5mo ago

Itch.io 'deindexes' all NSFW games, blames same anti-porn group that campaigned against Steam

www.eurogamer.net

Itch.io 'deindexes' all NSFW games, blames same anti-porn group that campaigned against Steam

World News @beehaw.org

Cassa @lemmy.blahaj.zone

5mo ago

"Anti-porn" payment processofs has hit itch.io

www.eurogamer.net /itchio-deindexes-all-nsfw-games-blames-same-anti-porn-group-that-campaigned-against-steam

29 comments

I don't care about porn games, but:
The fact MasterCard, Visa, and PayPal can censor lawful content is problematic, to say the least.
- Ridiculous on their part.
  With crypto going more and more mainstream, it won't be long before another payment system shows up and starts competing against Visa/MC and Paypal.
  They are opening up a lane for a competitor to fill a fairly large gap.
  
  First line of the bitcoin whitepaper deals with this lol.
  
  Could this be some kind of tactic to manipulate the crypto market?
  
  Start using monero
man these canaries keep dropping dead for some reason, I'm not sure why we had them
- I feel like I used to know but I'm getting kinda sleepy and it's sorta hard to breathe
Not "pressure group". Radical religious groups trying to control everything everywhere.
This is so dumb. . I bet those guys actually watch the most porn.
- 100%
  Almost invariably people like this have a crippling porn addiction and refuse to believe that they're the ones with the problem. They delude themselves into believing that if the porn just didn't exist that there wouldn't be a problem anymore.
- Every acccusation is a confession etc etc
Whether it is this or tracking/disallowing firearms purchases, the payment processors should not be making editorial decisions on legal commerce.
If the item or service is legal in the jurisdiction, the payment processors should be on the hook for agnostically allowing the transactions. Period.
How do I start a payment processor?
- Can I use it to pay for blackjack and hookers?
  
  Yes. If it’s legal in your jurisdiction.
- Research Swift or CIPS
And "how" did they pressure the payment processors? Pressure on central deciders or what? Spicy data on them?
And couldn't they influence elections that way?
- Go listen to the first season of the Hot Money podcast, it'll explain it in much better detail than I'll remember. Essentially VISA and MasterCard don't like the reputational damage of being associated with certain types of porn. It's not a hill they're willing to die on. If you want your app to accept online payment you've got to be in line with what they find acceptable.
  
  I find that unacceptable.
Its the only thing I go to itch.io for.
- I guess I'll go to the F95zone instead.
Sorry for the double reply.
In the short-ish term, I think a good way to address this would be if governments across the globe had laws like "a service provider cannot refuse to provide services to a platform based on the nature of the lawful content within that platform".
Odds are Visa/MC/PP wouldn't even try to fight against such a law - they don't really mind servicing itch.io, from their PoV it would be yet another customer; the problem is pressure exerted by those Protestant nutjobs in Australia, but once a law is present they can't exert that pressure.
- This law sounds good in theory, but there's a lot of lawful content that is really undesirable (scams, spam, deepfakes, hate speech, etc.) and platforms need to be able to deal with that. The law isn't fast or flexible enough to keep up, and every country has different (or laughable) definitions of some of these things.
  The YouTube community guidelines are a pretty good overview of whatever shady shit people are trying to pull these days: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9288567?hl=en
  
  but there’s a lot of lawful content that is really undesirable (scams, spam, deepfakes, hate speech, etc.)
  scam - AFAIK already illegal in most of the world.
  spam - should be illegal, at least in the most egregious forms.
  deepfakes - it depends a lot on what is being done with the deepfake in question; plenty of them (like non-consensual sexualisation of someone) are either illegal or should be.
  hate speech - it targets the dignity, well-being and often the lives of marginalised groups. Should be illegal.
  Are you noticing the pattern? Those are things that should be handled by a government in defence of the public interest of everyone, not by a platform in defence of private interest of its shareholders. Even if a population has weak control over its government, it's more than it has over a corporation.
  The law isn’t fast or flexible enough to keep up and every country has different (or laughable) definitions of some of these things.
  This problem is not a good reason to create an even bigger problem. Like the one we're seeing - private interest dictating what should be allowed or not in the public sphere.
  And, seriously, if the problem was just porn who would give a fuck. (Okay, some people would, some wouldn't.) The problem is that those corporations will happily target any group, any interest, any person, as soon as they deem profitable; because they have the power to do so, so porn is in this context only the canary of the mine. And this power needs to be curtailed.
  But let's say, for the sake of argument, that implementing such a wide law would be unviable. Well, focus on financial service providers then - banks, payment processors, and the likes. Problem solved.

29 comments