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

[riffic]

> 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]

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.

[blackeyeblitzar]

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...

> 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.

[userbinator]

1969-07-20 might be a more memorable date to some people here.

1941-12-07 could be suitable for a Japanese site.

[resfirestar]

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]

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.

[minebreaker]

> A lot of Japanese illustrators were already treating it as an afterthought compared to X/Twitter

Citation needed.

Most Japanese illustrators do not care about the US/EU, and many of them even hate gaijins. If you haven't noticed, anti-Americanism is very strong on the Japanese internet.

[dotnet00]

I think they'll be fine, the main audience is still Japanese, and for now bypassing this is just a matter of changing an account setting (and Pixiv has required an account for NSFW for as long as I have known of it).

[nubinetwork]

Every site I know of in recent memory that has banned adult content, pretty much lost all their users. Not that there aren't a million sites for that kind of content already. They'll just find another site to post their doujins.

[jabroni_salad]

What I don't understand is how X hasn't pulled out the hammer like other western sites have. It seems weird to me that a Japanese site who is barely in the public eye would capitulate before X who has been under a lens since musk got on board.

In the recent happenings I saw plenty of illustrators get bounced back to X by moderators of fledgling platforms.

[_imnothere]

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

[qmarchi]

What would you rather us use? AMEX?

[blackeyeblitzar]

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-guid...

[kelipso]

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.

[Mountain_Skies]

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]

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]

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.

[qiqitori]

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]

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.

[kapildev]

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]

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.

[commandlinefan]

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]

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

[gjsman-1000]

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.

[vibero]

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.

[artninja1988]

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