lore.fm account on TikTok.

I sent my initial message at 8:06pm CST on 5/10/24-

My initial post on tumblr was made on 5/10/24 at 11:01pm CST, I followed this up with a reblog later at

I apologize for the unsightly nature of the screenshots, they were left unedited for obvious reasons. I am aware of my phone's battery percentage in the clarifying screenshot I took just now- I know it's rough I need a new charger. Additionally my apologies for my screen reader square, it drives me nuts too, I just need to keep it at that opacity or I can't find it when my eyes start skipping around.

Transcription of this conversation:

Me: Hi, I'm an author on ao3 and me and several of my fellow authors are highly wary of your product. Further more where can I provide my official email that I wish to retract my written works from this service.

[time: 5/11/24 4:40am CST

lore.fm: hello! The email address is team at lore dot fm. Also, I've been made aware by a follower that someone with a similar username as yours on tumblr may be falsely claiming that we are a phishing scam "because of info on who.is." We use namecheap which provides domain privacy protection services and hides the personal information of the buyer to protect them and instead shares an Icelandic address. See info here: https://www.namecheap.com/blog/domain-privacy-is-changing-at-namecheap/ Every person or organization who buys a domain on namecheap can buy that same privacy protection which is why there are thousands of sites registered with the same address. We aren't affiliated with any scams, cyber criminal activity, or phishing that also use namecheap to buy domains. When the app is out we'll let people know they can search it up if they feel unsafe clicking links as well. Hope that's helpful, and thank you for understanding and not sharing libelous information against us! 

To break from the seriousness for a second: Hi lore.fm- I hope you enjoy this post just as much as the last one!

In my opinion and to my limited knowledge this was in response to a reblog I made to my initial post calling for a warning that lore.fm had the warning signs of a phishing scheme (in my opinion) and as best I could recognize them. To give an insight into how I garnered this opinion purely email collection based websites, as well as entities with a very short history online (lore.fm's website was only established on May 3rd 2024) requesting your email is highly suspicious. Once again that is all in my opinion based on my own education and the background I have in Computer Science.

I am not going to be responding on the matter they direct messaged me on as that matter is best handled offline. I am stating my opinion on the matter that my initial message was asking about.

They still did not answer my question or provide me what I direct messaged about in the first place: the email written out fully in a way that is unambiguous and serviceable as an admittedly casual proof in writing. I had messaged initially with a desire to have a clear clarification of their policies on authors revoking their consent for their work to be used in writing rather than the much more ambiguous audio. I especially, as stated above, wanted the team@lore.fm email written out in the proper way you'd type it into an email address bar.

In my opinion this response to my question, just over two days after, was in bad faith.

I am sharing this direct message since they have no reasonable expectation of privacy. They've positioned themselves in a public manner as a public figure and as a inseparable part of the brand 'lore.fm'. Everything I have shared is associated with 'lore.fm' and not the individual behind it.

In this scenario I am a consumer and in my opinion lore.fm is a company or at least they should (in my opinion) have the legal registration as such. To my knowledge having your business registered prior to advertising to the public is helpful in cases of defamation. To my knowledge as well not having a registered entity as the subject of alleged defamatory speech would make for a difficult case.