Apparently ao3 Google search results are being blocked in Germany? There are some Reddit and Tumblr posts about it.
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Oh dear.
A URL that otherwise would have appeared in response to your search was not displayed because that URL was reported as illegal under German youth protection laws.
Ah. I’m guessing AO3 was indexed. Annoying, but not unexpected. I was wondering when they would get around to doing that; after all, it has all that Badwrong™ porn on it.
By the way, ‘indexing’ in this context means:
The [Federal Review Board for Media Harmful to Minors (BPjM)] module registers the indexed URLs disseminated from abroad, though it is no independent filter programme. The module can be integrated as a blacklist into user-autonomous filter programmes. The Federal Review Board provides the module for manufacturers of user-autonomous filter programmes.
Within the scope of a voluntary commitment, the German search engine providers which have teamed up under the auspices of the FSM have agreed upon blocking websites indexed by the BPjM.
— Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons
Meaning indexed foreign websites are still accessible from Germany, but not allowed to be advertised.
Damn it, Germany!
Okay so I am in Germany and probably would not have noticed this if it hadn’t been pointed out to me because DuckDuckGo apparently doesn’t care, but I got curious.
Google results for ‘archive of our own’ will give me, in order:
– the wikipedia page for ao3
– the website of the organization for transformative works
– and then various soc med sites like redditOkay, so far so fair, but then I wanted to know what plops up when you google ‘fanfiction’, and one of the top sites was this:
Which seems to be a german fanfic archive. They also have an app on the google store. They say they run ads and you can also support them by buying a membership and paying monthly membership fees. They mention German youth protection laws on the site and how legal guardians can implement filtering for their kids. They are run by:
There is no direct link to the ideafactory website on fanfiktion.de, and the website itself is really bare. They apparently run a russian fanfic archive too, and they offer internships, but I cannot find what type of legal entity they are registered at, only that they are run by three dudes and where they are registered. That might just be me being bad at research, though, so if any fellow germans want to help me out?
I have zero memory of who runs that one, but hasn’t it been around for ages?
There’s even a Fanlore page. If you find anything interesting that isn’t already there, add it.
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