Submitted 1 day ago by Berin@discuss.tchncs.de to games@lemmy.world
https://itch.io/updates/update-on-nsfw-content
The group responsible is “Collective Shout”, the same org has targeted Steam before.
People on social media are now calling for people to contact Mastercard, Visa and co. and file complaints.
Puritanical US based payment processors need to stop getting their panties twisted.
I don’t even understand how they give a shit. Seems like the perfect place for shareholders to want them to make as much money as possible, and there aren’t many alternatives.
People with a lot of money doesn’t really want just money. They want power to impose their views over the rest. Money is just a mean to do so.
They give a shit because they are being pressured into giving a shit by religious nutjobs: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality_in_Media
You’re still thinking within reason. Megalomania doesn’t.
It’s not about money, but power. “The world bent its knee at our word.” Simple as that. People can be and are that crazy.
It’s an Australian organisation pressuring the payment processors.
It’s not just happening recently with Steam and Itch.io, it’s been happening for a while.
Some smutty art creators on Patreon have been chased off that platform because of payment processors telling patreon they’d pull the plug if Patreon kept that type of art on the platform. Those same artists have then reported being unable to set up, for instance, Stripe for their paywalls.
Porn stars have complained about being unable to set up accounts with payment processors.
There should be laws forcing payment processors to be neutral. They should have to accept any transaction that would be legal if made using cash.
Considering how long payment processing as a business has been a thing, I’m amazed its not more regulated in terms of being forced to be neutral or being unable to decline processing payments that are related to completely legal transactions.
How the fuck did we get to the point where a company which literally only takes your money and gives it to someone else (and also gets paid for that) can decide what kind of content people consume?
Meanwhile, on my feed there’s a post directly below this one about a compiler that will give you BSDM messages for good and bad coding and can even be hooked up to a remote butt plug to pleasure you when you compile a successful program.
The Rust community just knows what’s up.
cargo mommy reference
Gives a new meaning to the term “code smell”.
Noooooooooooooooo
(Litteraly downloaded only two games front there)
I’m wondering who gave these credit card companies the moral authority.
Finicial authority beats moral everytime.
The fact that they hold the keys to the kingdom. Online retailers and businesses rely on credit card processors to be able to do business, which is all the leverage they need to exert tremendous pressure on the businesses they service.
This is something that really should be getting legislated against, but good luck in the US under the current administration. Maybe the EU has a shot.
It’s not about morals. It’s purely about money. Porn sites are labeled as high risks because things like chargebacks, stolen credit cards etc happen more often at these adult websites. Not to mention the thin line between legal and illegal content. Therefore payment processors charge companies in the high risk category a higher fee since they need to audit these companies more frequently and deal with these chargebacks etc. more.
So either Itch.io goes into the high risk category and pay more for transactions or they remove porn. Maybe itch.io should just create a separate company to host these adult games.
But wasn’t that true before Collective Shite decided to piss on everyone else’s day?
I’m sure this is no coincidence that cbristofascists are in control of all the top branches of US Government.
Tbf, Collective Shout group is actually Australian
I never thought I would say this, but cryptocurrency might have a use after all.
This is exactly what it was designed to solve before cryptobros turned it into a pump and dump scheme.
If you want to buy something from seller X that is between you and X and no one else. No goverment, payment processor or other third party can get a cut or stop it for any reason.
Buying drugs and gooner games. That’s the satoshi dream.
So do regular fiat payment processors that are beholden to citizens and not faceless shareholders. Wero and Pix for instance.
Democratic governments are supposed to safeguard your ability to exchange legal tender for legal goods and services. The fact that Visa/MC have a duopoly and a stranglehold on the entire online economy is a major governance failure that needs to be rectified ASAP.
Crypto goes a lot further and says no-one, not even the government, should be able to prevent a transaction from taking place. Not necessarily an invalid idea but it does come with some huge unanswered challenges, such as “what happens when someone makes 1B€ through fraud and refuses to hand over the coins” and “how do we even prevent large-scale fraud in the first place”.
It’s nice to see a more reasonable response in the comments on Fediverse. On the itch discussion board people are frothing at the mouth posting death threats and the like against itch staff.
The anger is completely misdirected. I wouldn’t be surprised if they decide to just let itch drop dead after this abuse from two sides simultaneously. Mega corps and rights groups at one side, and their very own users on the other.
Once this review is complete, we will introduce new compliance measures. For NSFW pages, this will include a new step where creators must confirm that their content is allowable under the policies of the respective payment processors linked to their account.
Itch is even willing to go for partial filtering, what more do you want. The only thing that will please these people is when itch waves their magic wand and keeps everything as is.
Like folks here have said, accepting crypto payments might help, but who knows how soon that is going to get regulated.
It’s kinda impossible to regulate technically. That’s the whole point of crypto. Or do you mean that the company itself might be legally prohibited to accept crypto by their local law? That’s possible I think. I guess we’re slowly but steadily approaching the demand to have actual darknet fully-crypto gaming platform operated by anonymous team.
It’s kinda impossible to regulate technically.
No it’s not.
Once this review is complete, we will introduce new compliance measures. For NSFW pages, this will include a new step where creators must confirm that their content is allowable under the policies of the respective payment processors linked to their account.
kind of a clever way to say “hey don’t give us grief, if you want to change this go complain to visa and mastercard.”
It’s nice to see a more reasonable response in the comments on Fediverse. On the itch discussion board people are frothing at the mouth posting death threats and the like against itch staff.
Sounds like the bar is so low to be even comparing the two sites.
To be clear - “Collective Shout” both is and isn’t responsible. It’s the payment processors who actually enacted policies and are using them as the scapegoat for negative feedback.
How many times have people reported Twitter after Elon Musk took over for showing Nazi propaganda alongside their ads - with no response. An ‘open letter’ in July about a game already banned in April? DELIST EVERYTHING IMMEDIATELY.
ACLU petition concerning the payment processors: …aclu.org/…/mastercard-sex-work-work-end-your-unj…
Fucking signed.
Guys hi, just looking for some support share, a Fantasy Adventure Story, for all ages and just some entertain with some storyes: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mVIvQ1wsgg - maybe you are curious
Fuck these god-bothering pieces of shit. No, seriously. It sounds like they need it.
I suspect the reason why is that most of them are under pressure from the USA government, which is trying to recrete Gillead
Let the Digital Euro become a thing. It will wreck havoc on the current payment ecosystem.
And the Digital Euro is not a crypto. It will be a digital currency, backed by the ECB, at a one to one exchange rate with standard euro currency.
I mean the issue here is not with the money itself, it’s the payment processors
The eEU is supposed to be one, itself. And even if it fails Wero and MBWay are growing, which are direct money transfer systems.
be careful. stablecoins are a step towards central bank digital currency. once CBDC is established, it’s all over for freedom to spend money.
You can still pay with gold and silver.
Time for Brazil’s PIX to be exported around the world. That’s likely to be hard, as here it is a direct bank-to-bank transfer without middlemen, so it’d need cooperation between the involved countries.
You’re describing the same system behind Wero and MBWay. We can just use cellphone numbers to move money from account to account, regardless of the banks at each end of the transaction.
Euro(pe) is the MVP
It has its moments.
The various groups trying to ban payments for NSFW products and whatever else they don’t like would just target the ECB and member states to restrict transactions they don’t like
Can we force law banning money transactions to the churches and christian organisations?
Fight fire with fire (not literally, at least not yet, even if they did that long time ago already).
Posted this elsewhere so just going to copy paste here but with regards to Collective Shout:
I think we need to get this group to weigh in on the content of certain holy books. Surely as a secular organisation they will have no problem demanding that the bible and qur’an be banned (I bet I know which one they actually would like banned).
After all we don’t want kids exposed to books that contain incest, sex, violence, rape, etc. I’m sure there are some parts of Ezekiel they will want editted at the absolute minimum.
I imagine balkanisation would be one way to make them slightly less visible/insufferable, and you know they would love some factional infighting.
Every time they get brought up they should be forced to confront that the people pulling their strings are most likely engaging in all the things they want banned from culture (regardless of culture or intent). Once they are forced to start lobbying Visa and MasterCard to block transactions to religious bodies I will accept they genuinely believe in the drivel they leak. Until then its performative puritanism.
P.s. not a fan of religion of any stripe, but I would feel as violently opposed to censoring them as I am to censoring anything else, I will accept it if its the only responsible solution until then alternative can be found.
you aren’t going to get fascists on hypocrisy
Well yea, but also no. I think a lot of their ability to operate is the veneer of legitimacy they have, my suggestion above, while funny, was mainly facetious, however if we could figure out a way of stripping that legitimacy away they might see more pushback from the next company they try to convince they represent a statistically large chunk of the population.
In this exact situation if Visa had just said to them: “We will take that under advisement.” Then filed the whole thing with the crayon scrawl “letters” they get from a certain “BLEACH BLONDE BAD BUILT BUTCH BODY” about not letting the Jews buy any more space lasers. Then no one would be getting rights taken away from them.
Those ladies are really unpopular at the moment.
Still, it further highlights just how much power over law payment processors have - a worrying thought that the morality of a company (influenced by problem life nuts) dictates international law.
Controlling the money means controlling the world.
I’m completely fine with certain content being delisted because it is considered essentially on par with hate speech or something like that.
However, I really do not like that it is payment processors making that call. If someone makes that call, it should be the store in question (itch.io, Steam, whatever) or it should be the government.
Can’t wait for an EU alternative to Visa/Mastercard. Heard Wero is supposed to be that.
we already had that: Eurocard. they needed to pay mastercard in order to be compatible with their terminals, and that relationship ended with mastercard just absorbing them.
they were started for the exact same reason that we are talking about, to get a european alternative. so obviously the answer is not free market-based.
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
I hate American Companies it will be a good time to start a new platform for NSFW games and payment platforms
This is how crypto payments go mainstream
So how do we go about suing these guys? They’re erasing art. And no, I’m not just some gooner who wants more jackoff material, Itch apparently removed anything with nudity in it.
Why not just call visa and matercard just like that stupid lobbying company. Obviously it is harder to change company’s minds, but maybe might accomplish something.
I hear shout has 1000 people on staff calling businesses, people could easily quadruple that.
Goddamn cookers the lot of them. Perhaps I’ll make an abortion game on Itch in protest.
I hope those “Payment processors” get vored alive!
They should do Twitter next. Twitter has nsfw AI role play now and it should be banned by payment processors
Absolutely fucked up.
Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 1 day ago
First they came for the incest/rape games, which most people somewhat agree with (although the principle is still wrong) Next up is all nsfw games. After that, it’ll be mainstream and indie games altogether. This never stops with just one “victory” for these groups.
Broadfern@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s going to come down to anything with even a whisper of LGBTQ+/minority/disability/etc representation, just like with books.
They start with the “egregious” content (not that it’s necessarily right to remove that either), then narrow it down until it shapes up into hegemonic conformity and systemic oppression via media (there’s a term for it, kind of like stochastic violence but not quite that I can’t remember atm).
ugo@feddit.it 1 day ago
Exactly this. It is so transparent that the goal is to target minorities and lgbtq+ folk. After that, who knows. “Unchristian” games probably.
TipRing@lemmy.world 1 day ago
BDSM games have been targeted as well for “sexual violence”. Only straight, vanilla PiV missionary for the express purposes of having children within the confines of marriage where nobody is enjoying it porn will be left.
Cyv_@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
There are specific games in steam’s case I’m very ok with getting removed, but at the same time its very fucked up that we’re in a situation where the world is beholden to payment processors. Ideally this would be a case where they go directly to Valve and say “hey we think you should take a look at your content policy and at these specific games” and Valve makes the call from there on where they want to draw the line.
Glent@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Im curious what games and type of content they contain you think should be removed from steam. Ive seen a few cartoon pornish type of things pop up before but didnt appear outwardly outlandish. Having never intentionally sought out this content Im curious is there a dark depraved section of the steam store Ive never seen before?
Booboofinget@lemmy.world 1 day ago
What kills me is in most cases you have to pay for the game, then you have to download the game, then install it and finally play it. It’s not.like the game is going to one day pop into your computer and then force you to play it.
Bottom line. If the game bothers ornoffends you just move on.
it_depends_man@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yes, but.
Everyone should read the open letter that’s linked in the itch statement.
There definitely is a line. Everyone can choose were they draw it. You don’t have to draw it in a way where you end up defending things that are kinda messed up.
There is definitely a hill worth fighting on in that area. I don’t think it’s this exact one.
Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 1 day ago
My line is these payment processors being judge, jury and executioner about what material they deem valid. So I am fundamentally opposed.
hornyAltAccount@lemmynsfw.com 1 day ago
I feel like there is nuance that is really getting lost on some people and that is the way that people engage with these games. Let me try to explain: I like playing NSFW games - even with tags like Rape, Corruption or the occasional Incest. Without trying to go into too much detail, it’s simply erotic to me in the correct context. Now, do I know that these topics are incredibly taboo and/or offensive in real life? Yes, of course. I keep these things private and never put them out in real life. I would rather noone knows about what I do privately in my own time at my own PC. The way I see it, I simply paid an artist to draw something erotic and write a good story and/or program some gameplay attached to it. And once I stop engaging with the videogame, I also do not have any desire to recreate anything in real life. The same way that I don’t go around killing people after playing GTA, I also don’t go around assaulting women because I played a videogame where these things happen.
And that’s exactly what worries me - the people pushing this narrative, genuinely think I would want to start reenacting something I’ve seen in a videogame happen. That is complete nonsense.
hisao@ani.social 1 day ago
My line is: any kind of fictional content is ok. If nobodies hurt, then there is no crime. And in practice being maniac in games doesn’t translate to being maniac irl. There might be some exceptions of crazy people being inspired by games to do crimes, but they should be dealt with on case-by-case basis using just regular law and law enforcement.
BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Moral judgement or suppression of fiction/artistic expression is deeply and profoundly unethical. How you or I or anyone else feels about something that isn’t “real” is inconsequential. If you allow any line to be crossed in this, then every line can and will be crossed.
Pat_Riot@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Once they get rid of the sex they’ll come for the violence.
Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Steam is gonna look mighty empty if every game with violence is removed tho.
simple@piefed.social 1 day ago
They're not going to ban 90% of video games, not everything is a slippery slope
CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
So what do I, a common shlub, do to resist this? Boycott Steam and itch.io until they reinstate the games?
Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Steam and Itch are both victims in this matter, their hands are tied. If the payment processors simply refuse to process any payments unless they comply, there’s no point in trying to put pressure on them. I’m pretty sure they were happy to take people’s money for these games and still would be, if they could so while saving face.
RandomVideos@programming.dev 1 day ago
Isnt itch.io only indie games?