Ban of porn as lead up to more general censorship is part of project 2025, so I am ot so sure we csn threaten master, paypal and visa cards into compliance.
COG might start to have a back up plan prepared. Some off the places hit earlier than steam had some work arounds, they were annyoing, but there might be no choice. Hopefully, it won’t be relevant, but we should all brace for worst
So far their campaign has not seen a reduction of the obviously sexist games on valve, though there are not so many slipping through among the new ones. Many of them are an excuse to provide porn and probably need assessing as they are not games or software.
However, as an Aussie, I haven’t heard of this group, and I think I would have done if they were responsible for stopping the pianist performing in Melbourne. The only pianist I have heard of who has had his appearance stopped came out in support of the people in Gaza during a performance at the Sydney Opera House, and the concert management in Melbourne suddenly got politically correct, as Hamas is classified as a terrorist group, so they cancelled his performance. They later publicly stated they should not have done it. The only group of people liable to have taken action in this instance might have been the Jewish and pro-Israeli groups here who seem to have considerable political influence, but that has not been mentioned as far as I know, or at least the ABC has not thought it important enough to mention it.
I would have thought right wing groups in the US would have more influence than this particular group, they are apparently taking on Elon Musk, and that is well beyond the capabilities of a bunch of Aussies.
Cool. Can’t wait to report the Bible and stuff like “emissions like those of donkeys.” If people think I won’t burn EVERYTHING to the ground, it’ll just make my job easier.
This isn’t a new issue or just effecting Itch.io. Visa was just handed an administrative judgment in Japan over similar processing black outs effecting Japanese entertainment products. It’s been flaring on in off in different segments of the international media landscape for over a decade now.
While thst was funny and all, you know it won’t work.
It won’t ban what they like as we saw with the ones who tried to leverage those bible scenes in the ban happy school in usa.
The definition of is vague enough that it can be applied as seemed fit.
Truth and sex scenes will only matter in the firdt wave, where they hit stufff like incestiswincest-daddydominateme7, who nobody will dare to defend.
They wont obvisously come games like bg3, kingdomcome 2, geand theft auto and detroit be come human, because they already tried and failed, but they will make it so that games like them become harder and harder to make and then we will end up with hollywoodmovies where everything is bland and safe and boring
I don’t have much to contribute in terms of information… I found out about this via tumblr. And I’m going to say this with as much dignity as I can muster: I’m afraid and saddened in the face of this absolutely dystopian horseshit. I can hardly believe this is happening. A few years ago, the world seemed so much brighter and safer than this.
Games are incredibly precious to me, and what these people are doing should be punishable by law. Here we have payment processing companies restricting art, companies that should have no judicative/legislative/any might whatsoever deciding what people may consume. And of course they don’t go against actually harmful content, instead they endanger marginalized groups and creators, of course. No one can know peace with these hateful people.
Marginalized groups do have problems. The worst part is that games that really are offensive are often missed because they are comedy or have a visual trailer that gives the impression they are user friendly, when the contents are anything but. The worst are the ones with the subtle messages hidden in them aimed at children and younger teens, because as adults we can pretty much avoid what offends us and report it if its bad enough, while they don’t have the life skills to do that and often find things funny that we would find worrying.
I get the slippery slope argument, but I think it’s misplaced.
Porn shouldn’t be an easy target. It’s massively popular, massively lucrative, a cultural cornerstone for our eros-worshiping civilization. It’s impossible to make a principled distinction between porn and erotic art; SCOTUS’s infamous “I know it when I see it” comment arose in the context of an obscenity case against an erotic film being thrown out, and that’s how most of the jurisprudence has gone since then.
The only reason porn distributors have started to be successfully targeted in the last decade has to do with areas where the principled distinctions are rather clearer: rape, incest, and child abuse. (So yeah, “think of the children” doesn’t quite land here with its original Simpsons sense.)
Unlike, say, Hosted Games, the big sex-monetizing platforms haven’t set up their systems to reliably screen out works that glorify nonconsensual sex. They justify it with “we don’t have the capacity to do that,” “who are we to say what deserves censorship,” and other lines that should have a familiar and somewhat ironic ring to anyone who took part in last week’s Aura Clash discussion. (I won’t link to that since it’s disappearing soon anyway.)
You’re all totally right that anti-LGBT advocacy groups will try to fight to define “child abuse” in a way that catches as much LGBT content as possible. But we’re making it pretty easy on them if the sites we’re defending are hosting actual depictions of child sexual abuse!
Bringing it back to itch, I’ve never hung out there so don’t know how much underage content was on itch pre-ban. But from the media coverage, it sounds like itch’s specific vulnerability was No Mercy, a popular “rape 'em all” sim. Can we spare a little of our righteous anger for the site that didn’t invest in any safeguards to keep out that kind of content?
The payment provider companies aren’t crazy bigots for wanting to distance themselves from that shit – any more than CoG/HG is with racism/homophobia/etc. on authors’ Discords.
Fighting more consistently for “ethical porn” would no doubt play into the picture of lefties as humorless scolds trying to censor the world. But if we don’t, we shouldn’t be surprised when companies whose NSFW tags didn’t differentiate between Lady Chatterley and No Mercy suddenly have to pull whole catalogs.
We’d be better prepared to fight against companies’ / advocacy groups’ attempts to censor the erotic if we accepted the principle of companies censoring the grossly nonconsensual, and supported policies and systems that accomplish that. It’s easier to fight for the principle that LGBT content isn’t unethical than to fight for the principle that companies should have to associate themselves with all content, however unethical.
We’d still have debates on our hands over e.g. getting contemporary Nabokovs an artistic merit exemption… but the fact that a system biased against child abuse will occasionally exclude a literary classic doesn’t mean our systems shouldn’t have a basic bias against child abuse.
Edit: reminded of our previous discussions of ethical lines in IF. A market needs to recognize those lines somewhere, or else it’ll end up being shaped (and to some extent even defined) by its ugliest content.
No one cares about no mercy, it was banned months ago by itch.io staff an no one mourned.
No one cares about the steam games that were banned either, no one would’ve even noticed they were gone if Valve didn’t say anything.
What people care about was the decision to remove them did not come from Valve it came from payment processors.
Who are payment processors to decide what you can and can’t buy? Nothing that was banned was CP or drugs or anything else illegal, they should have been taken by steam and itch.io if it violated their TOS
Payment processors are there to transfer an exchange of money and legal product between one consenting party to another they are not there to larp as the inquisition.
It’s not like Visa/Mastercard have a moral high ground to stand on AT ALL considering how many people they’ve screwed.
I understand not wanting to defend these specific games but that’s not what people are they’re trying to fight against the precedent being set that a third party who doesn’t care about games, doesn’t care about art, doesn’t care about expression and doesn’t care about storytelling is now allowed to dictate what legal content you can and can’t consume.
It is not up to payment processers to decide what adullt people can buy.
Just as it is not up to telefon companies to decided who they can talk with.
There service is quite frankly to vital that if crimes are commited with them it is up to the police with a warrent
And they always comes for porn first then goes for lgbtq+ and women. All queer person who have been on the interent knows this. Everyly who lived thrpugh Livejournal strikethrough and tumblrs female presenting nipples knows this.
But Visa and Mastercard don’t get to have a TOS for the markets they support? Even one as basic as “no rape simulators”?
The reason the problem didn’t go away when No Mercy was taken down (which only happened following the advocacy group’s complaint, if I’ve understood the story correctly) was that it highlighted the lack of systemic safeguards at Valve and itch to prevent rape simulators from popping up and being sold there again.
Will that continue to be the case? There’s big money in sex games. I find it hard to imagine that Valve and itch will, in the long run, respond to this by permanently purging all NSFW content, rather than investing in better systems to keep out the grossly unethical stuff. That would no doubt mean a rather smaller market (imposing new moderation/ screening costs inevitably slows down the addition of new content) but I’d bet that it’s not going to disappear forever.
I find it even harder to imagine the payment providers insisting on “no porn” as opposed to “no glorification of rape”. Like you said, they’re not particularly ethical, and there’s a majority consensus in every Western country that porn as such is ethically tolerable. Porn just doesn’t tarnish companies’ reputations the way that, say, rape simulators do.
Is there a risk of a slippery slope that has them cutting off the sale of other art that enough people complain about? Yep (just like some of us were discussing on that Aura Clash thread). But the right answer to a supposedly slippery slope isn’t always to refuse to take any action at the relatively gentle-sloped, un-slippery upper reaches of the curve.
It should be possible to exclude glorification of rape, incest and child abuse from the big content markets without slipping into a dystopia where Visa controls your whole aesthetic and intellectual experience. We don’t have to fight on this hill.
PS : I do agree with you that it is more concerning and more prone to potential abuse to have this coming from a payment provider than from publishers themselves. But in this case, I think the solution is for big platforms to more consistently adopt the kind of rules that e.g. HG already has.
Well, that escalated quickly. (Though if it was flagged, I didn’t flag it – seems like fair comment to me, if strongly-worded.)
If we talk/act as if only a Christofascist could think that platforms (whether publishing or payment) should reject rape simulator games, I reckon we’d be handing the far right a win by excluding all but the most uncompromisingly free-speech stance from the start.
@Ramidel: Totally reasonable argument. And I also think it’s reasonable to discuss whether we make an exception for rape simulators.
I’d argue that Visa and Mastercard are vital enough to basic payment infrastructure in the US that an argument could be made to classify them as something similar to common carriers - that is, required to be used as payment processors impartially rather than saying “we don’t do business with X or Y stuff.”
Lol, I was flagged.
I am going to repeat the important part of that post.
When the comic code games. It did not just change superhero comics. It killed horror, romance and fantasy.
And they will never go for actual porn. They tried only fans, but failed. There is too much fucking money in porn with real people to be shut down.
But wanting to fuck and elf is beastality, you know. Gotta protret those real life elves.
Had something to write, but I think your posts already addressed and clarified your positions enough. A lot of them fair and honest, if I may say.
This, I think, being another crux behind your concern. However, doesn’t this presuppose that these groups are a monolith, and they would have sympathies for a group of Aussie right-feminists that most of them likely never heard of until now? (Just my personal sniff test, but the actions of this group reminds me too much of East Asian mainstream-feminists in their decade-long crusade against artistic mediums like Japanese manga, and Australia for some reason had been the crossroads of their feminist thought/activities more so than places like west coast NA, i.e. a number of key Comfort Women activist movements happened in Australia). For one example, the whole narrative/memory on the “other” side surrounding “gamergate” is pretty much about their dislike of feminists nosing about their hobby, so I’m not sure how much folks on “this” side need to worry about some kind of a united front.
Despite my misgivings about the whole affair, you’re right, I think CoG and its community has enough means and rules to stand on their own should they ever be accused of facilitating “child abuse”.
A lot of difficulty for the company if Visa/Mastercard go full coward again, which others have already pointed out, and people aren’t being unreasonable being worried how this could be abused.
But damn them for making all of us seem like we are defending or care about something like No Mercy, though I’ve read that the game is supposedly a little more nuanced than what they are being accused of, idk, don’t really care to check. I personally would like to advise Collective Action to maybe pray harder, keep those close to them accountable, and do more direct action against actual online “pornification/sexualization of children”, than harboring this misguided sentiment that game makes people violent, or in this case, No Mercy makes boys want to commit rape-incest.
Just like how Wayhaven lied to me: making me think it was a detective game, and not something that opened my eyes to the alluring possibilities of having my choice of sexy vampires. No way, sir.
I’m sorry, I’ve never seen elves bundled together with bestiality? Where is this coming from?
I don’t think payment processing companies should act as some sort of worldwide moral police, and I also understand the argument that if censorship is allowed now it’s likely to spread to other topics. But I’d be lying if I said that I care if games fetishizing things like rape get banned, and having to defend them just so that other content doesn’t suffer down the line leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
If it’s not anything illegal then no I don’t think they deserve the right to stop people paying THEIR OWN MONEY on a product.
I was pretty sure No mercy was taken down way before this but I’m not certain I didn’t follow that particular case. EDIT: I was right it was banned in April
And in any case that is on Valve and itch.io to deal with those games the hate group (I refuse to call them an advocacy group) should have been petitioning valve and itch.io not the payment processors again as abhorrent as those games were they were not illegal nor were they popular I’d bet most people hadn’t even heard about them until this all went down, so it’s not like it was super urgent to get rid of them.
I mean that’s exactly what they demanded of onlyfans a few years ago which nearly cost god knows how many content creators their livelihoods and the only reason it didn’t happen was cause Onlyfans dug their heels in and went in all or nothing.
Well what’s “glorification” mean to these people?
the coffin of Andy and Leyley has rape, incest, canablism and domestic abuse done by the main 2 characters you play as.
GTAV you can bang a hooker, kill her and take your money back, is that glorifying violence against sex workers?
Dragon age origins in the city elf path you can accept 100 gold to let a bunch of guys have their way with your friend (100 gold is not a small sum at the start of that game so you could make the argument that it’s rewarding you)
The new steam rule is so bloody vague that it’s clear payment processors can just pick a choose what to get rid of arbitrarily and you know what? Unless they’re reigned in by legislation no one can stop them cause they control 96% of payment transactions.
According to reddit mastercard describes sex with alien, elves and other such fantasy creatures as beastality. It was a purpoesfully vague paragraf, but yeah.
I hope it is not true, but we will soon know, when itcio.io is forced to make the guidelines public.
But amongst the anti-woke grifters they do ping anti-human as one of their woke signals. And christian groups are very human centric.
Again to go back to the comic code. Fantasy creatures such as werewolves.
It might just be a false rumour, but that is a rumour with precedent.
In the case of these events I can understand wanting to remove things that are extreme and obviously not shit people should see or want to see.
But there is a small list of AVNs I can count on one hand that I keep up with through Itch mostly because they were fairly mature well written stories that just happened to include sex once in awhile because the medium allowed it and didn’t have such strict guidelines about it usually. On top of them generally handling those scenes properly and not just having them to have them.
You know, actual relationship development before it happens because its a thing that happens between two people who like each a lot and find each other attractive?
But anyways. I’m hoping they end up nixing just the really bad stuff and restoring the ones that are… reasonable? Is that the right word for this?
I feel like a lot of people are adapting their ideas or writings into the AVN genre because they don’t really have to censor themselves in it and I also appreciate it when they’re done well.
Like, I’m an adult. You’re not gunna sit here and attempt to dictate what kind of media I decide to consume unless it’s something extremely heinous and horrible.
It’d be like attempting to stop an adult from going to watch a NC-17 movie or something. Or looking at straight up porn.
I don’t understand it. If it’s a problem with the payment processors, find an alternative or find a way to start screening this shit ahead of time. I’m sure you could easily get volunteers who would help with that.
The only real alternative to visa/master is crypto. At least for now. Which have so many problems… like ew.
Payment processors just should not be allowed to have this of power. A fringe group in australia, should not get to decide what I an adult in europe can and cannot buy with my money.
Thst is for my politicans to make laws about. And they have bad take too, but they are at least politicans I have some influence over.
This is just disgusting and I hope visa/master get sued into oblivion. They wont for this. But hopelfully they get emboldended to step onto someone with deep pockets toes.
…following a complaint by Collective Shout. They followed that up with the complaint that the game platforms would still allow similar games to be published, which led to the delisting of nsfw games while itch figures out what it’s going to do.
(This hopefully doesn’t need spelling out, but I’m not going to bat for Collective Shout as an institution or everything it complains about, any more than those of you arguing the other side are enthusiastic about No Mercy. Free speech debates make for uncomfortable bedfellows, whatever side you’re arguing.)
This history is part of why I don’t think the actual slope is as slippery here as we could fear.
As a decades-long fan of Neil Gaiman’s writing, I’ve heard plenty of Comics Code history and appeals to fight against obscenity complaints. I’ve donated to the comic book legal defense fund. I’ve been happy to see the jurisprudence and market take us further and further from the point where anything like the old Comics Code is anywhere on the horizon.
Gaiman’s own real-life monstrosity doesn’t change any of that. But it does nudge me toward wanting to balance my efforts around defending the freedom of authors like me to write erotic art with resisting the growth of markets in rape-glorifying entertainment.