MFC, the world’s largest English Database for Japanese media, is dying. After 15 years of cataloging all sorts of Japanese media it has met its end, because the website is hosted in Canada. Someone went right to the host and apparently complained about the loli postings.
15 years of cataloging being deleted as we speak. Every image is being deleted and entries being replaced with “.TXT” to comply with Canadian law.
Certified Canada moment.
It is also affecting characters from NekoPara an Megumin etc and seeing the “Anti Lolis” mald as well is hilarious. Imagine thinking some draconian state would agree on ur definition.
I hope they can relocate their services to a more civil country - (like the US), one that doesn’t humor or demand censorship.
This is why we should oppose censorship. These databases and libraries are designed to catalog what are undeniably significant and meaningful forms of art and culture.
This is no different than Victorian-era museums purging ‘squid art’ paintings from the Edo period for glorifying and depicting bestiality.
I think MAL is based out of the United States…right?
Some individuals have already offered to become the new host, or donate money for relocating. However, I think this will not happen any time soon. They need to act as fast as possible to follow the law, so deleting is the only option right now.
Also, there is most likely a criminal procedure going on as we speak. You can not tell canadian law enforcement that you “did not know what was going on in that site” when it has been going on for 15 years. When Staff kept defending these depictions in the name of freedom of expression. There is no defense that is gonna safe the owner. Seeing how some 21 year old got a one year sentence for only accessing such material I wonder what this guy is facing now.
This pisses me off.
Canada’s Supreme Court will happily find TCAP-style predator stings as ‘entrapment’ yet they’ll allow for the voracious targeting of purveyors and consumers of harmless art and literature over empirically baseless and factually unproven presumptions that such materials will cause real harm to children, despite being wholly fictional and having consumers who are vehemently against the sexual abuse or sexualization of real children.
What the fuck is in the water up there?? How the fuck can these people have the good sense to legalize recreational cannabis and have better Healthcare access than most other first-world nations, yet be so braindead when it comes to anything that requires intellectual discipline??
Faux heroes need easy villains. Easy being the operative word.
What’s MFC?
MyFigureCollection or something else?
MyFigureCollection, yes.
Isn’t that why these laws criminalizing lolicon/shotacon keep existing?
I made this post on another thread: The use of spanking as a punishment - #13 by anon81903312
In it, I said:
The following quote (which is from R v Sharpe) is taken from: Child pornography laws in Canada - Wikipedia
Interpreting “person” in accordance with Parliament’s purpose of criminalizing possession of material that poses a reasoned risk of harm to children, it seems that it should include visual works of the imagination as well as depictions of actual people. Notwithstanding the fact that ‘person’ in the charging section and in s. 163.1(1)(b) refers to a flesh-and-blood person, I conclude that “person” in s. 163.1(1)(a) includes both actual and imaginary human beings.
This is, essentially, the Supreme Court’s justification for banning lolicon/shotacon. Since minor fictional characters look like children, then it might pose a risk to real children getting abused. Better safe than sorry!
On paragraph 108 of its ruling on R v Sharpe, the Supreme Court states the following (btw, s. 163.1(4) is about the possession of child pornography in Canada):
The restriction imposed by s. 163.1(4) regulates expression where it borders on thought. Indeed, it is a fine line that separates a state attempt to control the private possession of self-created expressive materials from a state attempt to control thought or opinion. The distinction between thought and expression can be unclear. We talk of “thinking aloud” because that is often what we do: in many cases, our thoughts become choate only through their expression. To ban the possession of our own private musings thus falls perilously close to criminalizing the mere articulation of thought.
In other words, the Supreme Court acknowledged that the current law could be an issue, since it comes pretty close to criminalizing thoughts. However, on paragraph 135, they state:
In this way, “child pornography” was defined by Parliament to encompass a broad range of material that it determined was harmful to children. It includes both representations that involve real children in their production as well as products of the imagination, such as drawings and written material. Importantly, the provisions do not distinguish between representations created by electronic or mechanical means. Both are captured. The definition is designed to cover representations involving persons either under the age of 18 or depicted as being under the age of 18. Nevertheless, Parliament has limited the protection from the harm of child pornography to a certain degree, striking the balance it deemed appropriate between the rights and values at stake.
The law is purposely written to include fictional depictions of minors as CSAM. It doesn’t matter, according to the Supreme Court, that lolicon/shotacon involves fictional minors: “If it looks like a child, then it’s a child.”
It doesn’t matter to them how close to criminalizing thoughts the current law is, if it’s for the safety and well-being of children, then that’s just fine with them.
Who’s gonna argue about it? Most people either don’t care about the issue, find lolicon/shotacon disgusting or actively want to keep it criminalized.
And just in case that wasn’t clear enough, check out paragraph 239:
In most cases, the prohibition’s restriction on expression will affect adults who seek fulfilment through the possession of child pornography. These adults seek to fulfill themselves by deriving sexual pleasure from images and writings which objectify and degrade children. It is important to emphasize that the self-fulfillment denied by the law is closely connected to the harm to children. The benefits of the prohibition of the possession of child pornography far outweigh any deleterious effect on the right to free expression.
Remember, if they were only talking about real CSAM, then it would probably be fine. But, they’re talking about both real and fictional depictions of minors.
Prohibiting lolicon/shotacon would have the same benefits as prohibiting real CSAM, according to them.
Except, it doesn’t. If anything, the problem is made worse. If lolicon/shotacon is banned, what stops someone from going after real minors?
How much time is wasted in arresting and prosecuting people who create / distribute / possess / view lolicon/shotacon when there are real children getting abused?
How many people actually “think of the children”?
I’ve read the opinion in R v. Sharpe, and quite frankly, it itself nothing. Nowhere do they provide evidence that such thoughts are inherently harmful or even linked to harm, they automatically presume that the cognitions (thoughts, desires, expressions) for fictional works are somehow indistinguishable from those intended to target real abuse images.
Nowhere is this actually proven or shown in scientific literature, and as research becomes further fleshed out, it becomes extremely apparent that such things are not valid.
I’ve messaged actual researchers on this matter whose sole job is to study the risks associated with CSA perpetration and the behaviors which may exacerbate risk of abuse perpetration. Some have argued that it may increase risk for those predisposed but admit that it won’t or even decrease risk for those who do not fit this limited risk-assessment profile, while others have flatly dismissed the claim that it would exacerbate risk, even for those predisposed as the evidence simply does not support this because of the amount of variance which exists within that limited class of offender.
It’s also ironic that the brunt of the research in this field is coming from researchers based out of universities within Canada. I’d love for the Canadian Supreme Court to revisit this matter. It would be revolutionary.
What I had previously overlooked was what was said on the Talk page of the Wikipedia article on R v Sharpe. Here’s what a Wikipedia user wrote in 2008:
Interpreting “person” in accordance with Parliament’s purpose of criminalizing possession of material that poses a reasoned risk of harm to children, it seems that it should include visual works of the imagination as well as depictions of actual people. Notwithstanding the fact that ‘person’ in the charging section and in s. 163.1(1)(b) refers to a flesh-and-blood person, I conclude that “person” in s. 163.1(1)(a) includes both actual and imaginary human beings.
This article mentions that he [Sharpe] was charged with (4) and (3). (1) does not involve an actual charge, but rather clarifies the terms under which the following charges are written. I was hoping someone with a better understanding of this case might shed some light on some aspects of Judge McLachlin’s statement. What would she mean by “charging section”? The word ‘charging’ does not show up in 163.1 at all. It is not clear which section she was referring to which would couple with (b) in regards to referencing only flesh and blood people.
I would think her judgment in this situation would imply that 163.1 should be rewritten to make this more clear, such as mentioning that it can apply to imaginary human beings. For example, the Person article on Wikipedia doesn’t mention imaginary people being classed as a person. Nor does the Legal person article. While the subject of personhood is addressed in fiction, we do not consider fictional characters to be people. This is why the word ‘character’ (fictional character and non-fictional character respectively) exists, to denote that it is a characterization and not a real person. While it is certainly within the realm of the Supreme court to change laws or draft new ones, I think it is important that the wording of laws clearly state what it is they outlaw. Currently it is ambiguous.
It seems that this interpretation has set a precedent as in the origin linked in the title of this topic, a man was later convicted solely for possession of media portraying characters, presumably fictional ones.
TL;DR The word “person” refers to real humans, according to the Wikipedia pages on Person and Legal person.
If you go on the Wikipedia page on “legal person”, you’ll notice that there are two categories: “natural person” (which is a real human) and “juridical person”. The latter refers to organizations such as corporations, firms and government agencies.
Chie said it best:
Of course, there is another problem posed by banning lolicon / shotacon. Another Wikipedia user wrote (also from 2008):
Most citizens do not know university professors or major figures in the Canadian art community whom they can call upon to interpret or defend Japanese artwork. This is a relevant factor in regards to prosecution of art imported from Japan, where a different language is spoken and there are relevant cultural differences that may interpret artistic interpretations. It is also relevant to manga which are scanlations in which someone dubbing english text over the Japanese text may mistranslate it, or purposefully rewrite it. They may mistakenly or purposefully rewrite a fictional character’s age to be older or younger than the original artist, or their species to be human if they are not human, or non-human if they are human.
This is relevant to the section (5) Defence on grounds of what the age the person is believed to be. In regards to fictional characters, since they have no real age (not being actual flesh and blood humans), the only relevant statement is in regards to the depiction of the age. In regards to rewrites, that can be changed. ‘Depiction’ can also be interpreted on both the grounds of the written description of a character (via narration, speech bubbles and thought bubbles) as well as interpretation of the neotenic characteristics present in a character’s illustration.
TL;DR What happens if someone changes a fictional character’s age or species?
What if the character was originally written as a child, but a fan changed that same character into an adult (or vice versa)?
What if a non-human character became a human (or vice versa)?
What if the character looks pretty young, but is an adult (such as a petite woman)?
Take, for example, the character Kanna Kamui from the manga / anime Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid.
You see, Kanna appears to be a 9 year old human girl… But, she’s actually a decades-old dragon (and there are times in the manga / anime where she swears, using words such as “cuckold”, “slut” or “pervert”) and she’s a child by “dragon standards” (seriously). There’s a moment in the manga / anime where she attempts to have sex with another girl (but, due to certain circumstances, it doesn’t happen).
Anyway, there are several moments in the Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid manga where Kanna is presented naked, but with her “private parts” censored (it also happens in the anime, but less). In case you’re wondering, there is uncensored nudity in the manga (not in the anime, it’s all censored), but it only happens with adult characters, never with “minor” characters.
I’ll get to the point. You can buy the Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid manga in Canada (both online and in bookstores), even though there is a depiction of a nude fictional minor. It’s legal to sell because the “unlawful” content is censored. It’s probably the closest thing you can legally get to lolicon in Canada right now.
As I wrote in this post, I used to own a book about the human body written for kids. The book contained drawings of nude children. In my post, I said:
There’s a certain bit of irony seeing nude drawings of children in a book (about the human body, but still) for children being sold in Canada. The reason why it’s legal is because the kids aren’t being “sexualized”, which apparently makes it okay. Just ignore the man and woman having sex in the book (again, for kids).
As a sidenote, I’ve seen pictures of real kids naked… But only in certain books, such as from National Geographic, which should be noted are legal because they’re not sexualizing kids. Also, most of the nude kids that I’ve seen in photos are of little boys from Africa.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that nudity in and of itself isn’t sexual. Context matters.
So, you can actually buy a book in Canada with a fictional nude “minor” character in it… Provided that the character isn’t being sexualized. In the case of manga / anime, it probably requires some censorship as well.
The localized Summertime Render still censored Mio.
This has had ZERO news coverage here in Canada.
The ideas used to proscribe rely on the idea that only those interested in such works of the imagination would oppose such laws. What is never seriously discussed is whether punishment can be justified. To the extent that it’s a fundamental human right for punishment to be justified, punishment should be as fictional as the characters are fictional. Regardless of how well a drawing is made, it represents in the same sense a stick figure represents.
Punishment for fictiion is literally punisment for not subscribing to sympathetic magic.
It’s no more evil to think that what happens to a doll doesn’t matter than it is to think tying shoes doesn’t matter, regardless of how evil the one who thinks it might be and regardless of the doll’s shape. There’s simply no evil to punish for.
To the extent that shape isn’t what makes the precious precious, shape doesn’t make dolls or cartoons precious either. Applying age of consent laws to the shape of lifess objects is, indeed, tethered to sympathetic magic.
These laws on fictional media need to be challenged by how punishment cannot be justified.
Punishment for how a doll is handled is punishment for how one handles the same lifeless object one in public could use to wipe mud off of shoes.
The claim that fantasy is what’s punished for is vacuous. It’s not an evil fantasy to think that how someone in private handles a lifeless object cannot harm anyone, and that what aomeone does in private is no one’s concern.
To the extent that it’s not evil to think that cartoons and dolls don’t matter, there’s no evil to punish for.
Addendum.
I tend to forget to mention the agency to moderate.
Viewing cartoons or owning a doll does not display a failure to moderate. The agency to moderate is nearly never considered in narratives that condemn cartoons and dolls.