Mature content manga removal

[omega 616]

Why would I say that isn't what I meant? thats exactly what I meant
yes abusing childeren is wrong but no child is being abused here
some people have fetishes that they can't help but that doesn't mean they're going to act on them

If I acted on my fetishes I would most definitely be in jail right now

Was a joke.

I know no children are being abused but your imagining or taking an interest in children doing sexual things, dry humping to heal people? If it was a 30 year old doing it, it would be funny, a kid doing it disturbs me.

now that's odd because I find it all the funnier for it, especially because of how squicked out the other characters were.

I am by no means one of these people who thinks everything should be very politically correct and nobody should be offended. I love insulting people like Jimmy Carr does so it's not like I am being unreasonable.

Just under no circumstances, fictional or otherwise, should anybody below 16 have anything to do with sex. I know alot of people won't like this but it shouldn't exist, anything to stop actual peados thinking about kids is only a good thing.

 

[moretimethansense]

Why would I say that isn't what I meant? thats exactly what I meant
yes abusing childeren is wrong but no child is being abused here
some people have fetishes that they can't help but that doesn't mean they're going to act on them

If I acted on my fetishes I would most definitely be in jail right now

Was a joke.

I know no children are being abused but your imagining or taking an interest in children doing sexual things, dry humping to heal people? If it was a 30 year old doing it, it would be funny, a kid doing it disturbs me.

now that's odd because I find it all the funnier for it, especially because of how squicked out the other characters were.

I am by no means one of these people who thinks everything should be very politically correct and nobody should be offended. I love insulting people like Jimmy Carr does so it's not like I am being unreasonable.

Just under no circumstances, fictional or otherwise, should anybody below 16 have anything to do with sex. I know alot of people won't like this but it shouldn't exist, anything to stop actual peados thinking about kids is only a good thing.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this

the under no cicumstances bit not the bit about paedos

 

[moretimethansense]

When I said about snipping, i didn't mean let me babble! I joke of course.

incidentally let me know if sectioned quoting bothers you, being quoted like this grinds my gears normally but it seems like it's a forum standard.

On the *snip*ed part yeah they DO have the right but you can use google to find some VERY VERY disturbing stuff and it seems hypocritical to demand the removal of this stuff and not minding being linked to what is technically an otherwise illegal site

That's more a problem with search technology, it's tricky to filter search results for drawings and in their defense Google's search engine comes with the search filter set to maximum. Most of a search filter's technology relies on a mixture of pattern recognition and accurate tagging by the target site's creator. Pattern recognition is inherantly flawed and amateur webmasters are notoriously lousy about tagging elements correctly, they don't realise that the tags are for more than their personal reference.

also wouldn't it be possible to just remove google's ads from those manga that warrant a "Contains nudity" tag?

Either that or create a subsection that requires a form to enter, like an "I agree" page. In fact I'd imagine that to be the solution that's going to go ahead.

And as for the comment about characters not needing to be underage? yes yes they do in fact it's kinda the point for bots bund and jikan try reading them sometime and you'll see why neither would work if the characters were of age.

The main problems with this position compared to Lolita (because it's a good comparison I feel) are threefold.

First is the misperception in the west that cartoons are 'for kids'. Literature is for adults but cartoons are for children. Anyone who's read or watched hellsing knows that is wrong but I can see why Google is so wary of having children finding a site with questionable content that is apaprently endorsed by them. It's not a moral thing so much as good public relations and I'm afraid you've shot yourself in the foot with the protest. The more manga readers protest about it, the more non-readers will find out about it and the more people will declare your reading material to be disgusting. There will be more of them than you and Google stands to lose more business by siding with you. Essentially you've forced their hand on the issue.

Secondly is that books leave the details to the imagination whereas manga presents it visually. You'll always get a more visceral reaction by showing soemone something that disgusts them than by telling them about it. Add this to the fact that sex with minors is wrong and you literally couldn't get a more visceral reaction from someone legally. This is why certain kinds of manga are such hot button topics. You have to understand that linking someone to drawings of sexualised children is a massive problem, Google needs to watch its' public image very carefully since it is like the emperor's new clothes. Google only exists because people use it. Every time people boycott it the profit and feasability of the business is damaged and all it'd take is for someone to start the consciousness landslide, saying it isn't the only search engine, to bankrupt it. Google exists only because people like it, it can't risk that.

Thirdly I am not exactly a naif when it comes to manga (though I tend to prefer shonen and harem, either 'we band of brothers' style stories or carry-on style shenanigans) but I'm willing to bet that more people oppose explicit manga than support it in the west. Sexualisation of minors is a Japanese cultural quirk, but due to the western world's current hysteria over paedophilia and the fact that we have a higher age of consent than Japan it isn't one that travels well.

I literally have no view on whether it is 'right' or 'wrong', as if such words mean anything in a global community like this, but I consider what Google is doing to be common business sense. I support their move since it makes sense and it's not like the hosting site need shut down, it just has to choose between corporate sponsorship or freedom in how it acts.

I don't mind at all i'd do it myself but I suck at HTML(?) code

Frankly you've made some exellent points and I can't really make much of an argument against MOST of what you've said but I must point out that has been said before sexualization of minors is not actually a strictly japanese thing and a lot of western comics, book and films have dealt with this kind of subject matter without getting nearly as much flak.

And the petition is in fact about making a form such as you sugested enough that mangafox and the like will be aloud to host this content and have adsense at the same time.

Oh and you have decent taste.

 

[moretimethansense]

Not to burst anyone's bubble - but an internet petition? Really? Has that ever worked in the history of mankind?

Probobly not, but if we don't at least try nothing will change.

 

[moretimethansense]

I don't mind at all i'd do it myself but I suck at HTML(?) code

Frankly you've made some exellent points and I can't really make much of an argument against MOST of what you've said but I must point out that has been said before sexualization of minors is not actually a strictly japanese thing and a lot of western comics, book and films have dealt with this kind of subject matter without getting nearly as much flak.

And the petition is in fact about making a form such as you sugested enough that mangafox and the like will be aloud to host this content and have adsense at the same time.

Oh and you have decent taste.

Yeah, I know about the existence of explicit adult comics from western authors (I say 'about' as I've never read one) but the unique Japanese issue is the subject matter plus the exposure. Manga has enjoyed a massive boom in the west due to a mixture of popular anime like fullmetal alchemist, bleach and deathnote and the adoption of eastern literature into the American graphic novel circle. Western works with similar themes just don't have the same exposure in popular consciousness. There is a stereotype of the Japanese being perverted and unfortunately that kind of literature plays straight in to the stereotype. It's been seized upon and made into much more of a topic than it needs to be, a stereotype is like a meme in that it's easily spread and unfortunately some people are too happy to think of it as true.

I think the main issue is the fact that it's a drawn medium and that it doesn't have the omnipresense of the 'Paedophilia is Wrong' message throughout (maybe because pre paedo-madness it didn't need saying). I personally find the subject mildly distasteful in that I wouldn't want to read one, but I feel the same way about a selection of art from all around the world. I'm sure as works of art they are a valid and worthy form of expression, but the distaste I personally feel outweighs my curiosity (not that it's wrong, art should be challenging. It just isn't to my taste). However, my minor distaste would be magnified into a rightious fury if I thought it was being marketed towards my (theoretical) children. It's an issue of consciousness raising about the medium, but also a call for a frank self analysis of what is considered disgusting and why. I happen to know that not all graphic literature is for children but I've seen someone trying to buy a dvd of 'devil boy' for their child so I feel we need to re-examine the medium in an open and accessible way.

Kudos for discussing the point through, you obviously feel passionately about the topic. It's so easy to take this kind of thing personally, so many people would assume that Google was passing a moral judgement or being 'out of touch' but they're merely protecting their image.

(edited to remove a reference to distaste at contemplating the themes, i just realised I've been doing it quite happily)

Again some exelent points made in fact the only thing you've said in this post that I can take issue with is that Kodomo no Jikan DOES in fact have the Peadophillia is wrong message since (in the female leads case at least) her overly sexual advances are used to show just how broken she is by her gaurdiens plans for her (Hikaru Genji much?) it just doesn't beat you about the head with it,

Though with Bund your point still stands.

 

[moretimethansense]

Again some exelent points made in fact the only thing you've said in this post that I can take issue with is that Kodomo no Jikan DOES in fact have the Peadophillia is wrong message since (in the female leads case at least) her overly sexual advances are used to show just how broken she is by her gaurdiens plans for her (Hikaru Genji much?) it just doesn't beat you about the head with it,

Though with Bund your point still stands.

I was mostly thinking about the UK's mania with paedophilia since Madeline McCann was kidnapped, we're in a bad place over paedophilia as I'm sure you've noticed. there's such a high level of paranoia that for us to be comfortable confronting the issue in fiction it has to be so flagged up as wrong that it's almost not worth telling the story any more. The characters have to be so stereotyped and shallow to make this subject comfortable for people to think about. Whilst I'm sure that your example handles it in a mature and nuanced way, unfortunately that isn't what our countrymen want at the moment. I'm not a fan of sexualising children in entertainment or art as a matter of personal taste but if it's done with a moral purpose I'm not averse to the concept, I just wouldn't personally enjoy the piece.

But, having discussed this over several pages in depth I can still back up Google not wanting anything to do with it. It's such a contentious subject that I can hardly blame them for wanting to remain fairly neutral over it.

This discussion has been a pleasure, but unfortunately I hear the real world calling (university be a harsh mistress y'arr...) so I must bow out.

Neither can I (but that doesn't mean I can't complain )

Ah well I've thoroughly enjoyed debating this with you and good luck with uni.

 

[chenry]

adsense has very clear ToS. You breach it, they kick you out. This isn't censorship, this is people breaking the rules that they agreed to when signing up for a service.

Why are people ignoring this? Google has a ToS, they breached it. It was overblown by an idiot into "supporting child pornography," but it was still against their rules, so it's entirely in their right to tell them to remove the ToS-breaching content or stop allowing them to use Adsense.

'Cos it is fun to pretend to be persecuted I guess.

 

[jasoncyrus]

So this troll is willfully spreading childporn to the masses...wow..just wow...lets hope he get incarcerated for it really soon.

 

[Rune342]

I can understand trying to remove child pornography from their sites but why remove things like Air Gear and Claymore?

 

[NeutralDrow]

Shoot. I'll have to wait to catch up on Kodomo no Jikan, I guess.

 

[Mr. Grey]

I used to say: Do you want to give them the cigarette or the nicotine patch?

It was usually followed by: Then why are you taking away the nicotine patch?!

As for honest to goodness story? I wouldn't know, I never really got into manga. And I'm still on the fence about this whole thing... the TOS does in fact state that what the sites were doing wasn't allowed. However, then I start thinking about the slippery slope of what this is leading to along with whatever loopholes people will use later on... It's also awfully vague. So I really am on the fence regarding this whole ordeal.

 

[Gigano]

Removing content because it's "unethical" in the eyes of some (including me if the claims of what some of these mangas contains are actually true, though as I've seen the Elfen Lied anime and found little objectionable in it, I severely doubt it. I've heard some nasty things about Kodomo no Jikan though...) is never all right.

If they'd been removed for copyright infringement, that wouldn't really bug me (one should pay for what one enjoys if at all possible), but once you start censoring on moral (panic) grounds, then the path towards thought crimes and disregard of the harm principle so central in political liberalism is shortened considerably.

 

[Bloodstain]

I agree with what whoever that was you quoted [...]

See this petition: http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/StopAnimeRemoval/

[...] but in the US and UK, they're illegal. In fact, someone just got 10 years (or 5 or something. I know he got prison time) for having a collection of loli comics imported from Japan.

Ah, right, now that you mention it, I remember the case...

Lolicon being illegal...world is a cruel place. It's just drawn, for god's sake.

 

[C117]

What really makes me confused, is the fact that they allowed Elfen Lied to remain online on Mangafox.

Not that I'm complaining, it is a wonderful manga, but it contains violence, blood, limbs getting torn off, pedophilia, rape, nudity and a slightly pornographic undertone...