8 ms·

Pixiv Blocks Adult Content, but Only for US and UK Users

72 points by kradeelav 2y ago

commandlinefan 2y ago
I've been thinking all my adult life that, eventually, society has _got_ to get more reasonable about the human body but... there doesn't seem to be any evidence that we're getting anywhere close anytime soon.
- bluefirebrand 2y ago
  I am friends with some artists who do some NSFW content and they feel they are just being strangled off of the internet at this point Even ones that are just looking for a place to have easy hosting and sharing of images are being pushed off of more and more sites
  - SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
    I’m actually quite optimistic about this! Yes! Push the porn to the “dark web”. Make it a pain in the ass. Ask for ID. Go all out!! …because… this is how we’ll get a free internet again. This is how we’ll get real encrypted networks. This is how we go back to the good internet - except - it’s going to be harder to remove the bad stuff. But this is what they’re doing. Strangling themselves with faux-morality and New Puritan complaintism. So I’ll take the good effect of an internet that isn’t controlled by 6 companies with the bad that some people may say or do things I don’t like.
    - bluefirebrand 2y ago
      The problem is that "the internet" is still a series of connected physical cables and some entities do in fact control those. They can push off people who are using encryption they don't like or serving content they don't like, if push comes to shove And for the specific people who are trying to make a living through selling smut, payment providers are making their lives hell
      - genewitch 2y ago
        there's gotta be millions of USB wifi dongles sitting in cabinets and drawers around the globe. a couple "do-ers" with high chimneys can start backhauling for their neighborhood. Mirror wikipedia, podcasts, music, books, etc. The issue becomes "on demand" video stuff, which i haven't put a lot of effort into figuring out, because if i set something like this up the video would all be programmed for 720p+ and only 360p would be available on demand. When the power goes out for multiple weeks, it doesn't affect me at all, entertainment wise. in a "oops all censored" future dystopia, i'd make sure my neighbors could access entertainment, even if it's self-serving for mine own self.
    - dotnet00 2y ago
      That sounds nice, but in the short term, many of these sites are causing people to risk losing their source of income. So many sites have had to crack down on NSFW content due to the payment processor cartels threatening to cut them off, and while theoretically they have alternative options for taking payments, in practice they don't, because most people are not going to jump through the hoops of mailing in a cheque or buying crypto just for an NSFW art commission. To some this might not really feel like much of a loss, but since the payment processors are maliciously vague about where they draw the line, companies often overreact and also threaten artists whose most NSFW art might be a character in swimwear.
    - miki123211 2y ago
      Not if the only computing platform you have is a walled-garden smartphone with parental spyware. The only reason we had a free internet in the first place was because we had free computers. Many people no longer have free computers. It's not just the App Stores that are at fault here, almost unbeatable screen time[1] protections, limited mobile APIs, battery usage optimizations and carrier-grade NATs also matter here. Hosting video is extremely expensive. Either you fund it with ads, which is hard for porn, with subscriptions, which is impossible because of Visa/Mastercard rules, with cryptocurrencies, which are easy to ban as per above, or you offload the cost to P2P, but smartphones are effectively barred from participating in P2P networks due to the above reasons. This is also a major driver behind the fall of piracy. Piracy is easy if everybody has an always-on device with a stable internet connection and a good power source. This is no longer the case. [1] By "Screen Time" I mean Apple's comprehensive suite of tools for device access restrictions, both for owners and children. These restrictions don't just concern screen time, they may also prohibit certain apps (or categories of apps) entirely. The point is not restricted to Apple, similar solutions exist for Android, and they give even more power to the parents due to the system's open nature.
      - colinsane 2y ago
        i'm typing my reply on a Linux mobile phone (NixOS + SXMO). it's true i don't run p2p stuff on the phone, but most utilities like 'transmission-remote' and NFS mounts, cryptocurrency wallets etc work OOTB such that if you can figure it out on a PC you can figure it out on a phone. no, not accessible to a layperson. but increasingly accessible to anyone who's comfortable with desktop Linux.
    - anigbrowl 2y ago
      …because… this is how we’ll get a free internet again. X to doubt. You can do this now but it's limited to people with technical skills, and once you have figured out torrent trackers or TOR or whatever it is you're interested in, there isn't that much incentive to radically improve the tooling to make it more consumer friendly. If nothing else having it require some work insulates you from Eternal September. The less work it is, the easier it is for cops and politicians to whip up a moral panic about.
      - SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
        You're definitely pointing out a real problem, but I will say, back in the day when Netflix didn't exist, even some of my most technically and intellectually challenged friends would figure out stuff that now seems to confuse people who present as above-average in tech literacy. The will to do somrthing, and a social network that shares information count for a lot more than people seem to think.
        SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
        This is double true for the effort people would put into getting porn.
        autoexec 2y ago
        I agree, in the old days the barrier to access to porn and getting games installed and working inspired a lot of people to get into tech. Maybe when people have to work a little harder to get access to the media they want it will lead to a new generation of tech savvy folks and another wave of innovation.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  Define “reasonable.” Do we treat the human body closer to that of animal? If so, why is cannibalism a crime? Animals rape, why should humans not, if we are just animals? If we reject that and say that a human has dignity that an animal or a plant does not; why should a dignified creature act as a beast? Who is to say that this dignity cannot extend to the sexual sphere in dress and conduct? We already accept this. Just because an animal rapes, does not preclude permanently imprisoning a human, solely for violating that dignity. It follows then, what is suitable for animals, is in no way a certain or relevant guide for how humans should behave. This is not even necessarily a religious point. One of the most-banned pieces of material by the Chinese Firewall is not material that opposes the government - but porn, which is illegal there despite being an avowedly atheist society. Japan was never a Christian society, but their censorship practices for porn are well known.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- vibero 2y ago
  Did you read this section of the article: > The restrictions include several kinds of content that are illegal in the US, including sexualized depictions of minors and bestiality, as well as non-consensual depictions and deepfakes. This has nothing to do with being "more reasonable about the human body", as you euphemistically put it.
  - red003 2y ago
    Pornographers are disgusting people hiding behind fake principles.
_23sd 2y ago
I could see this being really bad for the site. A lot of Japanese illustrators were already treating it as an afterthought compared to X/Twitter, and if the new terms actively make Pixiv worse for artists in the rest of the world then its importance could decline even further.
- spaceribs 2y ago
  The change of making it harder or shutting off access just pushes people to reroute their behavior, moving large segments of the market into non-transparent (and non-taxable) crypto, further expanding the use of VPNs, and decentralizing the means of publishing and posting materials. The side effects of prohibitions are about as predictable as these moral crusades.
  - schoen 2y ago
    People have said for decades that governments can't control Internet content because people will help each other circumvent the restrictions by technical means. I've found that very inspiring and have personally tried to join in. But I notice (maybe especially on this day of the TikTok ban) that lots of people at least sometimes sympathize with the idea that the governments have good reasons to restrict information. And not that many people anywhere have ever used censorship circumvention technologies. So you might say "the more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers" or something, but the cultural will and momentum to work around Internet-balkanizing measures is ... not that massive and not that universal. I don't mean to say that people working around geographic blocking doesn't happen ... it does to some noticeable extent at least for licensed streaming, for gambling, and for porn. But I guess significant majorities typically say "oh well!" and accept restrictions as the new normal.
    - vonwoodson 2y ago
      Yeah, the TikTok ban isn't about restricting content for US users, it's about restricting the data vacuum that is the PRC. TikTok has already been banned for Govmnt employees for years. And, for good reason. Sometimes, we have to remind ourselves that our government is not the bad guy. The bad guys are the bad guys; and those bad guys aren't often bad to their own kind.
riffic 2y ago
> users whose account region is set to the US or UK there seems to be a really simple workaround unless I'm missing something. By the way if a website asks me for my date / year of birth it's always 1969 because why the fuck not? specifically 1969-12-31
- omoikane 2y ago
  I appreciate Pixiv letting users set their preferred region and actually respecting that setting, unlike Twitter which ignores the user's "country" setting and do all ad targeting using GeoIP instead.
  - livueta 2y ago
    It's especially nice given that a fair number of Japanese websites are aggressive about blocking foreign registrations even to the extent of blacklisting known VPN nodes. First thing I did upon reading this headline was confirming that my actually-created-in-Japan account hadn't ever had its location setting autoupdated by geoip.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  It may not be enough in the future. The problem is every little incremental change like “giving in” to block content by region ends up welcoming the next incremental step in that direction. Other countries and regions may now apply the same pressure on Pixiv. Some might call this the slippery slope fallacy but it’s exactly how most political battles play out. In terms of geographies - one thing I read about recently is how various “online safety czars” from countries are coordinating in groups that may soon have the power to implement global content restrictions (censorship) that respect each other’s local requests on a global scale. See this article: https://public.substack.com/p/cia-recruit-is-pursuing-global-internet https://public.substack.com/p/cia-recruit-is-pursuing-global... > At the World Economic Forum, Inman Grant said she had launched a global censorship body called “the Global Online Safety Regulators Network” to unify governments around censorship “So that we could have a form to help us coordinate, build capacity and do just that.
  - 2y ago
artninja1988 2y ago
Is this the same news outlet that got on civit.ai and stabilities case for being "complicit" in unsavory generated pornography? Odd that there's a different slant to this story
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
I don’t get the recent moral fight against adult content. Not just in terms of illustrations or graphical novels as described here, but also other recent developments like identity verification laws for porn, or laws against AI-generated content (like deepfakes). We all have imaginations. People fantasize about their partner, or celebrities, or someone they are interested in. It’s normal. It’s just thought and expression. So what is wrong with people sharing their real (pornographic) or fake (digital) version of all this? On deepfakes or generative content, I can see it being misleading or defamatory perhaps, but if it is explicitly marked as content that is not real, is it really a bad thing or a problem? I feel like it’s just someone’s thoughts but in shareable form. What makes it different from artistic expression or satire, really? Isn’t ALL of this just the same old moralistic outrage? One interesting part of this article is where it mentions the Miller Test, and it links to this page about US laws on obscenity - which to me mostly seem to be violations of constitutional rights on free speech and expression: https://www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-ceos/citizens-guide-us-federal-law-obscenity?ref=404media.co https://www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-ceos/citizens-guid...
- kelipso 2y ago
  There's been wider awareness of how pornography is harmful to boys especially, and also to men. The drive to restrict pornography from children and relegation of pornography to seedier parts of the internet makes complete sense as a response to this.
  - k12sosse 2y ago
    [dead]
  - kaycey2022 2y ago
    It’s unfortunate you are being downvoted. Porn is very harmful indeed. I can’t think of any benefit in it being normalised. Maybe the defence of porn is motivated by the fact that other violent forms of expression have already been normalised. But I don’t see how that takes away from the dangers, access to porn presents for significant numbers of young men. People who express themselves through the creation of panoramic material can find their efforts using crypto anyway.
_imnothere 2y ago
Never forget it's about VISA and MasterCard, vote with your wallet.
- qmarchi 2y ago
  What would you rather us use? AMEX?
  - genewitch 2y ago
    some cryptocurrency, i guess
  - methou 2y ago
    JCB
Mountain_Skies 2y ago
Interesting to see many of the people who cheered this type of thing when people with ideological views that don't align with their own got shut out of the financial system now are upset that similar tactics are being used against them or content they like. They were even warned that this type of thing would end up used against them but they were sure we were in a new age where only one way of thinking would be permitted and that way would be their way. Turns out these tools can be weaponized against those who promoted them coming into existence. Doctor Frankenstein would be amused it still happens.
- 0dayz 2y ago
  The difference is that this is self inflicted by pixiv, as neither USA nor the UK has demanded this. However, you can certainly complain about the obscenity laws these countries have, which you know predates the internet.
- red003 2y ago
  I feel like most of these efforts are directed at MindGeek with artwork sites being innocent bystanders. If I was conspiratorial, I might wonder if MindGeek wants to keep the narrative focused on victimless artwork instead of their human trafficking.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
kapildev 2y ago
Does anyone know why companies like VISA and Mastercard try to distance themselves from NSFW websites? Is it because there is a large group of people that try to punish these companies when they engage with these companies? If not, why would they try to give up money they would otherwise make easily?
- swatcoder 2y ago
  Mostly: unwanted consumer behavior. Refunds and chargebacks are horrific in certain industries, and it's just not worth it to participate. Long ago, there was also a principled moralist influence among some board members but the financial world has become so large and purely capital-centric that principles have a hard time fighting the wind, no matter whose they are and what position they stand for.
qiqitori 2y ago
Heh, most commenters here are way off-base IMO, and IMO the real reason is hinted at in the article. Notably, there are categories of adult content that are illegal in the US and UK, but not in Japan. Based on something that very recently happened to someone I know in the UK, I think it is likely that Pixiv was compelled to hand over information on users who were looking at illegal-in-UK stuff. Perhaps Pixiv has gotten tired of doing that.
- cpthammer 2y ago
  The article is incorrect about categories of adult content being illegal in the US. The cited Miller Test has been used to justify bans of real life photography, but the supreme court has allowed first amendment protections for works of art that objectively do not cause harm by their production, which necessarily includes drawings like those on pixiv.

72 points by kradeelav 2y ago

I've been thinking all my adult life that, eventually, society has _got_ to get more reasonable about the human body but... there doesn't seem to be any evidence that we're getting anywhere close anytime soon.

bluefirebrand 2y ago
I am friends with some artists who do some NSFW content and they feel they are just being strangled off of the internet at this point Even ones that are just looking for a place to have easy hosting and sharing of images are being pushed off of more and more sites
- SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
  I’m actually quite optimistic about this! Yes! Push the porn to the “dark web”. Make it a pain in the ass. Ask for ID. Go all out!! …because… this is how we’ll get a free internet again. This is how we’ll get real encrypted networks. This is how we go back to the good internet - except - it’s going to be harder to remove the bad stuff. But this is what they’re doing. Strangling themselves with faux-morality and New Puritan complaintism. So I’ll take the good effect of an internet that isn’t controlled by 6 companies with the bad that some people may say or do things I don’t like.
  - bluefirebrand 2y ago
    The problem is that "the internet" is still a series of connected physical cables and some entities do in fact control those. They can push off people who are using encryption they don't like or serving content they don't like, if push comes to shove And for the specific people who are trying to make a living through selling smut, payment providers are making their lives hell
    - genewitch 2y ago
      there's gotta be millions of USB wifi dongles sitting in cabinets and drawers around the globe. a couple "do-ers" with high chimneys can start backhauling for their neighborhood. Mirror wikipedia, podcasts, music, books, etc. The issue becomes "on demand" video stuff, which i haven't put a lot of effort into figuring out, because if i set something like this up the video would all be programmed for 720p+ and only 360p would be available on demand. When the power goes out for multiple weeks, it doesn't affect me at all, entertainment wise. in a "oops all censored" future dystopia, i'd make sure my neighbors could access entertainment, even if it's self-serving for mine own self.
  - dotnet00 2y ago
    That sounds nice, but in the short term, many of these sites are causing people to risk losing their source of income. So many sites have had to crack down on NSFW content due to the payment processor cartels threatening to cut them off, and while theoretically they have alternative options for taking payments, in practice they don't, because most people are not going to jump through the hoops of mailing in a cheque or buying crypto just for an NSFW art commission. To some this might not really feel like much of a loss, but since the payment processors are maliciously vague about where they draw the line, companies often overreact and also threaten artists whose most NSFW art might be a character in swimwear.
  - miki123211 2y ago
    Not if the only computing platform you have is a walled-garden smartphone with parental spyware. The only reason we had a free internet in the first place was because we had free computers. Many people no longer have free computers. It's not just the App Stores that are at fault here, almost unbeatable screen time[1] protections, limited mobile APIs, battery usage optimizations and carrier-grade NATs also matter here. Hosting video is extremely expensive. Either you fund it with ads, which is hard for porn, with subscriptions, which is impossible because of Visa/Mastercard rules, with cryptocurrencies, which are easy to ban as per above, or you offload the cost to P2P, but smartphones are effectively barred from participating in P2P networks due to the above reasons. This is also a major driver behind the fall of piracy. Piracy is easy if everybody has an always-on device with a stable internet connection and a good power source. This is no longer the case. [1] By "Screen Time" I mean Apple's comprehensive suite of tools for device access restrictions, both for owners and children. These restrictions don't just concern screen time, they may also prohibit certain apps (or categories of apps) entirely. The point is not restricted to Apple, similar solutions exist for Android, and they give even more power to the parents due to the system's open nature.
    - colinsane 2y ago
      i'm typing my reply on a Linux mobile phone (NixOS + SXMO). it's true i don't run p2p stuff on the phone, but most utilities like 'transmission-remote' and NFS mounts, cryptocurrency wallets etc work OOTB such that if you can figure it out on a PC you can figure it out on a phone. no, not accessible to a layperson. but increasingly accessible to anyone who's comfortable with desktop Linux.
  - anigbrowl 2y ago
    …because… this is how we’ll get a free internet again. X to doubt. You can do this now but it's limited to people with technical skills, and once you have figured out torrent trackers or TOR or whatever it is you're interested in, there isn't that much incentive to radically improve the tooling to make it more consumer friendly. If nothing else having it require some work insulates you from Eternal September. The less work it is, the easier it is for cops and politicians to whip up a moral panic about.
    - SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
      You're definitely pointing out a real problem, but I will say, back in the day when Netflix didn't exist, even some of my most technically and intellectually challenged friends would figure out stuff that now seems to confuse people who present as above-average in tech literacy. The will to do somrthing, and a social network that shares information count for a lot more than people seem to think.
      - SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
        This is double true for the effort people would put into getting porn.
      - autoexec 2y ago
        I agree, in the old days the barrier to access to porn and getting games installed and working inspired a lot of people to get into tech. Maybe when people have to work a little harder to get access to the media they want it will lead to a new generation of tech savvy folks and another wave of innovation.
gjsman-1000 2y ago
Define “reasonable.” Do we treat the human body closer to that of animal? If so, why is cannibalism a crime? Animals rape, why should humans not, if we are just animals? If we reject that and say that a human has dignity that an animal or a plant does not; why should a dignified creature act as a beast? Who is to say that this dignity cannot extend to the sexual sphere in dress and conduct? We already accept this. Just because an animal rapes, does not preclude permanently imprisoning a human, solely for violating that dignity. It follows then, what is suitable for animals, is in no way a certain or relevant guide for how humans should behave. This is not even necessarily a religious point. One of the most-banned pieces of material by the Chinese Firewall is not material that opposes the government - but porn, which is illegal there despite being an avowedly atheist society. Japan was never a Christian society, but their censorship practices for porn are well known.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
vibero 2y ago
Did you read this section of the article: > The restrictions include several kinds of content that are illegal in the US, including sexualized depictions of minors and bestiality, as well as non-consensual depictions and deepfakes. This has nothing to do with being "more reasonable about the human body", as you euphemistically put it.
- red003 2y ago
  Pornographers are disgusting people hiding behind fake principles.

_23sd 2y ago

I could see this being really bad for the site. A lot of Japanese illustrators were already treating it as an afterthought compared to X/Twitter, and if the new terms actively make Pixiv worse for artists in the rest of the world then its importance could decline even further.

spaceribs 2y ago
The change of making it harder or shutting off access just pushes people to reroute their behavior, moving large segments of the market into non-transparent (and non-taxable) crypto, further expanding the use of VPNs, and decentralizing the means of publishing and posting materials. The side effects of prohibitions are about as predictable as these moral crusades.
- schoen 2y ago
  People have said for decades that governments can't control Internet content because people will help each other circumvent the restrictions by technical means. I've found that very inspiring and have personally tried to join in. But I notice (maybe especially on this day of the TikTok ban) that lots of people at least sometimes sympathize with the idea that the governments have good reasons to restrict information. And not that many people anywhere have ever used censorship circumvention technologies. So you might say "the more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers" or something, but the cultural will and momentum to work around Internet-balkanizing measures is ... not that massive and not that universal. I don't mean to say that people working around geographic blocking doesn't happen ... it does to some noticeable extent at least for licensed streaming, for gambling, and for porn. But I guess significant majorities typically say "oh well!" and accept restrictions as the new normal.
  - vonwoodson 2y ago
    Yeah, the TikTok ban isn't about restricting content for US users, it's about restricting the data vacuum that is the PRC. TikTok has already been banned for Govmnt employees for years. And, for good reason. Sometimes, we have to remind ourselves that our government is not the bad guy. The bad guys are the bad guys; and those bad guys aren't often bad to their own kind.

riffic 2y ago

> users whose account region is set to the US or UK there seems to be a really simple workaround unless I'm missing something. By the way if a website asks me for my date / year of birth it's always 1969 because why the fuck not? specifically 1969-12-31

omoikane 2y ago
I appreciate Pixiv letting users set their preferred region and actually respecting that setting, unlike Twitter which ignores the user's "country" setting and do all ad targeting using GeoIP instead.
- livueta 2y ago
  It's especially nice given that a fair number of Japanese websites are aggressive about blocking foreign registrations even to the extent of blacklisting known VPN nodes. First thing I did upon reading this headline was confirming that my actually-created-in-Japan account hadn't ever had its location setting autoupdated by geoip.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
It may not be enough in the future. The problem is every little incremental change like “giving in” to block content by region ends up welcoming the next incremental step in that direction. Other countries and regions may now apply the same pressure on Pixiv. Some might call this the slippery slope fallacy but it’s exactly how most political battles play out. In terms of geographies - one thing I read about recently is how various “online safety czars” from countries are coordinating in groups that may soon have the power to implement global content restrictions (censorship) that respect each other’s local requests on a global scale. See this article: https://public.substack.com/p/cia-recruit-is-pursuing-global-internet https://public.substack.com/p/cia-recruit-is-pursuing-global... > At the World Economic Forum, Inman Grant said she had launched a global censorship body called “the Global Online Safety Regulators Network” to unify governments around censorship “So that we could have a form to help us coordinate, build capacity and do just that.
- 2y ago

artninja1988 2y ago

Is this the same news outlet that got on civit.ai and stabilities case for being "complicit" in unsavory generated pornography? Odd that there's a different slant to this story

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

I don’t get the recent moral fight against adult content. Not just in terms of illustrations or graphical novels as described here, but also other recent developments like identity verification laws for porn, or laws against AI-generated content (like deepfakes). We all have imaginations. People fantasize about their partner, or celebrities, or someone they are interested in. It’s normal. It’s just thought and expression. So what is wrong with people sharing their real (pornographic) or fake (digital) version of all this? On deepfakes or generative content, I can see it being misleading or defamatory perhaps, but if it is explicitly marked as content that is not real, is it really a bad thing or a problem? I feel like it’s just someone’s thoughts but in shareable form. What makes it different from artistic expression or satire, really? Isn’t ALL of this just the same old moralistic outrage? One interesting part of this article is where it mentions the Miller Test, and it links to this page about US laws on obscenity - which to me mostly seem to be violations of constitutional rights on free speech and expression: https://www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-ceos/citizens-guide-us-federal-law-obscenity?ref=404media.co https://www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-ceos/citizens-guid...

kelipso 2y ago
There's been wider awareness of how pornography is harmful to boys especially, and also to men. The drive to restrict pornography from children and relegation of pornography to seedier parts of the internet makes complete sense as a response to this.
- k12sosse 2y ago
  [dead]
- kaycey2022 2y ago
  It’s unfortunate you are being downvoted. Porn is very harmful indeed. I can’t think of any benefit in it being normalised. Maybe the defence of porn is motivated by the fact that other violent forms of expression have already been normalised. But I don’t see how that takes away from the dangers, access to porn presents for significant numbers of young men. People who express themselves through the creation of panoramic material can find their efforts using crypto anyway.

_imnothere 2y ago

Never forget it's about VISA and MasterCard, vote with your wallet.

qmarchi 2y ago
What would you rather us use? AMEX?
- genewitch 2y ago
  some cryptocurrency, i guess
- methou 2y ago
  JCB

Mountain_Skies 2y ago

Interesting to see many of the people who cheered this type of thing when people with ideological views that don't align with their own got shut out of the financial system now are upset that similar tactics are being used against them or content they like. They were even warned that this type of thing would end up used against them but they were sure we were in a new age where only one way of thinking would be permitted and that way would be their way. Turns out these tools can be weaponized against those who promoted them coming into existence. Doctor Frankenstein would be amused it still happens.

0dayz 2y ago
The difference is that this is self inflicted by pixiv, as neither USA nor the UK has demanded this. However, you can certainly complain about the obscenity laws these countries have, which you know predates the internet.
red003 2y ago
I feel like most of these efforts are directed at MindGeek with artwork sites being innocent bystanders. If I was conspiratorial, I might wonder if MindGeek wants to keep the narrative focused on victimless artwork instead of their human trafficking.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

kapildev 2y ago

Does anyone know why companies like VISA and Mastercard try to distance themselves from NSFW websites? Is it because there is a large group of people that try to punish these companies when they engage with these companies? If not, why would they try to give up money they would otherwise make easily?

swatcoder 2y ago
Mostly: unwanted consumer behavior. Refunds and chargebacks are horrific in certain industries, and it's just not worth it to participate. Long ago, there was also a principled moralist influence among some board members but the financial world has become so large and purely capital-centric that principles have a hard time fighting the wind, no matter whose they are and what position they stand for.

qiqitori 2y ago

Heh, most commenters here are way off-base IMO, and IMO the real reason is hinted at in the article. Notably, there are categories of adult content that are illegal in the US and UK, but not in Japan. Based on something that very recently happened to someone I know in the UK, I think it is likely that Pixiv was compelled to hand over information on users who were looking at illegal-in-UK stuff. Perhaps Pixiv has gotten tired of doing that.

cpthammer 2y ago
The article is incorrect about categories of adult content being illegal in the US. The cited Miller Test has been used to justify bans of real life photography, but the supreme court has allowed first amendment protections for works of art that objectively do not cause harm by their production, which necessarily includes drawings like those on pixiv.