- Sep 28, 2017
- 133
- 116
This is an recap on my understanding on why everything porn is being censored to hell.
Paypal has always had their TOS for not allowing adult contents, the only reason some NSFW had paypal available for payment processing was a combination of inability to enforce their TOS at 100% effectiveness, willful blindness, and procrastination.
We know that Pixiv's increasingly restrictive censorship policies are pressured by "western credit card companies" so not only paypal but Visa and Mastercard, especially Mastercard. The reason why Visa and Mastercard are going hard against porn is for two reasons:
1) FOSTA-SESTA bill that was passed back in 2018, damaging Section 230, thus forcing all online platforms to monitor for sexual content and be liable for said sexual content. Since most sites in 2018 has no way to enforce FOSTA-SESTA effectively, most sites simply bans all NSFW contents from their TOS, this is why Tumblr bans porn, Twitter, Discord, and Patreon has massive NSFW ban waves that ongoing till today.
2) At the end of 2020, Nicholas Kristof wrote an article about a woman, Serena Fleites, having her teenage sex tape leaked in Pornhub without her consent, this article and the activities of Nicholas are supported and likely orchestrated by Exodus Cry and Morality in Media (Later renamed National Center on Sexual Exploitation to appeal to the Left) both of whom are the anti-porn christian right with alarming financial resources and political connections. The Article published later caused Pornhub to have a massive purge on contents from unverified users, basically the first case of a porn platform being forced to enforce FOSTA-SESTA. This purge did nothing to stop the anti-porn christian right groups because they later on used their resources and using Serena Fleites and others like her as a springboard to sue not only Pornhub but VISA as well for "profiting in childporn", VISA being sued is really bad, especially in this lawsuit, the Judge specifically did not allow VISA to claim innocent being only a middleman of transactions, this "everybody is culpable" basically communicates to every financial processing companies in the entire financial infrastructure at every level is possibly culpable for any and all future violations.
So basically since 2018, the entire American political and financial landscape is heading toward an anti-porn trajectory, and both the anti-porn Christian Right and anti-porn Liberal left are actually in coalition.
So why did the Japanese get affected by this?
Japanese porn are unverifiable, unenforceable, and the content many Jap AVs are unpalatable to American financial processors.
But why bow down to the American processors?
Because Japanese institutions are not in an equal relationship with American institutions. What the Americans call "rule based international order" are in fact rule based but not equal at all, since all the rules in this international order was written by the US and benefit mostly the US. So since VISA and Mastercard has global reach but bound by US laws (and US's increasingly anti-porn stance), American censorship becomes global censorship, any business in the WTO must go through VISA and Mastercard, thus their policies.
Things will never go back to normal unless VISA and Mastercard duopoly ends, or Christian Right and the Anti-sex Left loses their political power at the same time or the entire American rules-based order no longer maintain their hegemony.
If Americans wish for their porn to be freedom of expression again, then Americans have to change their political landscape. To be more concrete: FOSTA-SESTA must be repealed or be replaced with something far more specific and concise (Against actual non-consensual contents, not drawings), Section 230 needs to be protected and strengthen, Sex Work in US either needs to be decriminalize or legalize (preferably decriminalize).
For non-Americans, setup a robust alternative to VISA and Mastercard, then either force VISA and Mastercard out of your country or compete on international markets.
Paypal has always had their TOS for not allowing adult contents, the only reason some NSFW had paypal available for payment processing was a combination of inability to enforce their TOS at 100% effectiveness, willful blindness, and procrastination.
We know that Pixiv's increasingly restrictive censorship policies are pressured by "western credit card companies" so not only paypal but Visa and Mastercard, especially Mastercard. The reason why Visa and Mastercard are going hard against porn is for two reasons:
1) FOSTA-SESTA bill that was passed back in 2018, damaging Section 230, thus forcing all online platforms to monitor for sexual content and be liable for said sexual content. Since most sites in 2018 has no way to enforce FOSTA-SESTA effectively, most sites simply bans all NSFW contents from their TOS, this is why Tumblr bans porn, Twitter, Discord, and Patreon has massive NSFW ban waves that ongoing till today.
2) At the end of 2020, Nicholas Kristof wrote an article about a woman, Serena Fleites, having her teenage sex tape leaked in Pornhub without her consent, this article and the activities of Nicholas are supported and likely orchestrated by Exodus Cry and Morality in Media (Later renamed National Center on Sexual Exploitation to appeal to the Left) both of whom are the anti-porn christian right with alarming financial resources and political connections. The Article published later caused Pornhub to have a massive purge on contents from unverified users, basically the first case of a porn platform being forced to enforce FOSTA-SESTA. This purge did nothing to stop the anti-porn christian right groups because they later on used their resources and using Serena Fleites and others like her as a springboard to sue not only Pornhub but VISA as well for "profiting in childporn", VISA being sued is really bad, especially in this lawsuit, the Judge specifically did not allow VISA to claim innocent being only a middleman of transactions, this "everybody is culpable" basically communicates to every financial processing companies in the entire financial infrastructure at every level is possibly culpable for any and all future violations.
So basically since 2018, the entire American political and financial landscape is heading toward an anti-porn trajectory, and both the anti-porn Christian Right and anti-porn Liberal left are actually in coalition.
So why did the Japanese get affected by this?
Japanese porn are unverifiable, unenforceable, and the content many Jap AVs are unpalatable to American financial processors.
But why bow down to the American processors?
Because Japanese institutions are not in an equal relationship with American institutions. What the Americans call "rule based international order" are in fact rule based but not equal at all, since all the rules in this international order was written by the US and benefit mostly the US. So since VISA and Mastercard has global reach but bound by US laws (and US's increasingly anti-porn stance), American censorship becomes global censorship, any business in the WTO must go through VISA and Mastercard, thus their policies.
Things will never go back to normal unless VISA and Mastercard duopoly ends, or Christian Right and the Anti-sex Left loses their political power at the same time or the entire American rules-based order no longer maintain their hegemony.
If Americans wish for their porn to be freedom of expression again, then Americans have to change their political landscape. To be more concrete: FOSTA-SESTA must be repealed or be replaced with something far more specific and concise (Against actual non-consensual contents, not drawings), Section 230 needs to be protected and strengthen, Sex Work in US either needs to be decriminalize or legalize (preferably decriminalize).
For non-Americans, setup a robust alternative to VISA and Mastercard, then either force VISA and Mastercard out of your country or compete on international markets.
