Censorship. Huh? (My Comments on "Is Anime Problematic?" Video.)
Is Freedom of Expression worth it? (My comments on this particular video can be articles on their own.)
One of the videos I saw recently was "Is Anime Problematic?" by Otaku Spirit I only listened to a 20 minutes or so of it, but I had some interesting conversation(s) in the comment section.
The video discusses that the Japanese artists website Pixiv removed the ability for money earnings for artists publishing "unethical content." That's a decision I support to be honest.
What I find worth discussing is that the decision was forced upon Pixiv by Credit Card companies. They're necessarily banning them by their own choice. This kind of "forced" censorship has Pros and Cons. The person in the video wanrs that it's only the beginning, and the freedom of expression is in danger. I don't know if I agree with it.
Below are my comments in that conversation.
On Censorship & Freedom of Expression
I always find censorship interesting thing to ponder... I saw people who view censorship as inherintly bad concept, yet the main reason it exists is to protect people. The people may not be ones you agree with, though.
I too, don't like censorship when it goes too far, but how do you define "too far?"
A lot of people want to hide certain things, imagery, concepts from their children. They want companies they pay to, to help with that. That's a form of censorship too. Most people will agree that's a good thing. You don't want criminals to have freedom to spread crime, don't you? (Even if no one else did, I'll use everything in my power to do it myself.)
Maybe the scale, audience and aggressiveness of the censorship changes how people who support or hate it view it.
I see nothing wrong in a company saying "Hey, if you want to keep a good relationship with us, don't go against our belief system." Because if I was that company, I will do the same thing. Maybe that's why I won't be a good businessman.
What makes me sad, is when such a company is so powerful and there's no alternatives. Yet, I prefer being sad over this, than for it to be a company that only goes after money without any belief system prepared to fight for. (I know it's most likely that these companies are actually only in for the money and don't care about belief at all, but this video talks about the concept in general, and so do I.)
On "People Should be allowed to Choose What to Explore"
Otaku Spirit argues that we know some things are wrong, because we explored them in fiction first. People understand the evilness of murder better after they explore it in fiction.
I'm not sure if that is true, but it's a good idea to think about.
They talk about you're free to not watch something that triggers you.
This reminded me of a comment I saw on one manga. The main character reminded the commentor too much of a girl close to him, he kept seeing that girl in the main character and couldn't handle the romance of it because of that.
Yes, if a piece of art triggers uncomfort in you. Walk away. It's fine. Don't even talk about it. (Especially if you don't want it to spread to other people.) No one should blame you for that.
On Restrictions & Creativity
In the comment section, someone who disagreed with Otaku Spirit provided many good points. Of the ones that I agree with is about these restrictions companies force upon artists, are gonna make them more creative.
"Restriction and Freedom work both ways in arts. Restrictions can make you more creative in ways freedom cannot sometimes and vice versa. It's why so many competitions in the arts and especially writing have prompts you follow and turn into your own." (Source)
I agree with a lot of what you said here. Especially about the Website part and about Freedom/Restrictions bit. Anime is already on many restrictions by Japan's Law and creators still find ways to tell shocking story even with all these restrictions.
My favorite anime in recent years is Mushoku Tensei but I can't recommend it to my Muslim otaku friends unless to my closest friends and with warnings about what they should expect. Even then, watching it requires a bit of maturity that even adults don't have these days.
But the discussion of Otaku Spirit isn't about that... It's about Credit Card companies deciding for everyone what should and shouldn't be acceptable. That's dangerous, even if in my opinion completely fair. (As I stated in my own comment. It's a good thing that Credit Card companies have a Belief System they're prepared to fight for.)
Actually, it might be better if all these questionable things disappeared from fiction. Some ideas are actually too dangerous to explore. Yet, I see value of them being there, the same way I see value in the dark side of human history to be studied. Still haven't decided that such value is worth it.
This last comments are important for #HIVE users to think about too. A lot of communities in this platform pride themselves on being Censorhip Resistent. Here you can say things you can't on Social Media like Twitter and Facebook. Is it worth it, if many bad players realized this and abused it feature of our platform?
I don't think Illegal is the same as Unethical. Sometimes you have to break the law to do good things, but Law exists for a reason. Censorship exists for a reason. We have to think well about the paths we take and if they're worth it.
...Then again, here I am talking about high-level stuff. Sometimes we have think Bottom-top if we want to achieve results.
~ Thanks for Reading ~
- All text is written by me, except the ones in double nested-quotes sections.