[0:00] I have some great news to cover today.
[0:01] So this morning, this news right here by
[0:03] Fantia came out, which you could see on
[0:05] screen. And this is them announcing that
[0:07] they are fully withdrawing their
[0:09] censorship guidelines that they
[0:11] announced over a month ago. For those
[0:13] that have no idea what's going on here
[0:14] and need a brief rundown, let me give
[0:16] you the lore. So basically about a month
[0:18] ago, this is a site that was very well
[0:21] known for having artists being able to
[0:22] be paid on it, artists to be able to
[0:24] post their artwork. It's been around for
[0:25] a very long time. It is a very big site
[0:28] for artists to be able to, you know,
[0:29] showcase their skills and be able to
[0:31] make money off of it. And so, out of
[0:34] nowhere, Fantaia overnight introduced
[0:36] new guidelines that said that if you do
[0:38] not retroactively censor all of your
[0:41] artwork and pretty much blackbox
[0:43] anything that might be NSFW, there is a
[0:45] possibility besides just your account
[0:46] getting suspended and you no longer
[0:48] being able to make money and all your
[0:49] artwork being lost, you might be
[0:51] reported to the authorities. I'm not
[0:53] even joking. And this caused obviously a
[0:54] cascading effect to where thousands upon
[0:57] thousands of artists on their site,
[0:58] Japanese artists in general, to
[0:59] basically leave the site. And there was
[1:01] many ways they did this. Either a they
[1:03] just stopped posting because they were
[1:04] fearful of these guidelines and didn't
[1:06] even know how to tackle them. Some tried
[1:08] to actually tackle these new guidelines
[1:10] by retroactively censoring their old
[1:12] work, and we'll talk about that in a
[1:13] second. And when others decided to go
[1:15] the nuclear route and just delete their
[1:17] entire account for they don't actually
[1:19] have to worry about potentially any
[1:20] issues arising to where might they might
[1:22] get debanked, they might get reported to
[1:24] authorities or something like that. It
[1:25] caused a lot of fear, a lot of panic and
[1:28] basically the site took a massive hit.
[1:30] And now one of the big discussions
[1:32] around the entire topic of what was
[1:33] going on with Fantia and I covered this
[1:35] over a month ago. The big thing that
[1:37] came up was that it's most likely
[1:39] payment processors or banks to some
[1:41] degree because this is a story that we
[1:43] see over and over and over again that
[1:46] you have like payment processors like
[1:47] Visa, Mastercard, even PayPal and even
[1:50] banks even some Japanese banks too kind
[1:52] of listening in from the western side of
[1:54] banks in the world basically forcing
[1:56] creators, artists and stuff to censor
[1:58] themselves. So that seemed like the
[2:00] actual logical conclusion on what was
[2:02] going on and why this happened to begin
[2:04] with. However, with a little bit more
[2:06] information coming out, we come to find
[2:07] out apparently one of the big driving
[2:09] factors that was basically getting this
[2:12] guideline change from Fantia that was
[2:13] just so nuclear that was risking
[2:15] destroying their entire site was that um
[2:18] it was from article 175. Now, for those
[2:21] that don't know what article 175 is, I
[2:23] don't blame you if you don't, but here's
[2:25] the brief gist of it. It is basically a
[2:27] law within Japan to where Japan and
[2:30] Japanese artist and you know basically
[2:32] even real life stuff cannot show any you
[2:35] know genitalia. They can't show
[2:37] anything. That is why like if you read
[2:39] dojans for instance or adult manga and
[2:40] stuff you see things censored with like
[2:42] certain like censor bars and stuff is
[2:44] because of article 175. And so basically
[2:47] whoever was in charge of article 175 or
[2:50] you know using the force of that and the
[2:52] rules of that was pushing down on Fantia
[2:55] to cause these guidelines. So from my
[2:57] understanding that means that it must
[2:59] either have been someone in a
[3:00] governmental agency maybe someone with a
[3:02] big bank or something. I I don't really
[3:03] know. The point of the matter is is that
[3:05] article 175 is being used to basically
[3:08] force Fantia to censor themselves, which
[3:10] is very scary because obviously this is
[3:13] one of the most draconic censorship laws
[3:15] within Japan that a lot of artists and
[3:17] manga authors and stuff have complained
[3:18] about for decades at this point to get
[3:20] it removed. And so maybe this entire
[3:23] conversation might cause uh some form of
[3:25] momentum to actually get that repealed
[3:27] or removed within Japan. But the point
[3:29] is is that that was apparently one of
[3:31] the main causes. So, we get into the
[3:33] stuff today. Fantia, like I said,
[3:35] announced this and they said they're
[3:37] withdrawing their entirety of their
[3:39] guidelines, censoring everybody and uh
[3:41] getting rid of like basically trying to
[3:43] remove you from the site or reporting
[3:45] you. Apparently, from either a
[3:47] miscommunication or something going on,
[3:49] the um the rules that were being applied
[3:51] was only focusing on liveaction content.
[3:55] Makes sense. Okay. And so basically
[3:57] instead of focusing just on the 3D side
[3:59] of things like Fantaia focusing on 3D
[4:01] and censoring that type of stuff or
[4:03] forcing creators to censor 3D, they
[4:05] decided to go after drawings, 2Ds, and
[4:08] stuff like the illustrations as well. It
[4:10] was a retroactive thing that just
[4:11] basically nuked everything instead of
[4:13] actually what was being requested of
[4:15] them. Now, here's the thing. I think the
[4:17] reason why this happened is a big reason
[4:19] is that a lot of these Japanese
[4:20] companies, a lot of these uh sites that
[4:22] host like let's say adult Japanese
[4:24] content and art and stuff like that.
[4:26] Obviously, they're very fearful. I mean,
[4:28] anyone that's in that type of work has
[4:29] definitely seen the um the overall
[4:31] oppression from payment processors and
[4:34] banks. So, maybe the reason why that
[4:36] Fania went so nuclear on basically
[4:38] causing a censorship like retroactively
[4:41] on even drawings is because of that.
[4:44] It's not hard to believe. However,
[4:46] Fantia, when they did this, they made a
[4:48] very big miscalculation because they
[4:50] have now broken the trust of their
[4:52] creators. They didn't even try to be
[4:54] fully transparent or even try to fight
[4:56] back into any degree. Even if they
[4:58] couldn't, there could have been more
[4:59] effort to it, which caused basically
[5:01] widespread panic. And a lot of artists
[5:02] that even even with this news that's
[5:04] coming out, they don't even want to
[5:05] return to the platform. They don't want
[5:07] to come back to Fantia and post their
[5:09] stuff if this site could easily throw
[5:10] you to the wolves and scare you to such
[5:12] degree where you could potentially lose
[5:13] your income overnight. So, I think in
[5:16] general, obviously, this is good news
[5:17] that artists can now start freely
[5:19] posting once again on the site, but I
[5:21] think it's bad news because this
[5:22] basically more or less showcases the um
[5:24] the ripple effect of what censorship
[5:27] does after it's already been hit hitting
[5:29] so many things around you. Eventually,
[5:31] there will be just an overcorrection.
[5:33] There will be over censorship just to be
[5:35] able to get something settled for they
[5:37] don't have to worry about it. This is
[5:38] selfcensorship at its core. And that's
[5:40] one of the big things that um these
[5:41] payment processors and pro-sensorship
[5:43] individuals like is that they no longer
[5:45] need to tell you what to censor. You
[5:47] just you overcorrect to such a degree
[5:49] you start censoring things so much
[5:50] because you're fear fearful of being in
[5:52] trouble that basically everything is
[5:54] completely sanitized. And I mean there's
[5:56] even an article actually that came out
[5:58] today which I'll show here that even
[5:59] talks about the sanitization of anime
[6:01] and manga in the industry. I might me
[6:03] need to make a full dedicated video to
[6:04] that as well in a bit. And so in
[6:07] conclusion, where are we at now? Well,
[6:09] Fantaia as a site, I think, is probably
[6:12] done. I don't think they're probably
[6:14] going to survive. I think that if I had
[6:16] to take an educated guess, they're
[6:18] probably going to slowly spiral and die.
[6:20] There is always a possibility that maybe
[6:22] they could um potentially get their
[6:25] reputation fixed once again. But the
[6:27] fact that they were so willing to bow
[6:29] down, bend the knee, is definitely kind
[6:31] of burnt a lot of people that probably
[6:33] never want to touch their platform
[6:34] again. And I wouldn't blame anyone for
[6:36] that. On top of that as well, I do think
[6:38] that um this is not going to be the last
[6:41] time we see something like this happen.
[6:42] I feel like uh the fact that Fant was
[6:44] already willing to bend over like this.
[6:46] I feel like it might happen again with
[6:47] them and maybe other sites eventually. I
[6:50] I just think that in general what we
[6:52] have definitely seen from this entire
[6:54] situation is that a lot of Japanese
[6:56] companies and sites that have a lot of
[6:58] this artwork, they're scared. They are
[7:00] very scared. They don't know what to do
[7:02] and they just go nuclear just to be able
[7:05] to protect themselves. And you can't
[7:06] blame completely a business for that.
[7:08] But it is still an overreaction. And
[7:11] this is the environment that has been
[7:13] created now thanks to just uh the
[7:16] constant problems of either censoring
[7:18] dating apps to censoring you know
[7:20] artwork getting manga sites taken down
[7:23] you know forcing anime manga to censor
[7:25] itself. All these different type of
[7:26] things has caused this. It's caused this
[7:29] issue to bubble to the surface. It is no
[7:31] longer just a like small little thing.
[7:34] it is escalating and everybody is
[7:36] starting to become aware of it. Um, and
[7:39] then when you have the recent stuff that
[7:40] I talked about yesterday with Oasis
[7:42] Management and how they are basically
[7:44] getting into like Kadakawa and buying
[7:46] them out and you have these foreign
[7:47] interest companies and the groups
[7:49] basically trying to invest in anime and
[7:51] change it. There's just a lot of things
[7:52] that are really horrifying because you
[7:54] could just see a lot of these external
[7:56] forces really just trying to restrict
[7:59] Japan and artwork itself to get what
[8:01] they want and as much money as they can
[8:03] out of it. But um I guess I will leave
[8:05] it at that. If you enjoy my content, I
[8:08] would greatly appreciate it if you
[8:09] subscribe. Um you all be safe, stay
[8:11] healthy, and I'll talk to you all later.
[8:14] TV out.