Posted under General
just heard in the UK they made a law change to make "simulated incest" illegal. not really sure what they mean by that though. does that mean a good chunk of this website is super illegal in the UK now or does it just mean human adult film actors pretending to be related is banned and art is still ok?
Not from the UK so Im not exactly worried about this but I am curious and wonder how it would effect some people.
What it means for the site? I don't think anything will happen since e621 is based in the US and this mainly concerns the UK.
IIRC, nothing really happened to us (yet) since they passed The Online Safety Act last year.
Now to analyse what it actually means based on the proposed Crime and Policing Bill:
(1) After section 67D of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 (inserted by
section 90 of this Act) insert—
(2) In section 68 of that Act (special rules relating to providers of information society services), after “67A” (inserted by section 90 of this Act) insert “and 67E”.
(3) In Schedule 14 to that Act (special rules relating to providers of information society services), in paragraphs 3(1), 4(2) and 5(1) after “67A” (inserted by section 90 of this Act) insert “or 67E ”.
(4) In section 47(1) of the Adoption Act 1976, for “or sections 64 and 65 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (sex with an adult relative)” substitute “sections 64 and 65 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (sex with an adult relative), or section 67E of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 (possession or publication of pornographic images of sex between relatives)”.
(5) In section 74(1) of the Adoption and Children Act 2002—
(6) In Schedule 34A to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (child sex offences for the purposes of section 327A), after paragraph 13ZA (inserted by section 90 of this Act) insert—
(7) In Schedule 7 to the Online Safety Act 2023 (priority offences), in paragraph 29, after paragraph (b) (inserted by section 90 of this Act) insert “;
This amendment makes it an offence to possess or publish pornographic images of sex between relatives (that is to say, incest).
To summarise, the incest porn law only focuses on the possession and publication of images (i.e., any visual representation) deemed to be (a) "pornographic", (b) portrays a person sexually penetrating another's vagina, anus, or mouth "in an explicit and realistic way", (c) "a reasonable person looking at the image would think that [the persons] were real", and (d) a reasonable person would think that the persons were "related, or pretending to be related".
For it to matter to artworks, a reasonable person would have to think that the images were "real". I don't think a reasonable person would think drawn works like hentai or furry porn as being "real".
On the other hand, real-life simulated or actual incest porn could be classified under the new law to be illegal to possess or distribute in the UK.
Updated
It seems like it only applies to real or realistic (e.g. photorealistic renders or AI generated content) similar to the fact cub/loli/shota is fine in the UK as long as it doesn't seem too realistic.
I honestly don't think I've ever actually seen any simulated incest porn that pretends to be real, it's always step-siblings and step parents, so it does make me wonder if some places already have laws like this and that's why people are using the loophole.
I know Japan banned it quite a while ago, including in artwork, but I can't imagine that having much of an effect on Western porn.
thegreatwolfgang said:
What it means for the site? I don't think anything will happen since e621 is based in the US and this mainly concerns the UK.
was more talking about in a "we have UK users and the site tends to like to comply to as many local laws as possible" thing. like how we recently removed some art last year due to pressure.
Could you be more specific? Even if we were concerned about that, this is very specifically not for clearly fictional depictions; we don't host content of real humans having sex with other real humans, and we don't host content of what appears to be real humans having sex with other real humans. That's kinda a non-starter for "content that does, appears to, or claims to contain real footage of real family members really having sex with one another"; exactly what post on this site matches that description?
aacafah said:
we don't host content of what appears to be real humans having sex with other real humans
That depends. We do host some content that could arguably be realistic depictions of humans having sexual relations with other humans, either because it also contains non-humans or is part of a series that does. And according to the law's text that was posted, it only matters whether the human characters themselves look real, not whether the image as a whole does, so having an obviously CG horse in the background or an obviously fictional canine cock model doesn't matter if the human characters themselves can be interpreted as real.
It really comes down to that annoyingly ambiguous "a reasonable person would think", as it always does with porn laws like this. Even I've heard people IRL say they thought two people were related when I didn't think they were. And top-of-the-line computer graphics has always had people talking about how realistic and life-like it looks (seriously, go look at the original Mortal Kombat, which was visually ground-breaking for its time and really had people concerned for how realistically gory it was, a statement anyone today would laugh at). It really comes down to what a given judge thinks a reasonable person would think, and trying to guess at someone's guess is anyone's guess.
I'll concede I was intentionally over-generalizing, but considering that's a single page that includes stuff like Asari from Mass Effect & obvious mistags like post #5812662 (likely because we already remove insufficiently furry works), I stand by the assertion that there's little merit to the stated concern that "a good chunk of this website is super illegal in the UK now", & that we'd remove it for that reason. If there's anything that would even vaguely qualify (human on human, post-PS2 graphics, incest elements), you could count it on one hand.
...having an obviously CG horse in the background or an obviously fictional canine cock model doesn't matter if the human characters themselves can be interpreted as real.
A. Sure sounds like a post that'd be removed for being overly human-focused.
B. If the unambiguously fake elements that are supposed to be the focal point of the work don't cast doubt for the average UK resident, that's their problem, & we're not making it ours.
Besides, as Wolfgang already said, according to that aforementioned legislation, the whole site is illegal there; if we were to do anything to comply, we'd have blocked the whole country already.
Point is that I'm confused by the concern persisting, so if this wasn't sufficiently relieving, they need to give more info on why for us to better address their concern.
aacafah said:
A. Sure sounds like a post that'd be removed for being overly human-focused.
post #2742704 was the primary motivator for that statement, which I'm not arguing shouldn't be here (it's part of a series where the horse('s penis) is more in focus). But ultimately my response was to say I don't find it unreasonable for people to be concerned, given the ambiguity around what "a reasonable person would think" entails when it comes to whether someone "would think that [the persons] were real" and/or are "related, or pretending to be related". You and I can tell the aforementioned example is obviously not real, but we're also dealing with content like this fairly often; what is some random "reasonable person" going to think if they suddenly see something like it? I don't think it's unreasonable to be concerned over not knowing whether something applies to fictional images you like, that you think it shouldn't apply but you know some prudes will try to weaponize it regardless.
Again, I'm not saying there could theoretically be some content here that fits all 4 of the aforementioned criteria (& I'll note that even that example doesn't; remember, it's incest content, & not just via headcanon, plus there's no penetration); I'm saying that, not only would it be a minuscule number of posts (in direct contradiction to this individual's concern, which is why I asked them for clarification on their concern), but that it's unreasonable to expect we're gonna deal with it by cleaving vast swaths of content when we're already in alleged violation of one of their laws.
If the concern is that some future regulation could threaten the site, then yeah, sure, I've no notes. But I'm not talking about some hypothetical future regulation that isn't specific to "realistic" human incest content, I'm talking about the real & specific law at hand. After Wolfgang clarified this only targets, at its widest practical reach:
I'm asking if they could specify why they are concerned that "a good chunk of this website is super illegal in the UK now", as I have no idea why they would think that.
This law will outright blacklist sites like pornhub or xvideos, unless they specifically filter out all content depicting incest for UK users.
But that's assuming it's even feasible for all incest themed content, uploaded by thousands of people, to be properly tagged as such, it's an unrealistic thing to expect those sites to do, anyone could upload an amateur video of themselves role-playing the scenario, identifying it as such with a single line of dialog in the middle of the video, and endanger the whole site.
There's also no telling how the UK's standards for 'obscenity' will expand in the future, genuinely, the real concern here should be when one of the thousands of topics depicted through content hosted here will be deemed illegal by the UK government.
They've also been aiming to ban VPNs for a while too, so it's not like a UK user will even be able to bypass a future filter.
To add: I'd much prefer the site simply allow itself to be blocked in the UK then delete thousands of potential posts and blacklist topics to stay up there, like when Russia blocked the site.
Updated
thegreatwolfgang said:
For it to matter to artworks, a reasonable person would have to think that the images were "real". I don't think a reasonable person would think drawn works like hentai or furry porn as being "real".
On the other hand, real-life simulated or actual incest porn could be classified under the new law to be illegal to possess or distribute in the UK.
Key word there being "reasonable" and I'd hardly classify the people pushing things like online age verification (Despite the countless examples of why that's a bad thing.) and bans on ""obscene"" content as reasonable.
Websites outside the UK won't be affected, aside from restricting or banning UK users. (And with the online safety act, many websites chose the latter.)
As far as the content, UK may arrest people for it if found. Redditor's wife arrested for bestiality Skyrim mods. (Jan 2024)
I've seen that post referenced by multiple news sites. If anyone has seen a follow-up, I'd be interested.
No idea how hard the UK will actively search, but there's probably more pressure and incentive from the government with the increase in UK's online verification and social media surveillance in the name of child safety. I personally know a few UK citizens worried about content they've saved over the years from various artists where laws differ (Japan, US, etc), but without identifying them, it's technically just hearsay.
mylosen said:
Websites outside the UK won't be affected, aside from restricting or banning UK users. (And with the online safety act, many websites chose the latter.)As far as the content, UK may arrest people for it if found. Redditor's wife arrested for bestiality Skyrim mods. (Jan 2024)
I've seen that post referenced by multiple news sites. If anyone has seen a follow-up, I'd be interested.No idea how hard the UK will actively search, but there's probably more pressure and incentive from the government with the increase in UK's online verification and social media surveillance in the name of child safety. I personally know a few UK citizens worried about content they've saved over the years from various artists where laws differ (Japan, US, etc), but without identifying them, it's technically just hearsay.
So somehow virtual "bestiality" is worse than virtual murder.
mylosen said:
As far as the content, UK may arrest people for it if found. Redditor's wife arrested for bestiality Skyrim mods. (Jan 2024)
I've seen that post referenced by multiple news sites. If anyone has seen a follow-up, I'd be interested.
It appears that thread is a repost of the real one but it doesn't seem to have any follow-up either. I'd be willing to bet this actually never made it to court and it's a rare edge-case scenario because that "friend" is just a huge asshole for reporting it and forcing them to act upon it. The prosecution would have to prove it was entirely produced for the purpose of sexual arousal (there's probably a lot of arguments you could make against this, as with US obscenity laws) and also that a reasonable person would believe it's a real image. (I think that's unlikely, but with the amount of people who fall for blatant AI slop these days, maybe people aren't as reasonable as I thought)
mylosen said:
No idea how hard the UK will actively search, but there's probably more pressure and incentive from the government with the increase in UK's online verification and social media surveillance in the name of child safety. I personally know a few UK citizens worried about content they've saved over the years from various artists where laws differ (Japan, US, etc), but without identifying them, it's technically just hearsay.
Unless they've got spyware on your computer (with all the proprietary software the average person uses, it may be possible) or the website you're using snitches on you (I don't think they would do that if they're the one hosting it, either illegally in the UK or outside the jurisdiction of the UK) the government shouldn't be able to see what you're specifically looking at even without a VPN thanks to HTTPS - right now they'd be able to see I'm connecting to e621.net but they don't know I'm currently looking at /forum_topics/62279, or whatever posts I decide to look at, and that's plausible enough that I'm not looking at anything illegal because 99.99% of e621's content is going to be legal in the UK.
If you're browsing websites entirely dedicated to content that may be illegal in the UK it may be an entirely different story, since they can still see the domain name. If the government do have spyware on your computer scanning your downloads you may in fact be screwed. But most importantly don't leave your laptop unattended where people can pick it up and view your degenerate porn collection.
aobird said:
So somehow virtual "bestiality" is worse than virtual murder.
This is the same UK govt that voted against investigating the grooming gangs properly.
