"Actually, We Killed Censorship for Japanese Artists"

[00:00] I have some great news to cover today.

[00:01] So this morning, this news right here by

[00:03] Fantia came out, which you could see on

[00:05] screen. And this is them announcing that

[00:07] they are fully withdrawing their

[00:09] censorship guidelines that they

[00:11] announced over a month ago. For those

[00:13] that have no idea what's going on here

[00:14] and need a brief rundown, let me give

[00:16] you the lore. So basically about a month

[00:18] ago, this is a site that was very well

[00:21] known for having artists being able to

[00:22] be paid on it, artists to be able to

[00:24] post their artwork. It's been around for

[00:25] a very long time. It is a very big site

[00:28] for artists to be able to, you know,

[00:29] showcase their skills and be able to

[00:31] make money off of it. And so, out of

[00:34] nowhere, Fantaia overnight introduced

[00:36] new guidelines that said that if you do

[00:38] not retroactively censor all of your

[00:41] artwork and pretty much blackbox

[00:43] anything that might be NSFW, there is a

[00:45] possibility besides just your account

[00:46] getting suspended and you no longer

[00:48] being able to make money and all your

[00:49] artwork being lost, you might be

[00:51] reported to the authorities. I'm not

[00:53] even joking. And this caused obviously a

[00:54] cascading effect to where thousands upon

[00:57] thousands of artists on their site,

[00:58] Japanese artists in general, to

[00:59] basically leave the site. And there was

[01:01] many ways they did this. Either a they

[01:03] just stopped posting because they were

[01:04] fearful of these guidelines and didn't

[01:06] even know how to tackle them. Some tried

[01:08] to actually tackle these new guidelines

[01:10] by retroactively censoring their old

[01:12] work, and we'll talk about that in a

[01:13] second. And when others decided to go

[01:15] the nuclear route and just delete their

[01:17] entire account for they don't actually

[01:19] have to worry about potentially any

[01:20] issues arising to where might they might

[01:22] get debanked, they might get reported to

[01:24] authorities or something like that. It

[01:25] caused a lot of fear, a lot of panic and

[01:28] basically the site took a massive hit.

[01:30] And now one of the big discussions

[01:32] around the entire topic of what was

[01:33] going on with Fantia and I covered this

[01:35] over a month ago. The big thing that

[01:37] came up was that it's most likely

[01:39] payment processors or banks to some

[01:41] degree because this is a story that we

[01:43] see over and over and over again that

[01:46] you have like payment processors like

[01:47] Visa, Mastercard, even PayPal and even

[01:50] banks even some Japanese banks too kind

[01:52] of listening in from the western side of

[01:54] banks in the world basically forcing

[01:56] creators, artists and stuff to censor

[01:58] themselves. So that seemed like the

[02:00] actual logical conclusion on what was

[02:02] going on and why this happened to begin

[02:04] with. However, with a little bit more

[02:06] information coming out, we come to find

[02:07] out apparently one of the big driving

[02:09] factors that was basically getting this

[02:12] guideline change from Fantia that was

[02:13] just so nuclear that was risking

[02:15] destroying their entire site was that um

[02:18] it was from article 175. Now, for those

[02:21] that don't know what article 175 is, I

[02:23] don't blame you if you don't, but here's

[02:25] the brief gist of it. It is basically a

[02:27] law within Japan to where Japan and

[02:30] Japanese artist and you know basically

[02:32] even real life stuff cannot show any you

[02:35] know genitalia. They can't show

[02:37] anything. That is why like if you read

[02:39] dojans for instance or adult manga and

[02:40] stuff you see things censored with like

[02:42] certain like censor bars and stuff is

[02:44] because of article 175. And so basically

[02:47] whoever was in charge of article 175 or

[02:50] you know using the force of that and the

[02:52] rules of that was pushing down on Fantia

[02:55] to cause these guidelines. So from my

[02:57] understanding that means that it must

[02:59] either have been someone in a

[03:00] governmental agency maybe someone with a

[03:02] big bank or something. I I don't really

[03:03] know. The point of the matter is is that

[03:05] article 175 is being used to basically

[03:08] force Fantia to censor themselves, which

[03:10] is very scary because obviously this is

[03:13] one of the most draconic censorship laws

[03:15] within Japan that a lot of artists and

[03:17] manga authors and stuff have complained

[03:18] about for decades at this point to get

[03:20] it removed. And so maybe this entire

[03:23] conversation might cause uh some form of

[03:25] momentum to actually get that repealed

[03:27] or removed within Japan. But the point

[03:29] is is that that was apparently one of

[03:31] the main causes. So, we get into the

[03:33] stuff today. Fantia, like I said,

[03:35] announced this and they said they're

[03:37] withdrawing their entirety of their

[03:39] guidelines, censoring everybody and uh

[03:41] getting rid of like basically trying to

[03:43] remove you from the site or reporting

[03:45] you. Apparently, from either a

[03:47] miscommunication or something going on,

[03:49] the um the rules that were being applied

[03:51] was only focusing on liveaction content.

[03:55] Makes sense. Okay. And so basically

[03:57] instead of focusing just on the 3D side

[03:59] of things like Fantaia focusing on 3D

[04:01] and censoring that type of stuff or

[04:03] forcing creators to censor 3D, they

[04:05] decided to go after drawings, 2Ds, and

[04:08] stuff like the illustrations as well. It

[04:10] was a retroactive thing that just

[04:11] basically nuked everything instead of

[04:13] actually what was being requested of

[04:15] them. Now, here's the thing. I think the

[04:17] reason why this happened is a big reason

[04:19] is that a lot of these Japanese

[04:20] companies, a lot of these uh sites that

[04:22] host like let's say adult Japanese

[04:24] content and art and stuff like that.

[04:26] Obviously, they're very fearful. I mean,

[04:28] anyone that's in that type of work has

[04:29] definitely seen the um the overall

[04:31] oppression from payment processors and

[04:34] banks. So, maybe the reason why that

[04:36] Fania went so nuclear on basically

[04:38] causing a censorship like retroactively

[04:41] on even drawings is because of that.

[04:44] It's not hard to believe. However,

[04:46] Fantia, when they did this, they made a

[04:48] very big miscalculation because they

[04:50] have now broken the trust of their

[04:52] creators. They didn't even try to be

[04:54] fully transparent or even try to fight

[04:56] back into any degree. Even if they

[04:58] couldn't, there could have been more

[04:59] effort to it, which caused basically

[05:01] widespread panic. And a lot of artists

[05:02] that even even with this news that's

[05:04] coming out, they don't even want to

[05:05] return to the platform. They don't want

[05:07] to come back to Fantia and post their

[05:09] stuff if this site could easily throw

[05:10] you to the wolves and scare you to such

[05:12] degree where you could potentially lose

[05:13] your income overnight. So, I think in

[05:16] general, obviously, this is good news

[05:17] that artists can now start freely

[05:19] posting once again on the site, but I

[05:21] think it's bad news because this

[05:22] basically more or less showcases the um

[05:24] the ripple effect of what censorship

[05:27] does after it's already been hit hitting

[05:29] so many things around you. Eventually,

[05:31] there will be just an overcorrection.

[05:33] There will be over censorship just to be

[05:35] able to get something settled for they

[05:37] don't have to worry about it. This is

[05:38] selfcensorship at its core. And that's

[05:40] one of the big things that um these

[05:41] payment processors and pro-sensorship

[05:43] individuals like is that they no longer

[05:45] need to tell you what to censor. You

[05:47] just you overcorrect to such a degree

[05:49] you start censoring things so much

[05:50] because you're fear fearful of being in

[05:52] trouble that basically everything is

[05:54] completely sanitized. And I mean there's

[05:56] even an article actually that came out

[05:58] today which I'll show here that even

[05:59] talks about the sanitization of anime

[06:01] and manga in the industry. I might me

[06:03] need to make a full dedicated video to

[06:04] that as well in a bit. And so in

[06:07] conclusion, where are we at now? Well,

[06:09] Fantaia as a site, I think, is probably

[06:12] done. I don't think they're probably

[06:14] going to survive. I think that if I had

[06:16] to take an educated guess, they're

[06:18] probably going to slowly spiral and die.

[06:20] There is always a possibility that maybe

[06:22] they could um potentially get their

[06:25] reputation fixed once again. But the

[06:27] fact that they were so willing to bow

[06:29] down, bend the knee, is definitely kind

[06:31] of burnt a lot of people that probably

[06:33] never want to touch their platform

[06:34] again. And I wouldn't blame anyone for

[06:36] that. On top of that as well, I do think

[06:38] that um this is not going to be the last

[06:41] time we see something like this happen.

[06:42] I feel like uh the fact that Fant was

[06:44] already willing to bend over like this.

[06:46] I feel like it might happen again with

[06:47] them and maybe other sites eventually. I

[06:50] I just think that in general what we

[06:52] have definitely seen from this entire

[06:54] situation is that a lot of Japanese

[06:56] companies and sites that have a lot of

[06:58] this artwork, they're scared. They are

[07:00] very scared. They don't know what to do

[07:02] and they just go nuclear just to be able

[07:05] to protect themselves. And you can't

[07:06] blame completely a business for that.

[07:08] But it is still an overreaction. And

[07:11] this is the environment that has been

[07:13] created now thanks to just uh the

[07:16] constant problems of either censoring

[07:18] dating apps to censoring you know

[07:20] artwork getting manga sites taken down

[07:23] you know forcing anime manga to censor

[07:25] itself. All these different type of

[07:26] things has caused this. It's caused this

[07:29] issue to bubble to the surface. It is no

[07:31] longer just a like small little thing.

[07:34] it is escalating and everybody is

[07:36] starting to become aware of it. Um, and

[07:39] then when you have the recent stuff that

[07:40] I talked about yesterday with Oasis

[07:42] Management and how they are basically

[07:44] getting into like Kadakawa and buying

[07:46] them out and you have these foreign

[07:47] interest companies and the groups

[07:49] basically trying to invest in anime and

[07:51] change it. There's just a lot of things

[07:52] that are really horrifying because you

[07:54] could just see a lot of these external

[07:56] forces really just trying to restrict

[07:59] Japan and artwork itself to get what

[08:01] they want and as much money as they can

[08:03] out of it. But um I guess I will leave

[08:05] it at that. If you enjoy my content, I

[08:08] would greatly appreciate it if you

[08:09] subscribe. Um you all be safe, stay

[08:11] healthy, and I'll talk to you all later.

[08:14] TV out.