Content Warnings: CSAM/CSEM Sharing/Trading, Child Predation, Lolicon/Shotacon/Kodocon/Toddlercon, Pro-C Pedophilia, Child Exploitation, Americans abusing Japanese Spaces
I am discussing real predators trading real life CSAM. I am showing you, openly, that there is a problem on Pawoo. I am giving you the tools to report this to CyberTipline, Pawoo, and the Prostasia Foundation.
This is about real children being sexually exploited. Not drawings, not "lolis," real, living, breathing children. And it's horrific.
According to RAINN, "The US Now Hosts More Child Sexual Abuse Material than any Other Country."
Disclaimer: Lolicon/shotacon/whatever is not the problem, and I will not be pretending it is. The co-opting of this language, which was used to describe fictional characters[1] since the 80s[2], is. Invading Japanese spaces with CSAM in order to circumvent western observation is inherently racist and exploitative.
The information gathered below is from a myriad of places, not the least of which being a Mastodon instance admin who was kind enough to give me the "starting" tags. Another unnamed user mentioned something similar, and along with some strange activity I had noticed, I felt it important that I educate myself.
I am deeply sickened by what I have learned. I would have loved to live in ignorance of this. The tone of this article will shift abruptly, and I am sorry.
[1] Lolicon on Wikipedia (further reading within)
[2] The History of Hentai Manga by Kimi Rito, Chapter 1, page 27-30
I do not believe it's pertinent to reiterate them here, so please see the following articles for resources on fantasy, art, and sexuality.
What is "Pro-Fiction" and why am I Seeing it on Twitter (scroll down to the sources for most relevant information)
Pawoo is a Japanese Mastodon instance for sharing artwork, with similar rules to pixiv. It allows all forms of art legal under Japanese law, which, unsurprisingly, includes lolicon. There is a large following on the site for such content, from users all over the East and West, regardless of (or because of) the legality in their location. Along with Baraag and Aethy, Pawoo is one of only a small handful of Mastodon instances (and, indeed, places on the internet at large) that allow it. This makes it attractive for both artists and consumers of lolicon, as well as cub, shotacon, general kodocon, and even toddlercon.
Some may balk at the thought of any place on the internet allowing "the sexualization of minors," even in fiction. Similar such people might also recoil in horror at Stephan King's IT, or Kate Elizabeth Russel's My Dark Vanessa, but typically, written work by popular English-speaking western authors are not as widely discussed. Eastern artists drawing highly stylized, big headed, wide-eyed "children," however, are frequently referred to as "degenerate."
Racist sentiments aside, there is clearly a rallying against this media. This, as with most fringe subcultures, pushes those interested in that content into further and more obscure corners of the internet. This was widely considered normal before Web 2.0, as many people would have forums or static pages like Geocities in order to find one another. Many would then interact through email, or a MUD. Skype, MSN, and AOL weren't available to them until later, and when they were, these subcultures moved there. Eventually Discord hit the streets of the net, and that became the most recent gathering place for large subcultures.
However, around 2015, a large group of users began advocating against "degenerate" and sexual art, bringing back groups like the Burned Furs. These violently anti-sex and anti-kink collectives, made up mostly of TERFs and fascists, began co-opting progressive language to better indoctrinate queer teens into their rhetoric.
Along the way, many payment processors began to blacklist any website dealing in "adult" works. Sites like tumblr were threatened by major corporations like Apple, with their app being removed until the offensive content was purged. Other sites followed suit as payment processors began bearing down on them. Patreon tightened their restrictions and pushed sex workers off the platform, along with creators of "vore" and "hypnosis" artwork on the premise that it was non-consensual (see here and here). Even Onlyfans made an ill-fated attempt to ban sex workers, its primary source of income, due to pressure from companies like Mastercard.
But what does this have to do with Pawoo being taken over by CSAM traffickers? Unfortunately, quite a lot. When groups are pushed further into isolation by, say, a payment processor freezing their funds from NSFW commissions, and websites refusing to stand by their adult content creators, these creators will be forced further and further into obscurity. These places are always far less populated, with barely a fraction of the userbase of larger social media sites such as Twitter.
Predators know that smaller areas, like Mastodon instances, lack the kind of bot-based moderation that Twitter or Facebook would have. Thus, moderation is more intimate, often with one-on-one interactions with other living, breathing humans. Humans who might not know certain tells, strings of numbers, or even lacking skills in the language of certain users entirely. Humans who are fallible, and can be tricked with the right words.
Words like lolicon and shotacon, for example. Predators appear friendly towards this (and indeed sometimes genuinely are), claiming to agree on the "stance" of "anti-censorship," and then entering those spaces. In the same way that the right co-opts progressive terms to seem less harmful, predators use these words to hide their dangerous intent. In order to signal to each other, they must use a few other terms to stand out from the crowd. Terms their fellow predators will know instantly, but the average person wouldn't.
Terms like "pedophile" and "child pornography" can be translated rather easily. But what about slang? "MAP," for example, is rather innocuous without context. A non-English speaker might not know what this stands for, and might struggle to ask or understand the explanations given to them by Google or native speakers. The meanings of tags like which utilize symbols, extra letters, and other means are, therefore, completely lost to them. Muddy the waters further with subtle language and code words (in reference to CSAM for trade or sale), and you have a recipe for disaster.
Originally, I was going to put an image here. It would have everything important blacked out, except for the usernames and tags. However, upon further thought, I decided against it.
I do not want anyone seeking out these people.
I do not want anyone exploring these tags.
These are predators. They are sexually abusing children. The problem needs to be talked about, but it cannot be done in a way that easily aids other predators in gaining possession of CSAM.
Also, looking at and thinking about the screenshots made me physically ill.
You can report Pawoo to the CyberTipline. Tell them the three tags, it should be more than enough. They can figure it out from there. Do not go out of your way to search for this material.
Obviously, you should also report it directly to Pawoo. If there are any Japanese speakers out there that can translate, that may make the instance admin(s) aware of the issue. And, yes, I have contacted them as well (I used DeepL to translate it to the best of my ability).
Finally, because I'm just a student and in no way a professional, nor do I have any idea how to deal with this information beyond the two links above, I have alerted the Prostasia Foundation to this as well.
Any English-speaker who happens across these tags might quirk a brow. In fact, I'm certain they'd know what they were looking at within a few moments. But Japanese-speakers, who are not fluent in English or English slang? They're just tags. That's not to say that there isn't a single Japanese person on Pawoo that couldn't read them; Japanese fans have shared English fandom space for years, and many have become bilingual because of or in part due to those interactions. Some surely would know this is a red flag- but if they aren't seeing those posts, or searching the highly-specific, edited tags, how would they find them?
I should also note, with some disdain, that there is a level of incompetence to consider. This problem has become well-known among Mastodon users, anti and pro-censorship alike. Many, if not most instances defederate with Pawoo. They also defederate with other instances that allow lolicon, claiming (falsely) "also host CSAM." Indeed, I fear many have become so desensitized to terms like "child porn" that the severity of these crimes is no longer pertinent to them. Many treat it the way they treat lolicon, including spreading it around.
By being desensitized to these terms, people may become less capable of recognizing the severity of what they are seeing, and definitely makes them apathetic towards anything addressed in such a way. If the word "pedophile" is common vernacular as an insult (towards queer people, sex workers, adult artists, most commonly), saying a person is a pedophile begins to lose its meaning.
Everyone on Twitter is a pedophile, apparently. All anime fans are pedophiles. Trans people are pedophiles. A fourteen year old who is attracted to a thirteen year old is a pedophile. Say it enough and the word no longer holds weight, never mind that it's being used incorrectly in most cases anyways.
Saying "they make child porn" also means less when that "child porn" is a drawing of an anime girl, a dog-person cub, or an unevolved Pokémon. So when a person says "This person is sharing pedophilic content," the first thought isn't about real kids anymore. It's about drawings.
And usually, nowadays, it is.
But in the instances where it isn't, where real children are being abused, where links and Telegram chats and Kiks are being shared- well, the average user is already desensitized to those words. Why do anything about it when you could just shout into the void on Twitter, or make a callout post about an anime? At least then you feel like you're doing something.
Exactly as a predator would want it.
TL;DR: Pushing adult artists into obscurity puts them in proximity to predators who have been pushed into the fringes of society. Giving them terms and movements to co-opt, much like the right with progressive language, allows them to invade spaces meant for artists and creatives. This becomes more difficult when those spaces are not English-speaking, and the use of slang makes noticing these red flags difficult for non-English speakers. Ultimately, it creates a playground for predators here in the Clearnet that we are not capable of dealing with alone.
Sources:
Pawoo
Lolicon: The Reality of ‘Virtual Child Pornography’ in Japan by Patrick W. Galbraith
Erotic Comics in Japan: An Introduction to Eromanga by Nagayama Kaoru, Patrick W. Galbraith, and Jessica Bauwens-Sugimoto
Dimensions of Desire: Sex, Fantasy and Fetish in Japanese Comics by Setsu Shigematsu
Web 2.0 Explained: Everything You Need To Know by Heather Hall
Subculture as defined by America Psychology Association's Dictionary of Psychology
Dress, Appearance, and Diversity in U.S. Society, Chapter 6 SUBCULTURE AND GROUP MEMBERSHIP on the Iowa State University website
MUDs and MOOs on St. Bonaventure University
Burned Furs on Fanlore
Tumblr NSFW Content Purge on Fanlore
Geocities on Fanlore
Please Read! Current Patreons and Newcomers! by Just A Little Vore
This short Twitter thread by VeryFilthyThing Patreon continues to crack down on NSFW content creators by Cara Curtis on The Next Web
OnlyFans Reverses Its Decision to Ban Explicit Content on The New York Times
The History of Hentai Manga by Kimi Rito
Vice News Removes Japanese Reupload of Their Loli Slander Video by Rift on Sankaku Complex
Wow that is terrible. It's also happened with Pixiv and Ai generation. English people especially are filling the website with Ai "art" that's made from real pictures of children being abused. I used to love the website but now I feel t unsafe going there.