I think a pretty major difference is that the mods/staff of CoG are generally trusted by the community to be reasonable, unlike visa and mastercard and groups like collective shout who are generally quite unreasonable
11 Likes
Well, because theyâre two entirely separate issues. COG/HG are publishers, so the content that they put out is directly attached to their name and theyâre directly involved in its publication. If they were to allow openly bigoted creators to thrive and publish on their platform, which goes against their own brand values, then thatâs naturally going to upset consumers and make them view the brand differently.
Itch is a storefront, any developer can put their products up there and itâs up to you as a consumer to decide whether you want to support a specific developer or not, Itch has no control over or involvement in what someone chooses to make. Thereâs plenty of things on Itch that Iâve found personally objectifiable, but itâs my choice whether I support those things or not. And, all that being said, Itch does moderate and review content that goes against their TOS when they come across it (though they have a small team and donât always catch it in time), and no one took issue with what they have removed or de-indexed in the past because it went against their TOS â it was their choice and their rules, not some puritanical group that cried wolf over fiction and has now led to thousands of perfectly good games with great indie developers being delisted and potentially removed. Pretty different from a single bigot being banned from a forum.
I wouldnât have even known these things existed if it werenât for CS crying about it because I donât spend time seeking things out that go against my personal moral lines.
Iâve never believed that they shouldnât be. Theyâre absolutely in control of what they do and donât want to allow. I donât expect nor even want every platform to be anarchistically anti-censorship like AO3 where everything legal goes. The entire issue is that these games being de-indexed and potentially removed were already allowed to exist before this.
Oh also last note, I actually think itâs, of course, completely fine that you feel this way. But itâs a moot point because neither of these topics are in commercially available âpornâ at all to begin with. You may occasionally come across themes of SA (regarding adults) in games on Itch but I would hardly call it erotica, not even the more romanticized versions â and actually, the ones that I would call straight up porn are very few and far between. But itâs possible I donât see much of it because again, I donât seek stuff out that doesnât interest me.
19 Likes
Thank you @batmansrobin for saving me a lot of time typing out things that might have come from my own mouth and articulating them damn near perfectly. Props.
This. To add clarity from my perspective for @Havenstone Just because I donât want massive payment processors to be able to censor ALL platforms from the top down by crushing them does NOT mean that I feel every platform needs to conform to my personal will. I donât feel like writers should morally be able to force CoG to publish racist stories any more than I feel like I should be able to force a Christian/Muslim/whatever platform to publish my gay erotica scenes.
The content a publisher directly publishes to the world at large reflects on their brand. Nobody feels that way about Visa because theyâre not publishing anything.
Folks on this forum donât get pissed at Visa personally and vow to boycott them just because they process money for religious extremists. We blame the religious extremists and their publishers. Just like religious bigots arenât boycotting Visa because they fund companies like us who promote queer content. (And before Collective Shout is mentioned, no they havenât boycotted Visa; their explicit purpose was to leverage Visa as a weapon because they were positioned to be used as a blunt instrument. Thatâs not the same thing.)
Nobody looks at McDonalds and thinks: âAh, the company Visa partnered with!â
99.99999% of people donât think of Visa as anything other than a plastic card they use to buy whatever they want. Hell, thatâs half the problemâVisa can do whatever they want because nobody thinks about it.
Yup. Companies should absolutely be allowed to paint their own red lines.
The issue at hand in this thread isnât people saying they shouldnât be allowed to enforce their own standards, itâs that Itch and Steam were not allowed to make their own red line. The line was dictated by a massive outside source and imposed on them under threat of being wiped out.
This isnât new, either. Many, many years ago now, a website called Fetlife allowed people to discuss almost every kink under the sun (with the exception of publishing literally illegal content, which is also my personal red line) Then came the payment processors. From the top down, they stomped on Fetlife until the site gave in to their demands and removed entire topics of conversation and thousands of groups that didnât do anything against the siteâs TOS or against the law. All because of companies like Visa throwing their weight around.
I said at the time that if they can do that to Fetlife, they could do it to anyone. Now people are reaping what they allowed to grow. Cue the âThey didnât come for me so I did not speak outâ cliche.
I donât necessarily like the idea of individual publishers censoring the media they publish, but I think they have every right to. No individual or company should be forced to directly publish material that they donât feel comfortable with under their real name or their brand name. And at the risk of redundancyâno I donât think Visa/Mastercard are the same thing. They arenât publishers.
I see nothing wrong with that, either. People are allowed to let their voices be heard.
Iâll be honestâI have no idea what that is and I must have missed some drama. I donât use Discord and I rarely read every forum thread. Iâll have to dig into that when I have time.
I think Iâve been pretty consistent that I think publishers should be able to make their own red lines and that my issue is the red lines being imposed on them. Not sure I remember calling anyone a bigot or a fool. (Maybe you werenât referring to me, but the post was composed as a response to my comments, so⌠And no, I donât consider telling someone to âgive me a breakâ is equivalent to calling them a fool.)
There is no mass commercial spread of porn normalizing non-consensual choking. There IS a spread of porn with consensual choking, however. The problem is that moral scolds either fail to see the difference or pretend not to see it. This reminds me of the horror vanilla people often look at BDSM and some queer spaces withâthe âthey canât possibly be consenting to that!â moral panic. Just because it squicks someone doesnât mean itâs non-consensual.
Iâm old enough to remember when the censors were using this exact argument against gay porn, because it led to the normalization of âharmful behavior.â Believe it or not, there are a lot of people out there who like to be choked during sex. --signed a guy who likes to be choked during sex.
22 Likes
It shouldnât be surprising that context matters, friend.
25 Likes
Just saw this explainer on the situation. Mastercardâs rules are surprisingly vague and can probably be used more expansively than they already have.
6 Likes
Not very surprising to me that monopolistic corporations give themselves expansive powers that they selectively enforce.
29 Likes
From what I understand almost, all of the commenters agree that the power Visa and MasterCard have to force websites that uses card transactions, is scary and also that websites having to shut down or highly restrict adult countdown because of outside interference, as opposed to because of decisions made by them and their actual users, is a bad thing. While the discussion about to what extent there should be red lines and, if so, which ones and how they should be implemented, is an interesting and important one, I think in this instance, the most important thing is to focuse on what we can do to push back against current and future interference on outside actors on the content of adult websites or websites including adult content. And Iâm particularly talking about credit card companies.
The comment about credit card companies hating getting calls, if that also applies to Visa and Mastercard shows a potential strategy against dealing with this. But I also think that organizing could be a really good way of fighting against outside interferecence. Anti-porn organizations such as the one that put pressure on Visa and Mastercard in the first place shows how much power there is in organizing and putting together concerted campaigns. If they can do it, certainly people wanting to keep adult content ,and other content that may be targeted from conservative crsusaders,from being restricted by outside forces should be able to organize and run campaigns against outside interference leading to restricting or even banning adult content, should be able to do the same. Just take a look at the playbook of such crusader organization, so that you can use their own methods against them whenever theyâre trying to do something similar that they have done to sites with adult content. Whether you believe that there should be certain red lines or not(for the record, I do at least partly agree with @Havenstoneâs points) the focus should be on the wrongness of outside and excessive interference, not least how giving outside actors such an outsized influence on the content of a website is fundamentally problematic. And, in a similar way, thinking of actions that can lead to negative repercussions for the outside actors in question. If people have ideas for this or for other ways to stand up to such outside actors, I think it could be good to share them in this thread.
While I see your point, I used that word(AFAICR) one time in my comment, and it should be clear from the rest of my comment that I donât support their acts. I also have a hard time believing that people likely to support their actions browse this thread or would be more likely to support them because I used that word one time. Wouldnât it be better to instead focusing on how to fight them, as I suggested previously, instead on focusing on how we talk about them?
6 Likes
Can we stop calling these people âanti-pornâ organizations? They are targeting mainly queer people and representation as well as sex-workers, and by calling them âanti-pornâ you are giving them ground under their feet for their claim of especially everything queer and sex-work being inherently pornographic.
Donât fucking do that, can we?
edit: Natwa, you still used the term, and it doesnât matter if these people browse the thread or not, or if you agree with them or not. You already saw no issue using that term and thus adapting that part of their narrative.
10 Likes
If anyoneâs interested, not sure if anyoneâs posted about her yet, thereâs a chick on X/youtube called madam savvy and she is being an absolute thorn in the sides of all these companies/people. Like sheâs a pretty good place to stay caught up on if youâre following all this shit. 
glad sheâs on out side
Looks like the people behind this whole chucklefuck just hate games/anything that threatens their delicate sensibilities in general
7 Likes
I want to voice my total support here. Thereâs a weird thing about noncon/dubcon that tends to get overlooked in these arguments; Those who view those fantasies in the shoes of the âvictimâ per se. Thereâs people out there who like to get approached by someone whoâs not backing down just because their anxietyâs flaring up.
Nobody wants that IRL because they know reality is gonna be more cruel than that, but thatâs usually what the fantasy is for; getting something reality canât, hasnât, or according to them, can never give them.
Things like Control, Power, the freedom to act on a whim without fear of pushing someone away, etc.
Or Things like Unconditional love, Someone who never leaves, the freedom to relax for several days, weeks, or months without the fear of someone drifting away, etc.
Culture completely aside, kinks have deeper meanings and connections to people as individuals that arenât gonna be easy topics to bring up with a psychiatrist. Because itâs a kink. You donât just bring it up. Even if the doctor pinkie promises not to judge you or report you to the local thought police.
Porn, tasteful or no, morally defensible or not, is a whole lot better for society as a whole than just letting things that likely came from some kind of trauma, fester.
10 Likes
Porn and anti-LGBTQ+, anti abortion etc, is a very easy and popular handle for these groups to attach themselves to. Basically they are right-wing extremists, some of whom may be affiliated with religion, but are heavily financed by patrons it might be difficult to identify. When these groups unite, not by country but by philosophy world-wide, we are going to be in serious trouble. I donât know if we are fighting a losing battle because these groups thrive on dissent and hatred as well as fear, and there are more and more fear-inducing videos on social media like Youtube that target what are perceived as easy targets. So far, its mainly, in the case of Australia, aimed at pensioners and reading the reactions, trying to say its a bunch of lies simply doesnât work. They believe the AI voice and photos of cities not even in the country! These are exactly the same people who have incited racism here.
If our own right-wing extremists have joined up with Maga, then between them they have increased their area of influence as well as their financial resources and can use each other as âreputableâ sources to back up what they say. I canât think what thy hope to achieve, because they are playing into the hands of foreign interests who would love to see our countries in political disarray. Visa and Mastercard, through greed as much as anything else, have opened up things for these haters to interfere even more in how we live. They are the fall guys, stupid enough to agree simply because it helps their bottom line.
Iâve caught my own bank out trying to set up a shopping facility with a private company that aims to rival Paypalâs financial arrangement with brands and shops, however when I looked into it, I was going to sign up to something that had the right to download all my data and send it on elsewhere! This is the tip of the iceberg, with the big end of town slugging it out with foreign interests and governments, none of whom think of our rights or interests, and we are piggies in the middle unless someone can peacefully replace most of the governments in the so-called democratic countries with people who are not career politicians, because at the moment we seem to have no means of fighting such powerful interests.
3 Likes
I had a blast of energy yesterday and called Paypal (sucked up 14 minutes!), emailed Visa & Stripe, and called all 3 federal government reps about KOSA. WE CAN WIN THIS!
Hereâs the webpage again with numbers, addresses, and petitions:
17 Likes
Given the power of porn to shape behavior, of which the uptick in rough-sex-without-asking is one clear negative example, Iâm comfortable on precautionary grounds alone resisting the normalization of rape or CSA in commercially available porn â not by law, but by encouraging as many publishing companies as possible to adopt internal ethical standards that shrink the space where noncon is commercially available
Iâd like to just make a short counterpoint here - the idea that âconsensualâ noncon or fictional erotic noncon content has brought an increase in cases pertaining sexual violence is a debated issue, but as as most of the peer-reviewed consensus shows, the link between consuming porn by itself and commiting crimes, both of a sexual and violent nature, is so far quite weak. In fact, studies in Denmark testing showed that a increase in the consuption of porn, has, in pararel, showed a decrease in cases of rape.
Now, this is not to say there arenât cases where a study shows that those who have consumed violent pornography arenât actually more predisposed to violence, but careful interpretation is necessary here, as these studies almost invariably note that while this increased presence of violent attitudes amongst consumers doesnât mean that it was a causal effect - merely that they were already violent and were simply draw to the pornographic content in the same way a racist might be draw to hearts of iron 4. Is this a unanimous consensus? No, but itâs one of the most commonly accepted amongst them. And what leads to the whole âchoking-SAâ association.
If you ask me personally, this whole thing is a messy affair. Iâve seen many cases of SA victims who consume this kind of content, specially mixed with BDSM culture, because itâs cathartic to them, and that this can help with healing their trauma, if done under a controlled and proper environment. Again, that does not mean, of course, that every person will start seeing this kind of media as a survivor, and for plenty it can end up simply reopening the wounds and will find them an offensive caricature of what they went through - and thereâs nothing wrong with that.
Iâm firmly believe that in the realm of fiction, death of author reigns, and that every fictional story can have a positive impact within the eye of the beholder - yes, even the Turner Diaries, a book that teaches us that behind their bravado, people like William Luther Pierce are nothing but manchildren who have to resort to writing a wankish alt-his for his hateful ideology rather than doing anything meaningful with his life.
16 Likes
âItâs not illegal so therefore Visa/Mastercard has no business interveningâ
I see this argument used a lot. But risk management doesnât start and end with whatâs legal or not.
Brand protection is also a factor.
But wait, weâre talking about NSFW content that isnât illegal. Yes but who do you think Visa/Mastercard is more scared of. A subset of gamers who want NSFW content or a New York Times articles with headlines like:
âHow your Credit Card is profiting from rape simulatorsâ
âI caught my 14 year old buying a Pro Genocide GameâŚâ
Or imagine the CEO of Visa or Mastercard before Congress and a Senator is like:
âSir, are you proud your company profits from incest and rape?â
Visa/Mastercardâs biggest clients are banks and big merchants like Walmart. This is where their money comes from. So why will they tolerate NSFW content that could harm their brand reputation when most of their money comes from non-NSFW stuff?
Visa/Mastercard can drop Pornhub, OnlyFans, Steam and Itchio and still make good profits. If these platforms donât care about the content they allow thatâs fine. Visa/Mastercard are still private companies who can refuse service from merchants who pose a higher risk for them and their big clients (the banks).
And just because something is legal in the US doesnât mean itâs legal every where else. Can Steam and Itchio prove to Visa/Mastercard that these more controversial NSFW games were not available in countries with stricter obscenity laws?
Again, Visa/Mastercard make most of their money from non-NSFW stuff. So why will they accept a higher risk for something that does not provide a high rate of return.
No private company is going to accept the high risk of being dragged to Congress or Parliament, have regulators breathe down their necks, have advocacy groups complain to the banks directly, being sued or fined by other countries with stricter obscenity law, all for NSFW content which doesnât bring in the big money.
So yes, you can call and complain to Visa/Mastercard. But then these companies are going to map out their risks and which side they want to land on.
The vast majority of lawmakers and people are normies. Theyâre not going to stand up against stricter NSFW content moderation.
The big clients of Visa/Mastercard are banks. I donât think JP Morgan and other banks want to be associated with rape simulators so I doubt any bank is going to tell Visa/Mastercard to ease off.
Had Steam had better content moderation around adult stuff, Collective Shout wouldnât have much leverage to force Visa/Mastercard hand. But once platforms are so lasses-faire about NSFW and it raises the risks for Visa/Mastercard for no real upside, theyâre going to crack the whip.
Even if there was more competition and more payment processors there is no way a payment processor can allow everything thatâs legal. Which bank will accept payments and associate with such a payment processor whose reputation is tied to known controversial stuff?
The cost benefit analysis on this is clear. Itâs safer to demand stricter moderation around NSFW content as both a legal and PR shield.
Thatâs why I highly doubt Visa/Mastercard are going to change their minds. The risks are too high and theyâre both risk averse.
EDIT:
How they got dominant and remain that way matters.
Iâll assume itâs that the people in that society refuse to believe the Earth is round and are all flat earthers. So why should a private company who is known to publish about flat earth and got rewarded for it by people choosing to go down to those stores, be forced to publish about round earth.
Round Earthers must create their own company and compete. If the Flat Earthers publishing company is using its dominance to squeeze out competition then yes the state must intervene. But if polls show 95% of said society believe in flat earth and actively refuse to listen about round earth then clearly the people have spoken. They donât want round earth propaganda 
. And they shouldnât be forced to accommodate round Earthers.
Of course I do believe there should be limits like said spreading misinformation about vaccines or giving medical advice. One has to show clear evidence of widespread harm due to said misinformation for society and government to intervene. The bar has to be set high so as to not kill a diversity of opinions in said society.
I think Alex OâConnor gave an interesting thought experiment.
Why doesnât GTA allow the player to press a button and just sexually assault an NPC.
Why arenât there NPCs who are children or babies. Can you imagine the videos of players putting a npc baby on a tank and blowing it up. Will such a scandal be worth it for Rockstar.
We can go further, GTA having a mission where player can go into a school and start shooting at pupils and teachers.
I think Rockstar knows there are boundaries they can push at. Thereâs only so much backlash from normie lawmakers and advocacy groups they can handle before it becomes too much. They too assess the risks of what they allow and produce.
To me this applies to payment processors too. Theyâre private companies assessing their risks.
âItâs legalâ is not going to be a great PR defense.
Besides, so many gamers already play safe games. Thereâs Candy Crush to make money from after all. Why stick out your neck over the most controversial NSFW content/game out there. It makes little business sense.
âThink about the childrenâ is a line laughed at online. But guess what, lawmakers will happily pass laws to âprotectâ the kids. Case in point Australia, UK, FranceâŚ
I think there should discussion around the boundaries of said content moderation and how to make the rules more clearer. But the idea that payment processors have no say on content that they facilitate is not realistic.
6 Likes
Round Earthers must create their own company and compete. If the Flat Earthers publishing company is using its dominance to squeeze out competition then yes the state must intervene. But if polls show 95% of said society believe in flat earth and actively refuse to listen about round earth then clearly the people have spoken. They donât want round earth propaganda
How do you expect for the government to know whether a company is using itâs dominance to âsqueeze outâ competitors when in the same paragraph your attitude towards a society/nation where a company is technically not doing anything illegal to keep itâs supporters as the status quo even though it de facto holds sway over what society believes or not is to go âwelp, nothing you can do about it"?
Throughout history into this very day, itâs an objective fact companies hold sway and influence society and culture through propaganda and control over media. Remember that blue and pink colors werenât distinguished as being associated with boys and girls until around 50-60âs. This was all thanks to various clothing and toy brands pushing this idea (hi, Barbie and Hello Kitty), a fairly harmless one, but that can easily be turned nefarious under certain circunstances, as can be seen by the smoking industry horrid efforts to make the population believe it was a harmless habit.
So why should a private company who is known to publish about flat earth and got rewarded for it by people choosing to go down to those stores, be forced to publish about round earth.
For most people, âwe shouldnât cooperate with the nutjobs who are helping set promoting an idea thatâs proven to be false and harmful to society just because it means higher profitsâ would be good enough reason for them. Of course, if you are a Cyberpunk villain, feel free to disregard the last sentence.
To me this applies to payment processors too. Theyâre private companies assessing their risks.
âItâs legalâ is not going to be a great PR defense.
I think itâs important we make one thing straight - the one case where payment processors came close to having to pay compensation from a lawsuit (they didnât, by the way) was the pornhub case, where an actual, no-sweats crime was instigated as the platform was hosting actual SA videos.
This? Thereâs no crime involved. âItâs legalâ might not sound like a great defense as to why thereâs nothing wrong with hosting Little Loli Harem 3000, but the fact is that costumers, the people who consume and use the platform - they donât care. Until Collective Shout came along, nobody cared about any potential âfreakyâ games in the itch.io community outside of maybe YouTubers who make videos on things like, i dunno, LonaRPG. Hell, NO ONE outside of terminally online circles is talking about LonaRPG even though itâs the perfect example of a âgrape simulatorâ Collective Shout is making a fuss about.
Simple put - there was no relevant risk. Companies are bending to interest groups who are little better than Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church.
Besides, so many gamers already play safe games. Thereâs Candy Crush to make money from after all. Why stick out your neck over the most controversial NSFW content/game out there. It makes little business sense.
Jackal, this is why everyone is allienated to your takes, you keep talking about credit card companies not wishing to ârisk their businessâ and how itâs unfair to want them to stand up for creative freedom because it puts their âassets on the lineâ and yada yada - câmon dude, weâre here discussing the fate of the industry and youâre deciding right or wrong based on whether companies might offend their shareholders and lose on profits because they walked on eggshells put into place by the very same people who want to see the very same industry go down?
Yeah, itâs more profitable for them to bend down, assuming thereâs a real risk involved (i doubt it - see above and below) - so what? Art wasnât made to fit into the standards of a bunch of J.P Morgan corpos. This all ties back to my original point - if a company holds monopoly over a certain part of the industry and can decide what can be safely bought or not through them, them yes, that is a MASSIVE problem regardless of how the company came fo acquire that share of the market because costumers become hostage of the shareholders wallets.
âThink about the childrenâ is a line laughed at online. But guess what, lawmakers will happily pass laws to âprotectâ the kids. Case in point Australia, UK, FranceâŚ
Point me to a single time where Australia, notorious for itâs stringent and arbitrary censorship, ever ran afoul of a payment processing company being dragged into court because of them. Because thereâs a HUGE difference about laws like that affecting individual content creators and the people behind the credit card used to buy their works - and until now i failed to see any correlation between the two.
9 Likes
Idk if itâs been said already but Iâve heard from someone that nsfw games on itch io are back and probably returned to steam too.
The recent lawsuit against Visa by the US Justice Department accusing Visa of using its dominance in the debit market to stifle competition shows me that governments can prove a company is acting anticompetitively.
If we look at history like American Tobacco and Standard Oil. Governments can and do provide evidence for their claim that a company is squeezing out competition.
If countries want to ban companies from growing large then theyâre going to struggle staying competitive globally. Punishing companies for being successful and efficient is not something Iâd support.
Especially if they got large through fair competition and being more innovative.
If you want to create society that actively punishes successful companies then whatâs the point of starting a business. Most countries are fine with large corporations so long as they donât use their dominance in a way that is anticompetitive.
There are benefits that consumers can get from large corporations. Itâs not only negative. Iâd rather live in a country that bans or restricts monopolistic conduct that harms consumers and prevents more innovative competitors from taking hold.
And Iâm not against a government regulating said companies, especially when national security is at play.
Who gets to define who the ânutjobsâ are. Do we want the government to have that power.
Even in liberal democracies disagree bitterly on what is wrong or right. Weâre not all going to agree on what is good. Therefore we must come up with rules to limit the worst aspects of society and maximize the good.
And even thatâs difficult. Itâs easy to say we shouldnât cooperate with X people but then you look around you and find 50% of people in your country disagreeing bitterly with you.
No, itâs likely illegal even in the US. The case of Dwight Whorley and him losing his appeal around the mangas with drawn sexual images of children shows that obscenity laws can still be enforced. Just because itâs a drawing doesnât mean itâs not CSAM.
Let me grant that the people in those platforms donât care. That doesnât mean Visa/Mastercard are obligated to not care too.
Platforms and payment processors are both private companies that have the right to choose who they associate wiyh. No matter how big Visa/Mastercard are, theyâre not public utilities.
You can advocate for them to be one. But it doesnât change the current reality right now that theyâre still private companies.
Thereâs no relevant risk when it comes to NSFW content?
Too often I see a false distinction between the right of Steam to not associate with a certain games or content but Visa/Mastercard, who are also both private companies, are said to have no say on how people use their network.
Thereâs nothing stopping another company from building the infrastructure, getting compliance in all 50 states and spread globally⌠and risk it all by turning a blind eye to how a platform deals with NSFW stuff.
Any company who invests large amounts of capital in building said network infrastructure, partnering with banks and following the orders from regulators are going to be risk averse to what they allow in their network.
But itâs not yada yada. Weâre discussing about private companies and what obligations they have.
Iâm not defending the Terms of Service of Visa/Mastercard. But I understand why they have them. Private companies donât lose their rights just because their big. They can still choose to associate with whoever they want.
This isnât even a libertarian take. Iâm not a free market absolutist but Iâll still defend the right of private company no matter how big or small to associate with whoever they like (excluding discriminating on the basis of protected traits).
Show me politicians in the mainstream from the West who are rallying against Visa/Mastercard having stricter ToS around adult content.
There seems to a disconnect online about what the mainstream opinions are offline around NSFW stuff. Iâm not holding some radical libertarian position here.
Politicians have shown more willingness to restrict adult content and they still get re elected. In the US states that have enacted stricter porn age verifications, do you think mainstream voters are going to punish those representatives?
At least when it comes to debating NSFW content moderation, is it wrong to begin with how the mainstream politicians, people and where the law is actually right now. Or must we first discuss what âshould beâ without first concerning ourselves with âwhat isâ currently.
If one wants to change mainstream opinion, I do believe one has to start from where people are currently at and finding strategies to move them to your side.
Visa/Mastercard are risk averse companies. Do you think they will wait for another Pornhub 2.0 lawsuit for them to act. Or are their risk analysts and compliance lawyers telling the company to be more proactive to prevent potential lawsuits.
Risk management isnât about waiting to be sued or waiting patiently for a hit piece article against your company in order to take action.
Adult content is certainly high risk for payment processors. Yes that includes legal and illegal stuff. They also have to take into account potential PR disasters, then add on higher chargebacks in the industry they need to face and payment disputes from customersâŚ
Itâs wrong to say that Visa/Mastercard face no higher risks around this.
1 Like
Youâre right, if they want to associate with criminals no one should be able to stop them, as it should be.
1 Like
If countries want to ban companies from growing large then theyâre going to struggle staying competitive globally. Punishing companies for being successful and efficient is not something Iâd support.
If the current status-quo apparently requires countries to simply bow down and accept companies performing inadequate conduct that leads to them having a de facto monopoly where itâs essentially impossible to succed as an alternate service to them, iâd say that thereâs something seriously wrong in our current economic climate in the first place.
As i like to say - a well-oiled rifle built with the best parts available in the world might be an extremely eficcient machine, but not one that necessarily is the best for society and for individuals like me.
If you want to create society that actively punishes successful companies then whatâs the point of starting a business. Most countries are fine with large corporations so long as they donât use their dominance in a way that is anticompetitive.
As someone with anarchist leanings, i would say all, not just âmostâ countries today are full of problems that run far beyond just the economic mattersand we shouldnât seek to immitate them, but i digress.
Who gets to define who the ânutjobsâ are. Do we want the government to have that power.
You are proposing that online transaction companies have just as much authoritarian power to deny and effectively censor content they donât like arbitrarily and yet somehow are complaining that the government intervening in that is âauthoritarianism?â
Itâs easy to say we shouldnât cooperate with X people but then you look around you and find 50% of people in your country disagreeing bitterly with you.
Iâm sorry, but âwe shouldnât let the censors have the power to censor others through puritanical/moralistic justifications because thatâs just power abuse in itselfâ is something i just donât buy up. And iâm not just talking about that cliched Karl Popper saying (which does apply here anyways, but regardless), itâs about transparency but about consistency. Here we are protecting the freedom of a corporation that bent down to a collective pressure group who wishes to promote censorship. Like, why? This is objectively the worse outcome for every party but the pressure group itself (and the more fundamentalistic and hardline conservative figures of society, but who cares about pleasing those insatiable mummies?)
The case of Dwight Whorley and him losing his appeal around the mangas with drawn sexual images of children shows that obscenity laws can still be enforced.
Dwight was an isolated case that didnât drag any online store, nevermind credit card company, into the bell. Focus on whatâs at stake here.
Platforms and payment processors are both private companies that have the right to choose who they associate wiyh. No matter how big Visa/Mastercard are, theyâre not public utilities. You can advocate for them to be one.
But it doesnât change the current reality right now that theyâre still private companies.
It also doesnât change the reality that these figures have de facto become a staple in the online market and having them deny access to their services makes it almost nigh impossible to make a smooth, easy transaction online.
When powerful companies make decisions like this, that limits costumers without costumer imput - we have a clear âhostageâ situation where the people who want to buy a product are at the mercy of people who will put interest and lobbying groups like Collective Shout before them.
You want the privilege of claiming these companies have to face the objective reality of involving themselves into this kind of business - but without also facing the reality that they hold a monopoly that translates into censorship for so many content creators. Oh, you think it affects their livehoods? Well, how about the life of dozens of thousands of game and writers that depend on these services to have their bills paid. I have a friend who said that if he has his games deleted from itch
due to the recent purges, he might be motivated to just call it quits. Why are you selective in who you value and care here?
Too often I see a false distinction between the right of Steam to not associate with a certain games or content but Visa/Mastercard, who are also both private companies, are said to have no say on how people use their network.
Thereâs a large difference here because finding âalternateâ store fronts isnât that difficult. Steam is the biggest face in the mainstream PC market but not overwhelmingly so. Itch.io, in fact, was until now the face of many indie projects that wouldnât be accepted in other platforms. Gamejolt is another example, or GOG or even the Epic Game Store, given their propency to accept even those shitty NFT scam âgamesâ.
You seen to be in denial over just how much power these companies have and how they can hold THOUSANDS of other content creators hostage simply by going ânuh uhâ. Itâs the real, tragicomic equivalent of the whole âi consent!â meme, except you have a very angry Visa CEO overlooking Gaben offering a digital copy of Demonâs Roots to a costumer.
Thereâs nothing stopping another company from building the infrastructure, getting compliance in all 50 states and spread globally⌠and risk it all by turning a blind eye to how a platform deals with NSFW stuff.
Are you seriously suggesting that the solution to Visa and Mastercard chickening out is for a bunch of brave venture capitalists to get together and build their own credit card provider, âbut with blackjack and hookersâ? Even setting aside the inherent issue isnât solved (payment processors have a unfair grip over what media costumers may buy), as we can see on⌠oh, i dunno, basically every attempt at building âalt mediaâ, this is essentially doomed to go wrong.
Iâm not defending the Terms of Service of Visa/Mastercard. But I understand why they have them. Private companies donât lose their rights just because their big. They can still choose to associate with whoever they want.
Yeah, i also ubderstand why some russians feel vindicated against Ukraine and how they speaking of NATO as a apparatus of American power and how the US uses it to expand their influence isnât factually wrong. That doesnât mean iâll agree with the invasion of Ukraine as justified by that.
Wrong is wrong, plain and simple, even if you have a point to what you said. Same thing for the corpos, they might have a genuine excuse to do pull out of +18 services, but that doesnât change the fact this will lead to many negative consequences to content creators and how unfair itâs to them.
Show me politicians in the mainstream from the West who are rallying against Visa/Mastercard having stricter ToS around adult content.
Oh, câmon, now this is ridiculous. Show me a politician that spoke out in favor of these strict measures. Most politicians arenât probably even aware this is happening in the first place. What we do know is that similar censorship measures, like the one implemented in the UK, the so-called âOnline Safety Act 2023â, faced massive public backslash, with even Nigel Farage of all people calling it dystopian. Heck, the government of Jersey outright refused to enforce the thing because they thought it was flawed on multiple accounts. So, you canât complain about no politicians âspeaking out against itâ when itâs a very âonlineâ problem and when they do break the bubble (like in the UK) itâs a extremely controversial thing.
Lastly, âoh but the general public agrees with meâ - dude. If i went down to Saudi Arabia and called for atheism to be criminalized or for christians to be put to jail iâd have sizeable support. Having people backing a stupid take with no credibility to it is no argument.
Visa/Mastercard are risk averse companies. Do you think they will wait for another Pornhub 2.0 lawsuit for them to act. Or are their risk analysts and compliance lawyers telling the company to be more proactive to prevent potential lawsuits.
Okay, so you donât have any actual examples of these laws affecting the credit card companies except for a scandal that didnât even personally affect them, even though they have been implemented for decades now, and you want me to believe that on the grounds that maybe perhaps possibly they will affect them in the future, itâs a risk the company canât take? You keep talking about this being a âhigh riskâ venue even though it didnât lead to a single lawsuit being brought against them. Objectively speaking, they have had more problems with retail shops than with the adult industry and yet i donât see anyone chickening out of that market.
9 Likes