Pixiv to impose restrictions on US and UK users, targeting “obscene” content 

Pixiv announced an update of their region-based content restrictions on April 22. The new restrictions will come into effect starting April 25, and will regulate the kinds of content users from the US and UK can view and post to the platform. 

According to the announcement, the new regulations are a way for Pixiv to comply with the laws and regulations of the respective countries of their users. As such, the restrictions will apply to any user who has their account region set to the United States or United Kingdom. 

As for what the regulations are about – Pixiv has uploaded a document detailing what kind of content UK and US users will be restricted from viewing and posting. There are five clauses each for the two regions, although there seems to be no substantial difference between them. Some of the restrictions are quite straightforward – targeting content such as child pornography, deepfakes that violate another’s personality rights, and revenge pornography. 

On the other hand, some of the restrictions are phrased quite broadly – for example, clauses 4 and 5 mention posting “obscene content” and “content that appeals to indecent interest or is patently offensive by the standards of the user’s community.”  

Furthermore, clause 3 seems to restrict (in the same boat as snuff pornography) depictions of death and violence on the art platform. It remains to be seen how and to what extent these restrictions will actually be enforced in practice, but their broad wording has generated concern among both overseas and Japanese users, the latter of whom fear that similar restrictions could be imposed in their own region. 

For the time being, Pixiv users can change their account’s region regardless of what country they’re accessing the site from.