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A Brief History of Western Obscenity Law

August 29th, 2011 by Azarius

In economically developed social-democracies, the greatest part of contemporary debates over free speech and censorship revolve around three broad areas: intellectual property, defamation and obscenity. The current opinionated article will focus on obscenity law as a menace to free speech. To better understand this state of affairs, it is required that we examine the relatively short but complex history of obscenity as a legal concept. This history of the concept will focus on two countries: the United Kingdom, birthplace of obscenity law, and the United States, rife with unique legal circumstances which have come about from many controversial precedent-setting cases.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. What is provided here is intended for casual informational purposes only.

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Further Down the Road of Social Insanity

August 20th, 2011 by Azarius

Amidst recent developments in obscenity law, yestofreedom‘s sense of purpose was rekindled. During the past year, not only have proponents of stricter obscenity laws remained very active, they have made several significant political and legal gains. Far from rejecting the shoddy and ultimately useless legal framework upon which obscenity laws are built, a number of otherwise “developed” countries have taken a step further towards the criminalization of purely fictional material that is found to be “offensive” to some.

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No, We’re Not Dead

October 3rd, 2010 by Azarius

Contrary to what this website looks like, we are not dead. Not yet. We just lack motivation. And active members. 4, 5 or even 6½ busy people cannot realistically sustain a community on the Internet. Unless it’s more family-like, like our IRC channel which is quite very alive still. But said channel has little to do with campaigning to protect free speech. Oh, it’s still radically freedom-loving at its core.

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Censorship: A Socio-Cultural Analysis

March 29th, 2010 by Ikigami and Azarius

Throughout the history of mankind, there have been times and places in which censorship of fiction thrived and others in which it was next to non-existent. This is the result of the socio-cultural context, itself the consequence of historical events and processes. Censorship is not only a form of expression control, but of thought control as well. The censorship of ideas, texts and depictions considered dangerous to the ruling class is the most classic reason for censorship, along with forms of expression that go against established dogma (see Galileo, 1633) such as religion. For instance, Socrates was executed on charges that he corrupted the youth and that he did not acknowledge the gods that the city did but other new divinities of his own. His own pupil Plato supported in his work (Republic) that any art that could corrupt the morality of the nation should be censored. In 440 BC a law was introduced that would impeach or exile “those who denied the Gods or taught about celestial phenomena”.

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Why We Moderate Comments

February 24th, 2010 by Azarius

Along with the increasing amount of comments we receive, we also get an ever increasing number of comments that are never published on the site and are rather promptly deleted. In other words, Yes to Freedom does “censor” certain comments from an internal point of view. As we are an organisation that claims to fight for absolute freedom of speech, explaining the reasons behind such moderation is becoming pressing.

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Fictional Freedom: a Legal Perspective, Part 1

February 20th, 2010 by Azarius

A newly active member of yestofreedom and law student, Immigrant88 wrote with the collaboration of myself and other members of the organisation a lengthy article explaining from a legal perspective the flaws of laws censoring “prurient fiction”. More precisely, it uses Professor Lon L. Fuller’s conception of natural law as basis of its arguments.

You can view it below, as well as download it here.

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Website’s Database Wrecked by Online Attack

January 25th, 2010 by Azarius

This weekend, http://yestofreedom.org was hit by an attack of unprecedented scale, originating from an unknown source. We are not in the position to blame anyone or any organisation, but would like to remind users that someone, whether intentionally or not, is probably breaking the law to stop us.

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Misunderstanding and Moral Panic: A True Story

January 10th, 2010 by Azarius

Very human is the fear of what is not understood. Those who openly engage in unconventional conduct are bound to fight for mere tolerance – regardless of the impact, or absence thereof, of said behaviour.

The current climate of utter misunderstanding, and incidentally of moral panic, that surrounds modern Japanese visual culture is illustrated in outstanding detail in the following story that has been sent to yestofreedom by email. As the writer has expressed his desire to remain anonymous, we will refer to him as “John Smith”. The text was furthermore edited with the writer’s permission to improve legibility.

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MangaGamer: “Not Censoring our Games Was Unrelated to Free Speech”

January 7th, 2010 by Azarius

We recently decided to send a letter of support to the company MangaGamer, in response to their decision to not censor potentially “objectionable” content in upcoming eroge releases. We also made use of this email to ask for their moral support in our campaign for free speech. Below is the full text of the email we sent to info[at]manga-corp.com.

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Freedom-tan

December 18th, 2009 by Azarius

As both of yestofreedom‘s current campaigns are related to Japanese subculture, and more precisely anime and manga, we have deemed relevant to create, in a line of thought similar to Wikipedia‘s Wikipe-tan, our own “-tan” anime-styled mascot.

We have named said character Freedom-tan – or, in Japanese, Jiyū-tan (自由たん) - as a clear reference to our goals and ideals. While her rather diminutive frame is somewhat meant as a reference to our campaign on lolicon art, her usual items hold a more mainstream meaning. The pen/brush is a way of defining writing as a “peaceful weapon”. The art palette, on the other hand, stands as a shield – art – against censorship and everything yestofreedom opposes. Finally, the feather, official logo of yestofreedom, symbolizes both freedom itself, through its link with bird-like features.

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