Quick! Hide your fic!
The Daily Dot tells of an investigative report on Anhui TV which explains Chinese offiicals have arrested approximately 20 people for writing male/male fanfic (aka slash). And most of them were young women.
They write:
The increased attention to slash is part of a recently announced Internet “cleanup” by China’s National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications. It’s apparently been tasked with deleting any kind of pornographic online content.
The whitewashing reportedly includes all text, pictures, videos, and advertisements. It also seems to include slash fic—specifically male/male slash and its Japanese cultural counterpart, yaoi or Boys Love. In China, it all falls under the term “dan mei.”
The report has one woman breaking down on camera, comparing writing slash on the internet to a gateway drug. To what it’s not clear but what is clear, many in an authority position in China feel slash is incredibly offensive, hence the crackdown.
The Daily Dot also says the report “followed male police in Zhengzhou in Henan province as they pursued and arrested 28-year-old Wong Chao Jun, the admin of the now-offline site Dan Mei Fiction Web (DMXSW.com), a popular fanfic archive. Even though the website’s servers were housed in the U.S., where such content is perfectly legal, authorities arrested Chao Jun and closed the archive.”
I say we double our slash efforts to support their freedom to fic. Who’s with me?
(via Geekosystem, image by sherlockedart)
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