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Dispatches from the War on Horny: Has the popular Japanese website Pixiv been colonized by the Western Social-Financial-Complex?
Today (well, yesterday as I write this), Pixiv announced that, in cooperation with Visa and MasterCard's policies (well, okay, they say "Brand Protections of Card Networks," but you probably know what that really means and which card networks they're referring to), they will be forbidding certain content from their Booth, Fanbox, and Request services--of note is "sexual exploitation of a minor." If you aren't already, sit down and get (un)comfortable, this is going to take some explaining.
Now, because of the recent Twitter shenanigans, you may have come across these blog posts by Matthew Skala and Ethan Zuckerman about Pawoo, Pixiv's Mastodon instance, and both its sheer popularity as well as how comfortable its userbase is with lolicon content (and how that makes other Mastodon instances chafe). Well, loli content is once again the source of conflict over at Pixiv, and the East-vs.-West dimension seems like it's also at play here.
The new guidelines seem tailor-made to ban loli and guro (AKA gore) content (which, as a reminder, is fictional art), with the former being, well, just plainly popular for what is likely a whole bunch of cultural reasons I can't get into here. While these guidelines focus on payment-based services that Pixiv provides (Booth is a storefront akin to Gumroad or Storenvy or Etsy, Fanbox is a subscription service akin to Patreon, and I presume Request is Pixiv's equivalent to Skeb, a website for commissioning artists), it's not inconceivable to think that this will sooner or later also apply to the regular art-sharing side of Pixiv, the main site itself.
While I can't really link to them (or at least the Sankaku article collating them), there's already some reactions from Japanese users suggesting that Pixiv will have a Tumblr Porn Ban situation on their hands, as users pre-emptively flee the site before they get kicked off and leave for competitors like Nijie (another art-sharing site) and Fantia (another subscription platform).
One other reaction has been to ask "why not avoid this conflict?", as Pixiv could either just not use Visa/MasterCard (like what competing site DMM did), or, more feasibly, implement workarounds like using points purchased with credit cards (like what DLSite and deviantArt do), or even adopt crypto payments. However, it's also likely that Pixiv is completely fine with this, and here's where things get spicy:
Oddly enough, a few months ago, Pixiv instituted DEI-type policies and sensitivity training, which I presume is quite the rare thing to see from a Japanese company. Now, without going way "beyond the wire" epistemically, it does seem like Pixiv has somehow picked up the Western memes of DEI and incorporated them. This likely made them more open to playing by the rules of Visa and MasterCard, not just on paper, but also spiritually. But, again, I don't want to get too into the weeds of cultural colonialism from the West--it could just be that Pixiv really wants the money that flows through the Visa/MC networks and aren't too willing to rock the boat on this matter. I don't think this is the newest form of imposed American hegemony on the Japanese way of life, like Commodore Perry or the post-WWII occupation and reforms (which arguably built the environment that allowed hentai and lolicon to emerge in the first place), but it kinda does feel like it. (Though see also)
There is certainly no shortage of culture-war red meat when it comes to the modern culture clash between America and Japan WRT general social justice issues, from how Japanese Twitter's trending tab was populated by politics and similar current events until Musk took over, to the aforementioned Mastodon/Pawoo conflict where both sides were of completely different mindsets, and the various controversies over censorship and localization with Crunchyroll's anime distribution and Sony's treatment of Japanese games.
And of course, I don't think I need to re-link articles about Visa vs. PornHub or Patreon restricting adult content or so on. You might already be familiar with how PayPal and the credit card companies basically ban porn and other adult content (citing its high risk of chargebacks), whether outright or through sheer inconvenience (there was a comment I saw recently about how a medium-tier/size payment processor for a porn site had to keep re-routing around damage in the form of network bans, plus also the little things like not being able to use PayPal for some sites and services). Financial deplatforming comes in second or third place to regular social media deplatforming in terms of how often it gets discussed, but it's not very far behind.
Just from the practical/ethical standpoint, PayPal, Visa, and MasterCard are so huge and dominant that they probably should just be common carriers, especially considering the non-NSFW areas where they have influence (namely speech and such; dissident shitposters and Russians are probably well-aware of this reality). PayPal can freeze your account and hold onto your money for no good reason (and you especially better hope they don't catch wind of you doing sex work or selling NSFW art commissions), and your only option is to enter arbitrage, if you can.
But there's also the poltical dimension of this: these three companies are part of the massive American/global financial hegemon, able to kick off actors and users at-will, whether they be lowly prostitutes or even entire countries. Having one large actor dominate much of the world's wealth is very likely bad on its own, but the pay-to-play ESG corporatism being used to draw the lines of social acceptability is extra-worrying. The anti-porn policies of 1st-world payment processing may be rooted in social conservatism, but they play nicely with the liberal-progressive strong-arming many worry about. For any country more worried about losing access to international money because they crossed some cultural or social red-line of the West, there are only three options: embrace crypto (and subject yourself to the non-stop boom-and-bust cycles it suffers from), voluntarily disconnect from the global finance system (with all the hard work that entails), or admit that we all live in America.
EDIT: Since this kicked off a whole sub-thread in response to Hlynka, I would just like to state for the record that while I don't really care for Lolicon at all, I am fully aware that it will likely not stop there, and even an otherwise vanilla-but-still-NSFW image might eventually not be allowed. Slippery slopes, Murder-Ghandis, "the line must be drawn here," "first they came for..." etc.
As probably the only person who will be bold enough to openly identify as an avowed pedophile (and hebephile, blah blah blah etc.; this post is already too long because of my natural penchant for tangents to get into the age-based sexuality ontology soup) in this conversation, I'll ask the fundamental question: Why go after lolicon at all? (I am basing this question on the many replies here along the lines of "Yeah I'm against censorship in general but this in particular is a good thing.")
We're going to masturbate to children, real and fictional.1 You know we are, and you can't stop us. We have been since the start of the Internet. The only ways that could realistically stop us would ruin society and technology for everyone else too (especially any dissidents).2
Wouldn't you rather it be the fictional ones, or at least more the fictional ones (for example, even if a pedo splits his time on 20% fictional/80% real children, wouldn't you rather it be that than 100% real)? It would be one thing if you really had managed to fully crack down on any sexualized content of real children online and fictional content was the only stuff left to police, but you haven't at all (not even the illegal stuff overall, and its legal counterpart far less). Do you really want us on Instagram instead of Pixiv? We can actually message the girls in the photos on there!
1. And, to make it clear up front and maybe forestall some of the pointless replies of a purely mindlessly emotionalized and moralistic character (usually marked ironically enough by the impotent and simplistic anger and disapproval characteristic of a child (not that I don't welcome angry and disapproving replies of an intellectual character more complex than "wtf die pedo", because I certainly do)) that this post will inevitably receive, a lot of you have masturbated to them too, unknowingly (or perhaps half-knowingly, deep down) or not, especially if you define "child" as anyone under the age of 18 (unless you are a major, dedicated, and unwavering MILF fetishist who never spares a single glance for any erotic content labeled "teen" of any variety ever, which realistically we all know most of us aren't).3
(That is, among other implications of the above, I often if not usually get quite a few PMs along the lines of "I'd never be bold enough to admit it publicly like you but I'm always masturbating to lolicon/child "models"/junior "idols"/"jailbait" [or younger]/etc. online too [with stuff like 'and I feel bad about it and you're the first similar person I've come across online discussing it' often appended]." from other users after I make posts like these on forums, just so you all know.)
(So, again, if you're planning on responding to this post with (also again, pointless and impotent (as I guarantee you that, as someone who used old early/mid-2000s 4chan in his tender years, you will not wound me with your words on a screen)) wrath, perhaps you might as well not bother knowing how many other worthy targets there are out there immune via stealth in any case to your "righteous" crusading. You'll only be weakly attacking one visible target, with many more flying under your radar, I assure you.)
(I also point this out to remind all readers that any "consensus" on something so taboo, with so much social coercion, pressure, and shaming applied, is always inherently fake or at least unverifiable (similarly to, and in a similar manner using similar methods, the "consensus" on "just being a decent fucking human being [and 'respecting' people's 'gender identities', acknowledging that 'Black Lives Matter', not 'policing' women's bodies, etc.]!" that woke advocates allege with similar slogans, just even stronger because it's bipartisan).)
2. That is, as pointed out by many others in this subthread, say goodbye to anything that isn't Cathedral-approved because they will gladly use the same censorship techniques on all of it (after promising you that they won't and they're just targeting the "worst of the worst" that you disapprove of too). In fact, though it's not widely known and thus not widely remarked upon, Big Tech to a large degree honed and perfected its early censorship techniques, long before it was seen as censorious by anyone, on pedophilic content (as I personally witnessed/experienced, that gradual realization that the website/computer was explicitly lying to you to hide things, again long before it applied politically).
Back when the "algorithm" was actually fully honest, there were regularly underage girls shaking their assets all over the front page, trending section, etc. of YouTube, for example (because they're a lot more popular than anyone wants to admit). Cleaning that situation up was, I believe, Big Tech's actual first foray into manipulating the narrative. And look where it's led. Why think it can't happen again and more?
3. This is in reference to all of the (100% verified, ages on their Instagrams with proof like dated photos from their 12th, 13th, etc. birthday(s) (though of course those ages are rarely spread alongside their content)) underage girls whose photos and TikToks in skimpy miniskirts, bikinis, etc. are stealthily spread all over porn sites, Reddit, etc., as if it were 18+ content.
(Though I don't think "normies" actually care as much as they pretend to if a girl on their screen really is 18+, as long as she's hot, especially since some of these girls, despite their bodies/presentation, still have obviously pretty neotenous faces.
(There's also probably/certainly some element of deluding themselves involved too though, something perhaps like "I'm sexually attracted to her, someone who is sexually attracted to underage girls is a bad person, and I'm not a bad person, so she can't be underage." For example, I've had people still straight up deny that a girl they find attractive is underage after linking them her 12th birthday celebration Instagram post on her official account clearly dated from 2 years ago.))
The "I'm actually very confident and inevitable!!" insistence rings a bit hollow when the only thing you end up actually expressing is the same set of stock excuses every guilty man craps out to talk others out of punishing him. "W-wait, they're coming for you next!!" isn't a convincing case when some weakman bluehairs use it to justify freeing convicted rapists to prevent repressive capitalist state apparatus from destroying the global working class, and it's even less convincing from a "guy" who doesn't even have enough balls to directly defend those perversions he loudly pretends to believe aren't a big deal. You're not "bold," you're a basic degenerate e-begging for just enough reluctant validation to avoid the (entirely correct) conclusion that he must soon apply millstone to neck, and that you have to do it by fearmongering the board into adopting a position of political and organizational impotence, before the fear that their enemies might possibly challenge them to control some expression of political power, should make that much plain. I doubt that big spiel about "le moralism" must be a big comfort to someone who spends his life running like a roach to hide under the fridge whenever someone turns the lights on, but I guess I really can't expect much better; after all, being a pathetic manipulator is the evergreen face of noncery.
In your heart, you know it's right.
This is pure namecalling.
I gave the OP some slack for taking an unpopular (to put it mildly) position, and I'll give his critics some slack because it's obviously an extremely emotive topic, but you still don't have a license to ignore the rules and be as antagonistic as you want just because you really hate what someone is expressing.
No, it's not pure namecalling, I pointed to a specific substantive and conduct problem with OP while namecalling him: It's one thing if some honest ignorant person really doesn't get that pedophilia is wrong, it's another if the main thrust of a person's post (history, based on some comments on another thread) amounts to flaunting his pedophilia and making vague allusions to auxiliary issues for plausible deniability. I don't plan to revisit this issue outside of complaints to staff, but it's extremely hard to understand why you think namecalling is the problem next to that.
Well, next time leave the namecalling out.
Because we don't allow namecalling. You are allowed to criticize people's behavior and beliefs. You are not allowed to personally insult them. Yes, that even applies to pedophiles, Nazis, tankies, wokes, Bills fans, and whoever else you hate the most with a pure and righteous hate. If you cannot engage without personal attacks, do not engage.
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