well, would you look at that. what the pro censorship crowd swore wouldn't happen, happened.
payment processors have started hitting works that aren't even sold as adult content. kidnapping plots, violent fiction, old posts from years ago. not just the R-18 stuff they said this would stay limited to.
creative expression is getting squeezed at every layer now, storefronts, payments, even the tools people use to make the work.
The same people who were fine with this when it was "just porn" will go quiet the second it lands on much more than that, this is going to be another "when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me" situation.
The only ones speaking out will be those affected, that's why they do this shit in steps
Today, Japan's pixivFANBOX was forced to suspend the publication of a vast number of works due to intervention by payment service providers.The keyword-based censorship is utterly unreasonable; for instance, there are reports that content was flagged simply because the Japanese pronunciations of words like "calorie" and "terrorist" contain the sound "loli."
What makes this instance particularly notable is that the platform itself has explicitly cited "directives from payment service providers" as the reason for the censorship. In the past, Japanese businesses forced to implement such measures—likely to preserve their relationships—rarely disclosed the involvement of payment providers.
Intervention by payment service providers is threatening to destroy Japanese content culture in an unreasonable and uninformed manner. Neither Japanese creators nor consumers desire this outcome, yet this may not be an issue that can be resolved within Japan alone. We would be deeply grateful to address this challenge through information sharing and cooperation with interested parties around the world.