In providing direct confirmation of the company’s turn towards the absurdly puritanical, Visa exec Cietan Kitney has admitted that not only is the payment processor now choosing to deny their services to websites and business who host adult content, but that they are doing so in order to “protect the brand”.
As readers may recall, recent months have seen an increasing number of Japanese retailers, particularly those whose offerings include ‘adult-oriented’ manga, anime, and doujinishi (self-published works), announcing that various payment processors had dropped them as clients due to their offering of said content, thus removing their respective ability to accept digital payments for their items.
Such affected entities include the popular online doujinishi retailer Melonbooks and iconic Tokyo-based book retailer Toranoana, both of whom have lost the right to process payments from such credit companies as Visa and Mastercard, as well as the out-of-print manga archive Manga Library Z, whose loss of these services actually led to the entire site shuttering its doors (at least for the time being).
Unsurprisingly, this move has proven unpopular with manga readers across the globe, many of whom have taken to social media to voice their frustrations against this psuedo-censorship.
And more than just fans, notable Japanese creators including Love Hina mangaka and Manga Library Z founder Ken Akamatsu and NieR franchise creator Yoko Taro have also spoken out against this growing, corporate-level prudishness, as they believe this trend presents a significant threat to the idea of ‘freedom of expression’.
Unfortunately for those concerned, it seems Visa is not only unapologetic about their decision to stop working with adult-content, but also intends to keep on keeping on with their current strategy.
Per local technology news outlet Impress Watch, during a Q&A session held at the tail-end of a recent press conference conducted by Visa’s Japanese branch concerning their future plans, the aforementioned Kitney, who currently serves as the Head of Product for the company’s Asia Pacific operations, was asked if he could provide any insight into the decision to stop providing payment services to sites that sold adult works.
In turn, the Visa exec explained that while the company normally helps to facilitate transactions for any and all legal goods, they chose to break away from sites stocking adult manga and books because “sometimes it is necessary to disallow it to protect the brand.”
“The reality is that this is a complex decision involving both global and local policies,” he added, “and it is also important to maintain integrity and integrity, and we will continue to do so.”
Per Impress Watch’s own recap of the press conference, the tone and inflection with which Kitney made this statement indicated “that the series of decisions is not a temporary one.”
Further, Kitney did not provide any specific details as to which specific “global and local policies” were being used as the basis for Visa’s ‘anti-adult content’ stance.
