While repressive censorship isn’t anything new in Russia, manga in particular has recently become the focus after posts highlighting how entire pages are covered with black bars have gone viral.

Thanks in part to X’s new policy of auto-translating tweets, international communication has been more convenient. The censorship which Russian manga readers have been dealing with for years are finally getting attention by the west.

At least as far as two years ago, manga has been censored with barcode-like bars crossing out entire pages. One Reddit user posted an example from the manga Oshi no Hada ga Areta.

This censorship is justified by Russia as protecting youth from “LGBT propaganda”. This excuse has been used to enforce censorship in multiple countries and restricts the freedom of expression of creators, and restricts the freedom of consumers.

Since at least 2013, Russia adopted a law against “propaganda of homosexuality”. As a result, the free speech of its citizens has been restricted, and human rights organizations have been maliciously categorized as “foreign agents”.

When the censorship of one topic is justified, it puts at risk any form of free expression by creating precedents in the law. LGBT censorship eventually may lead to censorship of other sexual content, even content deemed innocuous by most communities. For instance Brave x Junction, a Japanese game with bikini armor has been banned in Germany, China, and Saudi Arabia; the latter two have laws restricting LGBT content.