Ah Kiwifarms... you see though, they often err on the side of whatever is the most juicy. They’re infamous for taking tenuous bits of evidence to paint a horrible picture of someone. They are also masters at omitting things that would hurt this case, even if it’s the very next sentence in a paragraph.

Now on one hand, a lot of the subjects on kiwifarms are in fact not the type of people anyone would want to defend; many of them really are horrible people. And, you could argue that what kiwifarms does is not a big deal, since it’s just archiving what people say.

But then, I think it highlights one of the things people hate about the internet. Which is to say, the looming record. Everything someone has ever said or defended might be archived somewhere, to be picked apart endlessly. The thing is, most of the time, more time is spent picking apart and dissecting text than was spent originally writing it. (Could it some day be these comments in this thread being archived and weaponized? Maybe.)

I think byuu’s reply underscores all of that.

But even moreso, it underscores something more sinister, imo. Byuu never left a shred of evidence about his sexuality anywhere, which is because he is asexual. However, he is accused of pedophilia for defending comic books. Now there are enough pornographic comic books in this world to find at least one that’ll make anyone’s skin crawl, but it is still just ink on paper. Even if you still think it should be banned, I don’t see how you could possibly, with good conscience, accuse someone of potentially being a pedophile over your position on this issue, especially knowing Japanese culture surrounding this phenomenon. There is no need to make bad analogies to defend this position. It is a logical leap of epic proportions to suggest not wanting to censor comics fantasizing about something is somehow advocating for the thing they fantasize about.

Byuu gave up his position, which was a smart thing to do nowadays, as this non-sense idea that being anti-censorship makes you a pedophile is actually pervasive in both left and right leaning circles nowadays. I know some people think I’m exaggerating here, but the battle has been rather vicious against online artists, who in the west have in many cases stopped posting pornography altogether to avoid stepping on glass, and there’s a ton of pressure being put on Patreon and its payment processors to the point where Patreon now claims officially that you can no longer post illustrated pornography with anime-style features[1].

I think it is, at best, scummy behavior to go and take someone’s opinion on this subject and use it to extrapolate on how they might be a predator in real life. Of course, something also common with both Kiwifarms and with the left-leaning internet is guilt by association. So god help you if you are friends with anyone who has a banned opinion.

There are other preposterous logical conclusion jumps than just this one too! I don’t think any of them are as vicious because they are easier to call out as bullshit because you won’t be unilaterally shat on for defending pedophilia when doing so. In byuu’s case, though, I think this was the most egregious one.

All in all, what Kiwifarms claims to do and I believe even what they think they do seems like it would not be all that bad; it almost seems a bit journalistic on its face. But as usual, the devil is in the details.

Throwaway account for many reasons that are already obvious if you read this far. I am not mortified of being outed or anything, as I really do stand by my opinions, but I suspect there would be very little benefit to standing by it with my own name in this day and age. :(

[1] https://twitter.com/waero_re/status/1238408555507539968