[Yukito]

Or the forum administrators can act themselves and shift the blame to the german government, can't they?
Like, blocking the IPs with a error page stating:
YOUR ACCESS TO THIS WEBSITE AND FORUM HAS BEEN BLOCKED AS PER REQUEST OF THE GERMANY GOVERNMENT

Or is it against the law to shift the blame like this?

Sure, they could do that. If they feel like underage stories are worth losing their german users for. There's a dedicated section for german-speaking people here.

Or rather, they could have done that before their host got a letter. Now the host will take their account offline if they don't comply with this. RU isn't hosted on someone's personal computer, it's hosted by a large company that cares a lot more about not hosting things that are illegal in Germany than about whatever traffic RU generates.

Yeah, even though they didn't knew things would happen like this.

[Master Sergeant]

some stories, to include underage stories or stories with an underage component, could easily be saved as stories, and some are quite excellently written, by just changing the age in the text.  Let's not have a massive book burning so a bunch of wanna be tyrants can have their jollies.

[Yukito]

I'd implement measures to thwart new attacks, like requiring to log in to view anything, restricting IPs, etc.
But now, the [REDACTED BY TMD AT REQUEST OF THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT] at TMD will keep an eye at this site due to the letter and suspend the service again if the removal request(censorship) isn't obeyed.

I understand why they are doing it as it has become a trend on other similar sites to impose an 18 yr old minimum age. Personally, there are stories here that bother my sensibilities but I choose not to read them or go to a section where they are posted.

On a lighter note, henceforth might as well label any virgin rape story as "fantasy" because an 18yr old virgin nowadays is more mythical than a unicorn.  lol

Lmao I guess I'm beyond mythical then lmaooo (I love sexual acts just never with other people)

[Counterspell]

Disappointing tbh. Censorship of erotic content is spreading through the internet like wildfire, and if people against this shit think its gonna stop here, they are wrong. The purity police, if they had their way, would get rid of all of this. Honestly I think UA content (in which no real people are being harmed) being targeted is the canary in the coal mine, so to speak. Loli and shota art was banned on Tumblr way before they did a broad NSFW ban. But I understand that the site admins are trying to preserve this site in light of the attack. Just wish we lived in a world where adults could safely explore taboo topics in online spaces without this happening.

[SoftGameHunter]

Could we get some clarification? What is the lower age limit as of today for stories in English?

[Yukito]

Could we get some clarification? What is the lower age limit as of today for stories in English?

18 years.

Disappointing tbh. Censorship of erotic content is spreading through the internet like wildfire, and if people against this shit think its gonna stop here, they are wrong. The purity police, if they had their way, would get rid of all of this. Honestly I think UA content (in which no real people are being harmed) being targeted is the canary in the coal mine, so to speak. Loli and shota art was banned on Tumblr way before they did a broad NSFW ban. But I understand that the site admins are trying to preserve this site in light of the attack. Just wish we lived in a world where adults could safely explore taboo topics in online spaces without this happening.

I'd wish that too. Also, underage adult content has a broad definition. Take a loot at the source 1 what happened a few years ago to a DID artist.

1: https://ravishu.com/forums/index.php?topic=50270.msg466176#new

[SoftGameHunter]

Could we get some clarification? What is the lower age limit as of today for stories in English?

18 years.

I meant clarification from Lois. Or Eljorn.

I'm not a fan of underage things, but love age differences .. most of the stories can be edited as  suggested earlier or you can do what I do. I'm not going to say it's 100% legal, nor am I going to say it is illegal, but serving on The ethics board here, I learned how things are skirted... look at my stories..except for one, I don't list their ages. The story allows the reader to decide for themselves, the ages.

And censorship blows. But, easier to adapt than to resist and lose the site

[Yukito]

so let me get this straight... this site, despite being based in the USA where such fiction has been ruled to be completely legal, is bending the knee to the whiny German fuckstains instead of ignoring it (because they have no jurisdiction over the site anyway). So Germany blocks it, our lovely German users use a VPN; problem solved?

also, whoever reported it (yeah we know you're here) you're a cuck. ever tried, I dunno, not reading it instead of being some white knight dickless cunt trying to score imaginary internet white knight cred?

There are always spies, no matter the subject. Learned this being a moderador in a modding discord server. Some modders knew people were in our server and banned our members from their servers. (was during the ATF mods scandal)

Wait a few days, next thing gone is the CRY RAPE category.

[EnabranTain]

I'm part of the "disappointed but not surprised" group. Several (most) of my stories use UA characters, and to be honest, that's part of why I came here to begin with. This is (or was) pretty much the only forum I found that didn't already have prohibitions against UA story content. But I don't feel bitter about it. I feel like I was lucky to have the opportunity to explore that space while I did.

Some stories can be altered of course, the UA characters simply given a boost to 18 or a clever lack of specificity that allows the reader to imagine what they want. However this simply does not work in so many cases. When the character's behavior and experience level, speech and emotional maturity, let alone their physical description, is consistent with a much younger age than 18... well there's just no way around that.

I understand why most people despise such stories and the fear that allowing such forums to exist could foster real harm against real people. I may not agree with that, but I don't blame anyone for trying to stop what they see as a genuine threat to children. And I don't blame the service providers for not wanting to be seen as defending child abusers.

I guess the next question then is, do we need to remove our own existing UA content? Is this just for stories going forward?

[rexmundi]

We do need some clarity on the age issue. From what I understand, the offending posts originated from here and not kristen's board which was also disabled. Their UA policy still stands at age 13 which is the youngest allowed. I wonder if Ravishu has been stuck with an 18 year minimum because this site is the one that triggered the German Morality Police?

None of this affects me personally because I am merely an admirer of the great authors here but not a writer myself. Still bothered by the principle of forcing content creators to delete or alter their works but the reality is that the continued existence of ravishu takes precedence over anything else.

[LtBroccoli]

Kristen's Board and this place are run on the same/similar accounts on the same hosting service, TMD.  Likely TMD got the takedown notice and applied it to the whole account instead of just this site.

But we definitely need some clarification going forward.

Nun Ich bin ein Deutscher User und muss dazu sagen das der Deutsche teil des Forums schon länger so gut wier Tot ist was underage Geschichten betrifft.

Dummerweise lernen Deutsche Kinder in der Schule Englisch und es gibt inzwischen auch gute Übersetzungsprogramme.

Es ist also nicht die Schuld der Deutsch Mitglieder sondern der Deutschen Regierung.
Well I am a German user and I have to say that the German part of the forum has been as good as dead for a long time when it comes to underage stories.

Unfortunately, German children learn English at school and there are now good translation programs.

So it is not the fault of the German members but the German government.

[spunkjunk]

It is significant that this dramatic encroachment on artistic freedoms comes from the country that has always been embarrassing.
I can hardly imagine how to comply with the restrictive wishes of the German authorities in the sum of the contributions.

To take the pressure off, and as a peace offering to big Brother:

I strongly suggest removing the "German stories" sector!!!!

I´m deeple depressed for this hassle and fear loosing this wonderfull board
greetings spunkjunk