Vice's Manga Censorship Push – Ignorance on Display

A reporter from Vice thinks manga creators and fans are full of pedophiles. She's wrong.

Recently, the actions by Vice Media after they published an expose of the manga industry on their YouTube channel caused a stir online. Read a summary of their story and reactions from the interview subjects at J-List Blog.

Vice takes aim at the Japanese manga industry, declaring it full of pedophiles and accusing mangaka of perpetuating assault on minors. https://t.co/H2IAYLwVbz pic.twitter.com/ZHjXLbja6n

— J-LIST (@jlist) November 25, 2022

One sees the familiar formula that culture scolds have pushed on society for decades. Because many mass shooters often play violent FPS combat games, the games cause their behavior. Ban them! Music lyrics have references to sex and drug crimes, causing criminal behavior. Ban them! Child molesters often have child pornography or lolicon art, so ban those things too! Child pornography is already illegal because victims are created in the production of the material. But what about fictional depictions of underage people? Culture censors make one critical error. They confuse correlation with causation.

There are other debates about whether the illicit material draws the criminal element or whether the exposure arouses interest. I don't care about that. What matters is we know where to find the perpetrators of violence and sexual crime. Instead of considering these media and their communities of players and fans as objects to eliminate, we need to consider them as hunting grounds. The percentage of players and consumers that commit criminal acts is low. Exceedingly low. Banning video games or sexualized images would be like burning a forest to hunt deer. We know a correlation exists between pedophiles and mass shooters and their media of choice. That means we've taken the first step in finding them.

There is much talk about addressing mental health issues before people act out on their fixations. If we use the forest and hunting as a metaphor, we can use the correlation of certain types of art to criminal profiles. To hunt deer, go to the forest. Then track them and use suitable weapons to bring them down. The FBI acts similarly in drawing out molesters and potential terrorists. We can debate whether this is entrapment another time, but that has been the law enforcement strategy for decades. Why doesn't the reporter from Vice know this? It's become a meme in community chats to accuse humorless spammers of being "Feds."

The cultural censors of Vice and like-minded outlets don't want to catch criminals. The claim of "protecting children and women" rings hollow. In the era of social media on devices, the FBI entrapment method by appearances is not as effective. That might be a product of local stories spreading worldwide much faster than before. Or law enforcement needs new tactics in identifying their prey in this changing landscape. Whatever the cause of the news media's recent fixation on art, setting fire to the forest is not the answer. The prey will scatter somewhere else.