> Isn't it rather melodramatic to call it illegal? It's just fiction. What kind of world would we live in if words became crimes?

Uhm, like, the world we live in now?
I dunno for other countries, but here's the Crime Code of Russian Federation:

Article 242.1. Making and Distribution of Materials or Objects with Pornographic Pictures
of Minors
1. Making, acquisition, storage and/or movement across the State Border of the Russian
Federation for the purpose of distribution, public demonstration or advertising, or distribution,
public demonstration or advertising of materials or objects with pornographic pictures of minorsshall
be punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of two to eight years with or
without deprivation of the right to hold definite offices or to engage in definite activities for a term
of up to fifteen years.

The article also has an appendix (actually two, but we're interested in the first one) that I couldn't find in English, so I'll try to translate it by myself:

Appendix 1. As "Materials or Objects with Pornographic Pictures of Minors" in this article and article 242.2 of thic Code should be understood materials and objects, including ANY DEPICTION [such as a drawing] OR DESCRIPTION [such as a story] in sexual purposes of:
- fully or partially bare sexual organs of a minor [feel like risking taking a picture of your baby in a bath and then trying to prove it wasn't in sexual purposes? YOU"RE A FUCKING PEDOPHILE AND SHOULD BURN IN HELL!L!LLLL!],
- a minor, performing OR IMITATING sexual intercourse of OTHER ACTIONS OF SEXUAL NATURE [you surely know that an air kiss is an imitation of a real kiss, which in turn is an action of sexual nature? I'm not even talking about hugs which involve actual physical contact. So if you're filming your child playing with other kids and they hug their friend or blow them an air kiss - BOOM - you've just made a child porn]
- a sexual intercourse or other actions of sexual nature, done to the minor or with his participation [naturally you can't hug or kiss your child by yourself either]
- ADULT, portraying a minor, performing or imitating sexual intercourse or other actions of sexual nature [and now you can't even roleplay with your legal wife dressing her as a schoolgirl... well at least you can't film it, because it would be considered child porn]

This is an actual acting fucking law. If you pretend it doesn't exist, it won't make you any more safe from it, quite the contrary.

I've also heard drawings of minors are considered to be child porn in USA too, though I didn't double check that part. Though I'm sure exhnentai, whatever country it is hosted in, hides behind a sad panda image not because they just feel like it.

> It seems odd that a web hosting service would even care what kind of content is on their websites. It would be easier and cheaper for them to have a policy of not worrying about that.


Such a policy usually says "we're not responsible for anything hosted on our servers" which means "please don't sue us if there's something illegal, give us a notice and we'll close that site right away".