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Reddit's New Pornography Rules Includes Ban of 'Fantasy' Minor Content
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
In a recent move to ban uploading "deepfake" generated pornography, administrators of the popular forum website Reddit unrolled new site-wide rules on Wednesday banning involuntary pornography and updating its restrictions of images sexualizing minors.
The updated rules include explicitly illegal content like child sexual abuse imagery and content that is deemed as promoting pedophilia, child exploitation, or otherwise sexualizes minors. The rule includes fantasy content and directly states that anime images are included. The rules also state that nudity is not necessary and "in some cases include depictions of minors that are fully clothed and not engaged in overtly sexual acts."
A Reddit administrator and the site's community discussed the new rules in a public thread. Some accused the rule change as simply a PR move and that finding the correct link to report content is buried in a multi-step contact menu.
The correct steps to find the report link are Message the Admins > Something Else > Content breaks Reddit Rules > and choosing either of the top two options followed by using the "please send us a message" link. There currently is not a choice that references sexually explicit content depicting a minor and sending a message requires a Reddit account. The link above that leads to www.reddithelp.com does not require an account but it is not found within the contact menu.
Users in the thread have also pointed out that despite rolling out these new rules, subreddits dedicated to lurid photos of underage girls playing sports and those containing graphic, violent images of dead children and animal abuse are still hosted on the site, some with over 17,000 subscribers.
Individuals have previously been prosecuted in the U.S. and abroad for owning or downloading anime and manga depicting minors in sexual situations. A Canadian man was arrested in Canada in 2005 after attempting to import 15 books containing sexually explicit manga featuring adults having sex with children. A New Zealand man was sentenced to three months in jail in 2013 for possessing and viewing Japanese anime that depicted fantasy creatures having sex. A man in Maine was initially arrested but not formally arraigned for "anime" depicting children in sexual situations in 2011.
Thanks to Cam0 for the news tip
