Gay Dating Sites Face Censorship?

With the recent introduction of mandatory censorship for internet connections, whether by PC or mobile, for minors in Japan, the non-governmental censors now face some difficult situations; no wonder the government wanted this off its hands. The issue raised in this interesting article is whether gay dating sites are to be judged harmful to minors, or to be left alone.

The government has hived off the messy business to an “independent” organisation, the EMA, which is currently drawing up the blacklist for wicked sites, and is doing so in part by soliciting opinions from the public, and apparently canvassing a little.

According to a relevant survey, 87% of parents thought sites merely relating to homosexuality should be objects of filtering, whilst only 47% of 15 to 18-year-olds thought so – there is some speculation that high levels of tolerance for homosexuality amongst young people bear some relation to the “boys love” boom.

It would appear that the EMA whipping boy will now face fire from both sides, as if on the one hand they allow children to access sites promoting boys love or yuri action they will be accused by parents of encouraging under-age homosexual sex, whilst on the other filtering the sites will soon find them accused of discriminating against non-heterosexuals, and preventing healthy access to information on sexuality, especially so if they allow heterosexual dating sites at the same time.

Perhaps they will try to sidestep the issue by banning all dating sites? It would appear they are not yet ready for the next step. The children are the only ones they can get away with ignoring, it would appear…