Australian Anime, Manga & Slash Fans May Run Afoul of Law | Dru Pagliassotti - 1 views
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However, the Australian law is very vaguely worded, and I fear it’s going to cause as much harm as it may cause good. For example, from an academic’s perspective, it’s clear that one of the problems of this legislation is that it will have a very strong chilling effect on Australian scholars interested in studying anime, manga, slash, and yaoi, or even other forms of sex/uality, because of the sheer possibility that clicking on a link, ordering a movie or manga, or even purchasing an academic book or reading a journal article on the subject might expose one to an image that could be interpreted as “child pornography” under Australian law.
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In 2010 the Australian Government proposes to go ahead with a mandatory ISP-level internet filtering scheme which, if passed into law, could have a massive impact on anime, manga and slash fans. Why manga and slash fans? Because the main target of the law is to prevent the circulation of 'child abuse sexual imagery' - BUT in Australia 'child abuse sexual imagery' covers even FICTIONAL representations and includes 'under age' characters in anime, manga and slash. If the law is passed, any fan site that contains or links to this material could be added to a government 'blacklist' and access denied in Australia.
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This is an important news for both fans and scholars of fanfictions and dojinshi.