- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
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I don’t get it. Do payment processors want less money? Do they hate being entrenched and bringing in revenue just for existing? Do they want us to try and find alternatives to them?
this bullshit is surely coming from the recently intensifying family friendlinessification of the internet, but why the fuck do payment processors care? i have no idea. are they taking a cut of advertising revenue? do all ceos just want to appear as massive prudes? do they see children as an untapped market to exploit? or maybe they’re just fucking stupid? what is actually going on
Capitalism is creating a level of censorship that exceeded what the US government was ever able to do after the Warren court. Parts of this have been there for a long time. You can drop f-bombs on cable TV all you like; the FCC can’t do anything about it since it’s not over public airwaves. They generally don’t do that, because advertisers don’t like it. Capitalism set the rule, not the government.
YouTube has put this idea into overdrive. You can’t make a straightforward, monetized video about the Holocaust anymore, because the language you would have to use would violate YouTube’s written and unwritten rules. Meanwhile, actual fucking Nazis have had little issue using YouTube to spread their bullshit.
Credit card companies have had issues with porn sites in terms of fraud reporting. Not necessarily because of actual fraud–if the site you use is under CCbill, it’s fine–but because some guy’s spouse sees the card transactions, asks what this particular line is for, and he lies and says it’s probably fraud and he’ll call it in. Get more than a few of those, and the processor will always be flagged for review.
They do outright stop some of the more fringe porn. Bree Mills (of Adulttime) has said that they get limited by the credit card industry far more than the government. All the faux-incest videos go out of their way to mention in dialog that everyone is a step family and over 18. You won’t find scat on Kink.com, again because their payment processor won’t allow it.
That’s been the situation for a few decades, but it has gone beyond that in the last few years. They tried it on OnlyFans, and the company maneuvered things to show why that’s an incredibly bad idea, and then the card companies backed down. But they’re trying again elsewhere, and they’re starting to be successful. I severely doubt they had any significant fraud issues on Steam or itch.io, NSFW items or otherwise.
Ultimately, this stuff is a tiny slice of their revenue. If they want to shut it all down on a moral crusade, they will barely notice the hit to their numbers.
On a side note, I’d like the advocate that you should pay for porn if it’s within your means. You’ll often find better quality stuff at sites that properly run their sets with consent. If you like queer porn or unconventional body types, there are a lot of sites for that which just don’t show up on PornHub.
They make money hand over first for doing practically nothing… They’re perfectly happy with their current situation and the most important thing to them right now is not rocking the boat.
It’s all about misandry (attacking men’s enjoyment), These are all male-dominated medias, but they’re (as in CollectiveShout) OK with cuties.
Maybe from Collective Shout, but what about Visa and Mastercard?
Collective Shout has their people within those organizations, you don’t acquire this level of power without networking & organization.
I think someone once told me its about charge backs. People will pay up for hours and hours of content (more for addicts) and then issue a chargeback, or otherwise say their card was stolen (how dare you insinuate I’m into that fetish! Type shit) and because there is no physical product to seize, the company is left with repeatedly eating investigation costs into fraudulent porn addicts.
E: I’m not judging anyone’s porn content, idgaf what you smack or flick to. Merely an observation of people not realizing how much they will charge their CC until statement time, and freak out and then chargeback, making the company susceptible to puritanical influence because “those damn porn users” keep costing the company money.
Why would a campaign group have any influence over that?
Mutualism, parasitism? The group wants some puritanical bullshit and knows a tactic to make other services comply
Yall will hate me for it, but porn games should have never been on the main launcher. That’s just asking for trouble. Steam should have a secondary launcher that is just for the adult games, and keep the two seperate. This shit wouldn’t be happening if these games hadn’t been so accessible to people not looking for that in the first place.
Also lets be honest, some of the shit is over the line. There shouldn’t be multiple “Sex with Hitler” games, because as ridiculous as that sounds, normalizing Nazis and Hitler is a fucking virus that does so much fucking harm when spread. Its not just a “silly joke”.
I don’t think adult content should be stigmatized and quarantined. Why is a game about cutting terrified victims open with a handsaw cool, but a game about licking a clit needs to be isolated?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinda_Tankard_Reist?wprov=sfla1
Collective Shout. Thanks to itch.io for naming them. TIL
Damn, Rupert Murdoch and now this asshole. Australia has a monopoly on ruining media, lol.
You can thank Advance Australia for that. Huge think tank that likely bank rolls all this nonsense and more.
Also, down with Collective Shout! As someone who suffered child abuse, I condemn these cookers crusading under the guise of child protection. FFS, they were patting themselves on the back for stopping sales of plastic heads on Temu.
If it’s any consolation, I’m sure the American versions (Focus on the family, alliance defending freedom) are right there with them.
Props to them for figuring out a real way of imposing colonialism on impoverished countries and former colonies alike. Now their ideas and laws are spreading worldwide, like someone with diseases shitting into the local water supply. Ugh.
I have a terrible feeling that the people they duped won’t figure this out for 30 years or more, with some trappings lasting for 50+ years.
Reist reviewed the controversial Netflix film Cuties (2020) for both her ABC Religion & Ethics column[20] and for the Christian newspaper Eternity.[21] She described the film as “a social critique on what happens when we allow misogynistic, violent, exhibitionist internet culture to ravage girls – training them to wield their immature bodies as currency.”[21] Reist related the film to the activism of Collective Shout: “In the past 10 years at Collective Shout, we have met many girls this age, who have felt the same pressures. Some have taken inappropriate pics and shared them, sexualising themselves either out of a sense of obligation, or because they have believed the lie that self-objectification is empowering or liberating.”[21] However, regarding certain scenes in the film, she wrote that “the complexity here is that in trying to make a serious ethical point about girls and sexuality, the girls may have been used unwittingly — but still inappropriately — to a noble end. The scene could have been filmed differently[.]”[20]
Yeah. As a society we seriously need to get on the same page about morality, but for my money it can’t come from a religious group tinkering with the beating heart of commerce. They may have points to make but it’s fruit of the poisoned tree.
My favourite fact is she thinks decriminalising sex work will lead to more sex trafficing.
Such wisdom and vision, we should let these people have power over payment processors
Stuff like this is the strongest argument for a decentralized payment option. Hopefully some day crypto will not be so much a tool of monetary speculation and we can use it for that without having to have the same experience as the guy who bought a pizza with Bitcoin.
That’s what I always wanted “DeFi” to be, a systematic replacement for the legions of evil old banks who have happily collaborated with the worst institutions of the last several centuries.
Wow, good to learn about the conservative christian, anti-abortion, “radical feminist”.
Here’s a different comment to avoid the other stupid one. Feminist support equal rights and freedom.
Well They ARE feminists.
👍
It’s damn clear that you’re gullible. So when the mask innevitably slips that feminists were always right-wing fascists, you scapegoat someone else.
Wow wow, hang on, I think I misunderstood your comment.
I agree with you. Fuck feminists. Someone just posted a picture calling for the death of all men due to catcalling and it was getting upvoted.
FUCK THAT.
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/49718552
This bullshit needs to stop.
Are you trolling me ?
The post I sent is real, isn’t it? I despise misandrists.
I even removed my original reply to you because I misinterpreted your comment.
I would appreciate if you edited yours too. I get it. I agree.
Holy fuck why did Collective Shout go full nuclear and go behind the platforms’ back and straight to the payment processors. Like they could have at least talk to the Itch.io people.
If they wanted any games banned all they had to do was talk to the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) in Australia, where they’re based. Any of the games listed would have likely been added to the ‘Refused Classification’ list and thereby banned from sale and import in Australia. If they wanted them pulled from Steam or Itch entirely they could have talked to those platforms.
But they didn’t want to raise objections through appropriate preexisting channels, they wanted to push their Christian-based ideology on the whole world by going Karen on the social media of all the payment processors.
lol they’re Australian? Jfc
We got GoonerGate before the release of the Epstein files
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I worked a little bit for a company that worked with payment processor networks. This is my understanding (and don’t view this as a defense of them, I don’t necessarily think they’re good). There are a ton of banks. Every bank having their own POS machines would be difficult. Imagine going to one that doesn’t support your bank. So payment processors sort of provide that bridge so devices only need to know how to talk to one (or a handful) of networks and the same for the banks.
And so the point arises, what do these companies provide that standardization doesn’t?
There is this (slow moving, far off) EU project that hopes to bring a new standard. It doesn’t read like they’ve got a complete solution at all, but the principles are comforting at least!
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.html
The excessive fees.
There are standards already for the format of some of the messages. These options being subpar is how we got things like PayPal originally, so who knows.
Payment processors: “I deal with the god damn customers so the
engineersbanks don’t have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can’t you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?”Maybe there needs to be more competition in the payment processing space.
We can’t have competition, that’s bad for business.
Because the laws are bs and intentionally make it harder while not being difficult to scale.
Miserable fuckers, the whole lot of puritans…
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 listedThis is exactly like the pearl-clutching we had back in the 1980’s around D&D and music lyrics. At least we moved the goalpost from satanic panic and thinly-veiled racism, over to “art that features sexual expression I don’t understand.”
If history is any indicator, their actions are only going to increase awareness of this kind of stuff.
All my homies hate Collective Shout
This morality police crap being carried out by the most immoral bastards on the planet needs to stop.
You realize that you’re defending a game that was literally a rape and incest simulator that was already banned in multiple countries before the payment processor issue occurred, right?
Yeah! Let’s sell pornos out of candy shops too! Fuck morality policing!
except nowhere on earth is your example happening.
When did they say “fuck morality policing”, or even “let’s all stop policing morality”?
Either you piggy-backed off a comment to be a whole weirdo. Or you neee to up your reading comprehension.
When did you jerk off last?
Right after I read your comment!
Yep fuck morality policing and anyone who supports it, hope you all rot in hell etc.
Applause for such a brave opinion!
why not?
The issue at hand is that it’s being made impossible to sell them at all.
No one with a brain is suggesting this. It should be up to the service and government to create rules to allow or not allow harmful content. It should definitely not be a payment processor.
Businesses shouldnt be allowed to refuse service for any reason!
What if you refuse to bake a cake because you have no sugar?
Pure fraud, most likely.
Ah, ok, 99% chance you’re a troll. 1% chance that you’re deeply mentally challenged and it’s a miracle that you can type out sentences.
Dang, look at you coming up with not one, but TWO possibilities! Super proud of you!
Why are they doing a comprehensive audit on the content and not doing a comprehensive audit on new payment providers? I sure would be
Because they would basically die off without the credit card processors, I assume.
Yeah so they should shop around now that theirs seems to be problematic
What I meant is that simply excluding Mastercard and Visa would turn away tons of sales and donations, even if they worked with every other payment processor on the planet at once.
They… could. But it would hurt, maybe even kill Itch.
Are we still doing phrasing also thank god they’re not coming for the ultra violence and graphic scenes of bodily dismemberment
Can we crowdfund a big lawsuit against those responsible for this?
Against banks? I love the enthusiasm but this is not the way. Banks as a whole have many of the best lawyers in the game on retainer (possession is 9/10ths of the law, and this industry banks on that and make bank.) The best crowdfunding campaign in history* is 800 million. The banks would be willing to spend at least that in their own defence.
*not including investments (nor blockchain)
Plus, a progressive lawsuit in this environment? Might backfire spectacularly - right now banks are cautiously picking on ‘safe’ targets. But with a green light from the supreme court the banks could go full Nazi. Yeah - there’s nothing good I can reasonably expect here.
Or use cryptocurrency more
Does it have to be a lawsuit? Can it be a big guillotine instead?
Transaction companies should not play police, in my opinion
In fact no company should play being police
This is why we have the digital market act
How are transaction offering companies not included there? Who gives them the right to choose what people consume?
Way do much centralised power
Basically a dictatorship
Fuck that
This will never go away. Payment processors make life easy for most consumers, people like them. And as long as we have them, they hold all the power around how money can be used. And they will always be limited by governments and local laws.
If you don’t like the situation, use cash. If that’s too inconvenient Bitcoin is essentially your only other option.
They have the power because states gave it to them. States can very easily take it back. But they won’t because they’re corrupted assholes.
Not even… They have the power because you gave it to them. States can take it away, but that’s worse, you don’t want that.
But it doesn’t really matter, it’s all connected. The payment processors control how money can be used and the state controls how they’re allowed to let you use it. And you let it all happen by voluntarily using a credit card.
How do you pay for a steam game without a credit card?
Bitcoin, or maybe better the millions other way more efficient alternatives 😜
Edit: “or better” instead of “and”, as I wanted to say that nearly any other crypto coin is more efficient than bitcoin. 😁
Or i wanted to say, if you offer bitcoin payment , please offer alternative crypto coins as well…
Not so sure anymore xD
At least the main thing I wanted to say, is that bitcoin is very inefficient.
I mean, they have no problems offering transaction services to obvious scams like “find sex in your region” and other scammy find relationship websites.
I find it funny that a lot of the fediverse is anti-cryptocurrency, yet this is a perfect example of a problem cryptocurrency can solve. No one can stop you from transacting on a number of blockchains.
If it was used as an actual currency instead of an investment vehicle for speculators, that would help.
It also has zero protection from scams and fraud.
Cash has zero protection too
And I don’t give cash to anonymous people online. I only use cash in-person for immediate services or products.
I mean you can use it as currency, and I do sometimes. I have bought plenty of steam games with Bitcoin. I’ve also bought a bunch of stuff on Newegg, and other places online.
It has exactly as much protection from scams and fraud as cash does, that’s essentially what it is.
Couldn’t you just masturbate the normal way?
It’s more fun when it’s freaky
Monero
Too bad cryptobros are more interested in using it as a speculative investment/scam machine than an actual currency.
Yeah the wild swings in exchange value instantly preclude its use as a currency.
Yes you are right, there are always grifters everywhere, unfortunately.
In theory, crypto could be good for this, but crypto is used (and designed) more as an investment than a transaction tool.
Also, the issue here is not centralized currency under a government, it’s centralized payment processing under monopolistic private companies. Crypto is not required to solve that, all that is needed is an alternative payment processor (in an ideal world, probably a public one run by that government, since in a modern world that seems like an essential service to me).
It’s a good point, but a payment processor run by the government would also be under pressure (from voters) to wield its power to suppress marginal content.
Imagine a US-government-run payment processor right now - it would be blocking anyone that sells anything “woke” or “DEI”.
I am a strong believer in democracy. I don’t think that the answer to a bad government is to reduce the power of the government, because that power will inevitably go to undemocratic institutions. Only the government is accountable to the people. So even when the government is currently controlled by people I dislike, I still want more things to be brought under the power of the government rather than privatized.
The answer to bad government actions, in my view, is to fight for a more democratic government, and zealously advocate for good ideas among the voting population.
Yeah, that’s a good point. I guess in light of that what I would say is that, if you are going to have a state-run payment processor, you need to build in a) pluralism (enable and encourage multiple processors) and b) legal protections (legally guarantee that the payment processor has a limited remit in terms of allowing all payments unless instructed to block them by a court order) which would help mitigate or slow down anti-democratic backsliding.
Honestly, I am OK with payment processors being privatized, they always have been. What needs to happen is regulatory legislation that restricts the grounds on which a financial institution can reject a transaction to strictly what violates interstate commerce law.
Just because they always have been doesn’t mean it’s good. It’s definitely not good for private companies to have monopoly power like that. That power will only be used for their gain (and our collective loss).
Fair enough. I guess I am just so used to the way things are I struggle to see how a government payment processor works without running the risk of police overreach. I do understand that long standing agencies like the IRS and DoE do a good job of fending off advances of police trying to illegally obtain private info, but a new agency or new power for an agency wherein they have access to the exact purchase data of every transaction done using anything other than cash gives me strong pause. It would be trivial to put it under the executive branch and put in there that if someone uses it they waive their 4th Amendment rights in such a way that it is not unconstitutional. The police state already wants to push us towards a cashless society because getting the information is already borderline too easy and there are privacy laws in place to supposedly protect us from such intrusion. Taking out the middle man means I have to trust some department head who is probably a political appointee, and we all see how well that can go.
Rock meet hard place.
In theory, crypto could be good for this, but crypto is used (and designed) more as an investment than a transaction tool.
I would argue that while crypto is as investment now, it was initially designed and intended to be used for transactions.
Out of curiosity though, why do you think this situation would be any different if it were government controlled? Especially considering that you sometimes have administrations like Trump’s, which would do anything no matter how corrupt.
If it were government controlled, it would be accountable to the people, to the extent that the government is democratic (ideally, much more than it is now), and would also be run as a service rather than for profit.
True, but crypto is used very successfully all the time to purchase things online. Now just because most of those transactions are for drugs doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, steam should start accepting monero, the only truly secure and private crypto currency.
They do accept Bitcoin, so that’s something.
