Itch.io apologise for "frustration and confusion" after delisting thousands of NSFW projects
Itch.io apologise for "frustration and confusion" after delisting thousands of NSFW projects
It's the same religious organization that went after them NSFW games on Steam. Like the games or not, it's always a slippery slope with this kind of censorship.
Of course it would be the bible thumpers. Gotta stick their nose into everyone's business.
If it's against your religion to play porn games, fine. Don't play them.
But fuck off if you think you can tell other people what not to play.
The fact that they've been successful at censoring stuff is a problem. It will likely embolden them to do worse.
They have a little power in politics now, "give them an inch and they take a mile" is never not true.
Collective shout finacials
year: 2024
revenue: 458043
employee_expenses: 107000
other_expenses: 215488
net_surplus: 135555
employees:
total_fte: 2
full_time: 0
part_time: 1
casual: 4
volunteers: 15
donations_and_bequests: 389800
government_grants: 0
commercial_income: 0
expense_to_revenue_ratio: "70.4%"
average_expense_per_employee: 39400
Leadership
- name: Melinda Tankard Reist
role: Founder, Movement Director
public_socials:
- Twitter: @MelTankardReist
- Instagram: @collective.shout
public_email_address: Not publicly listed
salary: Not publicly listed
- name: Caitlin Roper
role: Campaigns Manager
public_socials:
- Instagram: @collective.shout
public_email_address: Not publicly listed
salary: Not publicly listed
- name: Renee Chopping
role: Campaigns Strategy
public_socials:
- LinkedIn
public_email_address: r******@collectiveshout.org
salary: Not publicly listed
- name: Lyn Swanson Kennedy
role: Campaigns Strategy
public_socials:
- Instagram: @collective.shout
public_email_address: Not publicly listed
salary: Not publicly listed
- name: Coralie Alison
role: Movement Operations Manager
public_socials:
- Twitter: @CoralieAlison
- Instagram: @collective.shout
public_email_address: Not publicly listed
salary: Not publicly listed
Fuck.
These.
Fucking.
Shitsucking
Subhuman
Leeches
Direct link to their statement rather than reading an article talking about it: https://itch.io/updates/update-on-nsfw-content
rather than reading an article talking about it
Good as a supplement, but the RPS article gives context itch.io is too much of a cowardly little bitch to include like: "Collective Shout describe themselves as a "grassroots campaigns movement against the objectification of women and the sexualisation of girls", but are associated with outspokenly homophobic and anti-abortion Christian conservative groups, according to a now-deleted Vice article."
Edit: and yes, the Vice article was removed because Vice's ownership bitched out over covering Collective Shout.
Edit: and yes, the Vice article was removed because Vice's ownership bitched out over covering Collective Shout.
Wow, holy shit. How fucking far Vice has fallen. There was a time they would go the extra mile to cover wild shit that no one else was doing. Greed and the wealthy's critical need to have control over the media ruins everything.
But think of the children!
Those are Christians. They are widely known for that.
Wonder how long it will take for them to start going after LGBT+ stuff. Hope I'm wrong.
They did, day 0.
It's not difficult to imagine what kind of expression these groups might decide to deem as unacceptable next.
Literally the bottom line. They have found something that works, and they are going to use and abuse it.
It has been my experience that when either side says that they are against cancel culture it's not about being against the ability to ruin or deprive their enemies of something. They're against their enemies having the ability to do the same thing to them.
Puritans are going to destroy the world.
They're trying their best to
Damn guess we'll need to move to the alternative- ah wait- no- itch was the alternative.
I wonder if a federated game platform would work as an idea or if that's just an inherently bad idea due to the nature of trusting strangers with your money.
Still wouldn't address the root problem here: payment processing companies have the power to just deny payment from even happening.
Unless you're referring to making a federated platform that instead allows devs to connect with buyers and make transactions off channel.
Would limit widespread issues like this but now you're opening a whole new can of worms with trust
the problem is the payment processors, not itch
unless you’re fine with crypto, sending cheques by mail or having everything be free, your new platform is gonna get the same problems once it’s big enough to be noticed
I think it's time for a game platform divorced from Visa/Mastercard to rise to the occasion and step in for these platforms. Websites without these processors already exist, so the model is proven to work well enough (it's less convenient for sure).
I wouldn't think the US would be a good country for this hypothetical store though. I think it's only a matter of time until they attack the publishers and studios directly. I'm not counting on the 1st amendment to help anyone.
Well that is at least something Bitcoin could have fixed
And probably would have if it wasn't being manipulated by speculators.
This is like shitting your pants to ward off bears.
If shitting your pants is cool, then I'm Miles Davis.
At this point I would only try something untraceable like Monero. I don't want the moral police to come knocking to my house saying that I bought something against the glory of the Lord.
Where the hell is left to legally buy my porn games?
Collective Shout describe themselves as a "grassroots campaigns movement against the objectification of women and the sexualisation of girls", but are associated with outspokenly homophobic and anti-abortion Christian conservative groups, according to a now-deleted Vice article. They recently claimed credit for the campaign that saw payment providers pressuring the online storefronts to remove content the group deemed unacceptable.
It's not hard to empathise with the folks behind Itch for being placed in an impossible position, but their lack of forewarning has left creators blindsided and in some cases, seemingly without income. "I wish we had gotten some warning from Steam and Itch," wrote game developer Robert Yang on Bluesky, "but we already know it's Collective Shout + payment processors waging culture war against LGBTQ people and sexual expression. I guess there's nothing else for Steam and Itch to say".
Personally speaking, I'd be willing to extend that good faith to Itch.io themselves, but they aren't the one holding the gun to their own heads here. That'd be financial companies, pressured by Collective Shout, who themselves have ties to an organisation whose CEO once described gay marriage as an "unspeakable offence to God". It's not difficult to imagine what kind of expression these groups might decide to deem as unacceptable next.
I'm just learning about this and I wonder what has Steam done in this case to protect my rights as their client.
Uh ... Steam actually did this same thing before Itch did.
That is exactly why I'm asking.
Ah fuck their board head is Australian. FFS
When monero based game store?
Delist thousands of games, or deslist a handful of payment middle-men?
We can blame the religious organisation as much as we want, but the fundamental problem here is payment processors. They should be common carriers. Content-neutral middlemen who facilitate payment to anything that isn't literally unlawful. This is no different to an ISP throttling access to Netflix because they operate their own streaming platform. If the storefront, the developer, and the buyer are all ok with a transaction, there's no good reason for a fourth party to stand in the way of that.
Yeah, payment processing is among the many many many industries that ought to be nationalized so they can be administered in a transparent and democratic manner (see also, healthcare education housing electricity internet etc.)
There's just too much opportunity to use it to manipulate markets and oppress minority viewpoints for it to remain in private hands imo
Putting the ridicoulous idea that governments are fair and transparent aside, payment processors need to be international. Otherwise, most countries will not be able to access services because their local payment processor is not supported by smaller websites.
However, the payment processors should be regulated with something similar to net neutrality so they can't discriminate payments. And EU could probably launch a government run competitor to dilute their duopoly.
To me it's insane that food also isn't on that list. Anything that isn't a luxury can't be trusted to be handled by capitalism.
Do you really think most governments will administer payment processes in a transparent and democratic manner?
So you want Trump and MAGA politicians to be able to deny your payments instead?
The problem with "just let the government do it" is when the government is run by people like this.
The reason for a "fourth party" is because so many of these are fully international.
The dream of cryptocurrency as actual currency (rather than just reinventing stocks) was the idea that you could use your bitcoin wallet to pay for a pizza in Kansas, London, other London, Shanghai, or Timbuktu with no perceived difference. That IS what visa/mastercard provide.
Get rid of that "fourth party" and now every single online service needs to have office space in every single country so that they can accept and convert purchases on their own. And the end result will just be dropping the majority of the world.