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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   25265 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024

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Dispatches from the War on Horny/Payment Processors: the other shoe has dropped for Pixiv.

A year and a half ago, Pixiv made signs that they'd be clamping down on content on some of their services to appease Visa and MasterCard. Today, Pixiv announces that US and UK users will face restrictions on content they can upload. (Specific details here.)

Currently remains to be seen how much this affects the Western artists who are on Pixiv, but it doesn't bode well. Some think this portends a coming era of digital pillarization, and while I won't rule out the possibility that things will get so walled off that VPNs become a necessity, it's hard to say how likely that actually is.

EDIT: This may be the rationale for the change.

The discussion about payment processors earlier in the year included discussion of controversial topics (incest, bestiality, sexual exploitation of a minor, rape, non-consensual mutilation), and the change you link to today includes those.

However, the most recent announcement also says the restrictions are "to comply with regional laws", and includes much more general pornography:

  1. post any content that is obscene, illegal, unlawful, fraudulent, defamatory, libelous, abusive, lewd, invasive of personal privacy or publicity rights, harassing, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, or encourages conduct that would be considered a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability, violate any law, or is otherwise inappropriate.
  1. post any content that appeals to the prurient interest, is patently offensive in light of community standards where you are located or where such content may be accessed or distributed, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value, or otherwise violates any applicable obscenity laws, rules or regulations.

In other words: I don't think these most recent changes are driven by payment processors. I think they're being driven by states like Texas making hosting porn more legally fraught (i.e. the same thing that made Pornhub pull out of Texas).

I was sure the “lacking value” argument was specifically addressed in a U.S. Supreme Court case. Is this taken from the pixiv announcement?

Edit: it is, but in exactly the opposite way that I thought. Miller v CA.

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