Niconico mass deletes videos and shuts down adult-oriented fanart portal to comply with international laws
Dwango has announced that Niconico Shunga, the adult oriented section of Japanese manga and fanart platform Niconico Seiga, will have its service suspended on January 29 (as reported by ITMedia). At the same time, tens of thousands of videos have been removed from Niconico Douga (“Japan’s YouTube”) over the past few days. These actions are the outcome of Niconico services’ regulations being revised last October to accommodate international laws regarding sexual and violent content.
Niconico Shunga, named after the word for erotic Japanese woodblock prints, is a subsection of Niconico Seiga for illustrations deemed suitable for those aged 15 and up. Such illustrations contained sexual content not permitted in the main part of the site. However, from January 29 onwards, all illustrations submitted to Niconico Shunga so far will be either deleted from the platform or hidden (i.e. marked as deleted). It will be no longer possible for users to select the “R15” and “R15 (including grotesque content)” categories from this date onwards.
Also, any new illustrations submitted to the site which are judged to contain sexual or extreme expressions that meet R15 criteria and above will be deleted. Those attempting to post such content will be subject to usage restrictions like posting bans.
To be more precise, Niconico’s Terms of Use and Action Guidelines policies were revised on October 30, 2024 to include not only Japanese laws but also international regulations relating to the posting and accessing of violent and sexual content on the platform. Specific examples added to the revised Action Guidelines include “Content that appears to involve or depict the abuse, sexual exploitation, or sexual activity of children, child-like characters, or animals, as defined by the standards and laws of the country or region in which the content is accessed or posted,” and “Content that is or appears to be intended for or involved in excessive violence, suicide, self-harm, promotion of terrorism, or manufacture or sale of illegal drugs or weapons” (source: Niconico blog).
Since these regulations were amended, Niconico platforms have undergone various related changes. From November 26 last year, Niconico Douga changed the name of its R18 category to the euphemistic “you know what” or “rei no sore” in Japanese (source: ASCII), likely to make its adult videos less findable by search engines. This week, Niconico Douga have apparently removed around 50,000 videos from the platform, likely because they violate the revised terms (source: Otaku Soken).
It seems that Dwango’s decision to suspend Niconico Shunga is a result of these revised regulations and the company’s efforts to adhere to international laws. Last year, Niconico stopped accepting all credit card payment methods except for the Japan-based JCB. This is due to international payment processors’ tightening regulations, and has impacted many Japanese sites where user created adult content can be found, including DLsite, fantia and even a manga archive.