Manga being targetted with new censorship law

[Danj]

From The Register:

The government today announced proposals to make possession of drawings and computer-generated images of child abuse illegal. "Good on them", is likely to be the most common response. However, it will be an ill thought-out response if it is. Over the last few years, a great deal of new legislation has been put in place "for the sake of the children". Sometimes it is completely new: for instance, the new child protection structures put forward by the Bichard Inquiry. At other times, it is just about "closing loopholes". Here the government is at it again.

Some years ago the Protection of Children Act 1978 made it illegal to possess pictures of children being abused. There are two arguments for this law. The good and obvious one is that any and every picture of child abuse is a picture of a child being abused. It is evidence of a crime being committed. The more speculative reason is that it MAY influence potential abusers to act out their fantasies. The reason this is considered speculative is that some experts consider the availability of porn to have an opposite effect, allowing abusers to obtain stimulation without acting on their impulses. The jury remains out on that debate. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 added "pseudo-photographs" of child abuse to those things one may not look at. These are computer-generated images based on actual photos of children. Similar arguments applied as for the 1978 Act – but the degree of harm involved was clearly less. This issue was addressed in the United States in 2002, when the US Supreme Court rejected a ban on pseudo-photos as over-broad and likely to have a chilling effect on speech. Section 45 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 extended the definition of "child", for porn purposes, to anyone aged 16 or 17. For the first time, it became illegal to possess images of perfectly legal sexual activity. Finally, the Criminal Justice Act 2008 makes it illegal to look at images of "extreme porn". The issue of whether adults consent or the action is real is immaterial.

At the consultation stage for this law, some Police Forces cited manga as material they would like outlawed. Manga is an essentially Japanese art form, which can cover some quite adult themes. "Tentacle porn" and abduction by aliens are common. Crucially some of the images include individuals whose age is indeterminate or seriously young. As Home Secretary, John Reid expressed his outrage that manga and similar material was not illegal.

[Nilrem]

I'd better burn my Gunsmith Cats manga and DVD's.

I foresee (yet another) badly thought out and implimented law being added to the books, iirc they recently passed one intended to outlaw images of "violent" sex (including stuff that is consentual and legal), which could mean that some hollywood films would be illegal now (or parts of them).

I would hope that the lords and mp's wouldn't go through with this, but suspect it could easily get passed to protect the children and (more importantly) look goot to readers of the Sun.

[Tora-chan]

So long as the themes are handled properly I don't personally have a problem. In terms of what's available in the shops, we don't really get anything like that anyway so it's a lot fuss over nothing imo...

The internet, on the other hand, is something else entirely.

The 'essentially Japanese' remark is funny though, bit of a potential undercurrent there perhaps? :-P

[JINROH]

I am against any form of censorship,and think this is crazy.All under the supposed guise of 'protecting the children'

Good thing we dont have any laws like that here.

Signed, Father of 17 year old teenage girl,and rabid anime,manga fan.

[TheFly]

I was going to post about this myself. I see this as an extremely dangerous law which will no doubt enjoy a wave of public support from middle England/Daily Mail readers because it purports to prevent child abuse.

It in fact does nothing of the sort. The crucial thing to remember about even the most explicit lolicon/underage manga (or other drawings/images not based on real photos) is that nobody is harmed in either their creation or viewing. Viewing drawings of apparently underaged children in sexual situations does not make you a child abuser, no more than watching cartoon violence makes you a murderer.

We already have the ridiculous situation in the UK where it can potentially be illegal to possess images of entirely legal consensual sexual acts. This law is extending that to make it illegal to possess images of imaginary sexual acts.

The complete vagueness of this proposal makes me wonder how it could possibly be enforced. How on earth are you meant to determine the age of a fictional character? If a character looks 12 but says "I'm 18", does that make it legal? If the character claims to be an alien, although looking entirely human, is that OK?

From a manga perspective, it is worrying that the pornographic titles are being lumped in with everything else, and I can foresee a "manga readers are paedophiles" campaign from the tabloids in the near future.

This legislation could potentially criminalise many entirely innocent people and is against the entire notion of freedom of thought and expression. Moreover it seems to be the first step to extending censorship to other media.

I intend to write to my MP about this, which is something I have never done before. I feel incredibly strongly about what is essentially an attempt to legislate what people are allowed to think about. This has nothing to do with protecting children from abuse - it will do nothing whatsoever to help that. It is about scoring votes with tabloid readers unable to think for themselves.

I would urge any other UK residents who feel the same way to write to their MP also - you can see how at this site.

[Project-2501]

Another "ZOMFG!!! LETS NOT READ THINGS PROPERLY AND ASSUME ITS ALL BAD" reaction? Probably.

I cannot see them outlawing what is obviously fan art and pictures of blatantly non-real people/situations. They are talking about near photo-realistic images here. Either way they have to suspect you as a possible paedophile or child abuser before they can search your computers for these images. So unless you're sitting at your computer eyeing up these images then head off to the local park with a pair of kitty ears and some sweeties to lure the kids into acting out the images, no-one is going to come bothering you.

Overtly obscene manga isn't available in your average bookshop either.

Also, lets quote some more of the article

Speaking in support of this new proposal, Maria Eagle, Parliamentary under Secretary of State for Justice, said:

“These new proposals will help close a loophole that we believe paedophiles are using to create images of child sexual abuse.

“This is not about criminalising art or pornographic cartoons more generally, but about targeting obscene, and often very realistic, images of child sexual abuse which have no place in our society.”

The only light at the end of this particular tunnel is that it's all been done before.

The Children And Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act 1955 made it an offence to publish cartoons depicting crime, violence or “incidents of a repulsive or horrible nature”. Only one prosecution was ever brought – for a Conan the Barbarian cartoon. And that failed. ®

[abigsmurf]

The thing that frankly scare me about this law is that it'll criminalise 95% of doujins. Afterall, very few series have a cast entirely 18+. Also cached images can get you prosecuted so you can just be innocently browsing a worksafe 4chan board and get hit by someone who thinks it funny to post something non-worksafe.

[Shiroi Hane]

They've been discussing this on the Neo forums for a while:
Time To Get Rid Of Your Hentai If You Have Any

[TheFly]

For anyone who's interested, the full consultation response document is available here (PDF).

It's clear that several of the respondents to the consultation were familiar with the issues relating to Japanese material. Unfortunately their responses seem to have been largely ignored by the government.

[TheFly]

Originally Posted by Shiroi Hane

They've been discussing this on the Neo forums for a while:
Time To Get Rid Of Your Hentai If You Have Any

The discussion there is of the earlier law relating to violent pornography, which apparently encompasses certain hentai titles.

This new law is specifically targeted at non-photographic visual depictions, i.e. drawings and computer-generated images.

To expand on an earlier point, the consultation response document dismisses the issue of establishing the age of fictions character by saying that it "would be a matter for the jury to take a view on". This is so alarmingly vague it's almost beyond belief. Apart from anything else, how is someone in possession of a non-photographic pornographic image meant to know if it is illegal or not? A character might look 18 to one jury and 14 to another. How can something so subjective be the basis for a potential 3 year prison sentence?