Posted under General
Recent policy changes on Pixiv have caused content tagged loli to be unviewable if your account is set as “In the United States”.
This is easily bypassed by going into account settings > Language and location settings > Country/Region > and selecting ANYTHING besides “United States”. That’s all you have to do.
baconmeh2 said:
Recent policy changes on Pixiv have caused content tagged loli to be unviewable if your account is set as “In the United States”.
This is easily bypassed by going into account settings > Language and location settings > Country/Region > and selecting ANYTHING besides “United States”. That’s all you have to do.
Like, in a future policy change for next year/month? Or, probably shadow-banned the term; for certain images that used to have loli as a tag, for certain users in some countries that do treat lolicon/shotacon material on-par to real-life CSEM?
Because, I can still view loli images on-site; without being blocked nor blurred out, since my own Pixiv account is set in the US.
EDIT (12/26): Changed my country’s settings to Japan; and, there IS a massive difference on the amount of content Pixiv's willing to show you. I get the legal reason, why Pixiv is doing this; but, it doesn’t mean I (and, other Users in certain countries, where the legality of loli/shota material is in the gray-area) agree nor support the policy.
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The ban is active right now, I can confirm that. But it's fairly inconsistent.
I compared the two settings and it is hiding some things, but not all. It doesn't blur them out or block them, it just outright hides them from search results and if you navigate to the page (such as from a danbooru image) it displays a "content blocked" message. It also only applies to JP-text loli tag applied to the image by the artist.
If I search a character or view an artist page while set to US and then refresh after changing settings, I do see more images. And it is exclusively for the United States.
Veraducks said:
The ban is active right now, I can confirm that. But it's fairly inconsistent.
I compared the two settings and it is hiding some things, but not all. It doesn't blur them out or block them, it just outright hides them from search results and if you navigate to the page (such as from a danbooru image) it displays a "content blocked" message. It also only applies to JP-text loli tag applied to the image by the artist.
If I search a character or view an artist page while set to US and then refresh after changing settings, I do see more images. And it is exclusively for the United States.
I've seen the news on-site, and I do understand why Pixiv is doing it; to cover their on ass in certain countries that may want to ban their site. cough cough Australia.
But, I don’t support the way, how they’re doing it. There’s no reason to region lock images and tags towards users in countries, where loli and shota material is still in the legal gray-area determined by certain Prefectures/States that deem if the material is on-par to real-life CP. Basically, it depends, if governors and local lawmakers have brain-cells or not. Or, have the self-awareness that banning certain fictional content is not going to stop real-life abuse towards minors.
Plus, it’s only going to drive away certain foreign Users who don’t have the patience to change their nationality in their Account Settings. Or, feel like they’ve been severely disrespected by the Policy Change, they'll no longer want to use the site anymore. Though, it’s either this circumstance or Pixiv tracking what country, you’re ACTUALLY from and potentially break certain laws in certain American states and EU countries that don’t fuck around with privacy concerns.
Hopefully, if there’s enough backlash from certain foreign Users (specifically, American users); Pixiv may dial back their policy change. Sure, block loli/shota images in countries that criminalize them. But, leave the users alone; in legally grey countries, for the time being.
Or, massive worse-case scenario; turn into Japanese DeviantArt and ban all loli/shota material as whole, and piss off their domestic Users/Artists as well. Just for the sake of keeping American credit-card companies and corrupt politicians satisfied.
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TL;DR -
Pixiv is making a big mistake, region-locking certain content (probably not just loli/shota material; but, other explicit tags) due to pressure from certain countries and their politicians' nonsensical laws over fictional content.
And, whose to say in the future; the new policy may get updated and gets Google-levels or DeviantArt-levels of worse, where Pixiv may track your actual location and potentially ban you for faking your nationality on your Account Settings. Just for wanting to look at lolicon/shotacon stuff!
I’d actually say that the ease of being able to work around it is deliberate. The fact they rolled out the ability to freely change your region and explain how to change it in the news post is practically begging people to abuse it.
They’re trying to placate certain companies and governments while making a loophole that allows that content to still exist on the site. Any outright worldwide bans on anything is likely an absolute last resort.
Nonetheless, this will probably piss off a lot of LoliSho artists and make them jump to other sites like Nijie and Misskey.
Terrapin-Tankman said:
TL;DR -
Pixiv is making a big mistake, region-locking certain content (probably not just loli/shota material; but, other explicit tags) due to pressure from certain countries and their politicians' nonsensical laws over fictional content.
And, whose to say in the future; the new policy may get updated and gets Google-levels or DeviantArt-levels of worse, where Pixiv may track your actual location and potentially ban you for faking your nationality on your Account Settings. Just for wanting to look at lolicon/shotacon stuff!
On one hand, that seems... a bit unlikely? Since they outright tell you how to change your account's location in case they made an oops. But also, who can say for certain.
HeyThereGuy said:
I’d actually say that the ease of being able to work around it is deliberate. The fact they rolled out the ability to freely change your region and explain how to change it in the news post is practically begging people to abuse it.
And, that’s what is worrying me. It makes me fear for the day, one bad actor on Pixiv who’s going to ruin it for (almost) all Western Users/Artists on the site, who changed their region and starts uploading ACTUAL disturbing material of real people (or, extremely detailed 3D models/AI-"illustrations") and probably gets away with it; until, they get banned.
Then, Pixiv would probably trace and severely punish Western Users who faked the region settings on their accounts; either, making their site experience worse or outright ban, depending what country/prefecture/state the user’s originally based from that criminalizes LoliSho content. (Or, any fictional material governments find repulsive, and want it to be used as a scapegoat to equate for real-life criminal behavior.)
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Terrapin-Tankman said:
And, that’s what is worrying me. It makes me fear for the day, one bad actor on Pixiv who’s going to ruin it for (almost) all Western Users/Artists on the site, who changed their region and starts uploading ACTUAL disturbing material of real people (or, extremely detailed 3D models/AI-"illustrations") and probably gets away with it; until, they get banned and reported to authorities.
Then, all users (especially, Western Users and LoliSho Artists) will suffer most of the brunt of Pixiv's consequences; for more stricter policies against either faking your Account Region or having 3D Artists suffer as well.
No use worrying over what might happen someday, and in any case I don't see why there would need to be consequences for someone uploading things that are already banned by current pixiv guidelines anyway. Not like they can make it more banned.
Jigsy said:
As someone who lives in one of these countries, I strongly disagree with this.
I did notice that the entire ロリ tag was around 300,000 earlier. Setting the region to Japan bumped that back up to 600,000.
I didn’t mean to say, I'm happy that said fictional content should be criminalized, in certain countries. I've only said it out of a combination of frustration and extremely-inappropriate humor, given the situation.
In fact, I'm hoping these countries (including, where you live) have future politicians/parliament members that are smart enough to abolish these dumb laws, only to realize said laws are only going to shield and protect legitimate predators and invalidate actual CSA victims by treating fictional characters better than them. Plus, these laws goes against these people’s own personal freedoms on what they browse on the Internet and only to insult their intelligence.
But, realistically; I don’t think that will ever happen, at least for the time being.
LightSolas said:
No use worrying over what might happen someday, and in any case I don't see why there would need to be consequences for someone uploading things that are already banned by current pixiv guidelines anyway. Not like they can make it more banned.
True; but, never underestimate Users/Artists who are desperate enough to circumvent Pixiv’s algorithm just for the sake of their work to be shown. Even, the scumbags.
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Veraducks said:
If I search a character or view an artist page while set to US and then refresh after changing settings, I do see more images. And it is exclusively for the United States.
The ban also affects UK.
Jigsy said:
Setting the region to Japan bumped that back up to 600,000.
Iceland also works.
Incidentally, the pop-up and code relating to this is probably why the auto-fetch tools are having issues.
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It's funny--as soon as I got the pop-up about the new region policy, my immediate thought before I learned anything else was "this is solely going to be about keeping Americans from seeing the loli tag in order to appease certain powerful entities who are nonetheless beholden to the performative outrage over so-called 'pedophilia'." Lo and behold, that's precisely what it was and nothing further. American cultural imperialism towards Japan strikes again.
Fuck that. Changed my region to Japan immediately. I'm not even one for "pure" loli material, but like fuck is anyone gonna take the oppai-loli tag away from me to make some shrieking dangerhair happy. Enjoying adorable shortstacks is my god-given right.
hdk5 said:
But is Japan really the best region to use for the pixiv account? As in, is there something that would be hidden to users from Japan, but not from somewhere else? Like, uncensored works, for example.
Pixiv is a Japanese website. Uncensored works would be in violation of Japanese laws so no. There isn't even a reason to change your "region" to begin with.
Diwoomy said:
My parents found my lolicon collection and called the police and they are threatening to take me on a tour to the juvie. (I'm 19 btw) How is this fair? Is lolicon really illegal in the USA? Because it sure looks like it!
It's not. There have been 2 supreme court rulings on it. Also juvie at 19? I doubt your story.
It's not. There have been 2 supreme court rulings on it.
Kkkkkind of. Per Ashcroft, fictional/drawn child pornography are protected under 1A unless found to be obscene, but the prevailing standard for what counts as "obscene" set forth by the Supreme Court is, I kid you not, "I know it when I see it" and "patently offensive >:(". That is... there is no standard.
