I agree with the premise of this post, but I'd like to see it made by someone else (and not only because this is on a furry blog.)Their argument is also poorly formed and poorly written. They start by defending their use of furry art and railing against potential backlash from HN. Then spend a lot of words talking about how Collective Shout isn't anti-LGBTQ, but could potentially become anti-LGBTQ, but even if it's n…
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Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors
151–160 of 272 posts
Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors
#152Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Today it's adult content, which is an easy target. Not even that easy of a target, because the crazy people in America want to call anything that acknowledges the existence of LGBTQ people or how they exist within greater society is "adult content" or "pornographic."
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Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would visa/mc want to decline money? They love making money.
Because the money involved is peanuts, they don't want people running around trying to put them in the headlines as "enabling sexual exploitation", and a certain number of their internal people actually believe in the "cause". Contrary to popular belief, corporations are composed of humans and do not reliably or mechanically follow only financial incentives. Nor are they always perfect in understanding their actual f…
I would wager it is closer to "economically load bearing" than it is to peanuts
Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
The companies in question are monopolies . If you can't get your payments processed by Visa and Mastercard, you are effectively debanked. We collectively agreed long ago that monopolies do not get to enjoy the same freedoms that other companies do.
> We collectively agreed long ago that monopolies do not get to enjoy the same freedoms that other companies do. I think that's generally only the case for natural monopolies, such as power infrastructure, where breaking them up isn't really a feasible solution (ie we don't want 20 different power lines running to each house). I don't think payment processing meets that standard, we could easily break them up and re-…
b) How would you then prevent them from re-amalgamating the way Verizon and AT&T did after the Baby Bell breakup? Not just for a few years afterward, but ever?
c) I think that payment processors actually make a pretty convincing natural monopoly: consider that if we had 400 payment processors with no common interface protocol between them (and let's face it, without being forced to, companies aren't going to make such a standard), your Baby Visa #27 credit card wouldn't be accepted at a merchant who only accepts Baby Mastercard #100-200 cards. And even accepting that many different payment processors would be pretty onerous.
Remember, this isn't the card issuers we're talking about; this is the backend processors. The only reason our current "universal" credit card infrastructure works is because nearly everyone takes Mastercard and Visa, and most credit cards—and many debit cards—are either Mastercard or Visa. Sure, it would be possible to create some kind of an interchange standard that all 400 processors would follow, but again, where's the incentive for any single processor?
Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
THIS. Why is this PoV even controversial? Especially given that the videogames in question weren't even illegal. Hell, I don't even like those games, but it's about the precedent of corporate overreach: if it's all legal, Visa/MasterCard shouldn't be able to decide for me what games I'm allowed to buy, no matter how weird they may be. It's not their job to judge the legal kinks I'm up to in the privacy of my own home…
> THIS. Why is this PoV even controversial? Because it is stating that the government should control private behavior, which bumps into free speech and freedom of association issues. That gets pretty controversial. There are other solutions to the stated problem: > Given their market dominance, they should absolutely not have any right to refuse service. The fix is to address the precondition in that statement: their…
Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
The companies in question are monopolies . If you can't get your payments processed by Visa and Mastercard, you are effectively debanked. We collectively agreed long ago that monopolies do not get to enjoy the same freedoms that other companies do.
> We collectively agreed long ago that monopolies do not get to enjoy the same freedoms that other companies do. I think that's generally only the case for natural monopolies, such as power infrastructure, where breaking them up isn't really a feasible solution (ie we don't want 20 different power lines running to each house). I don't think payment processing meets that standard, we could easily break them up and re-…
Imagine having to support every single type of provider for every transaction. I don't think it is a good idea at all
Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors
#158China just banned OnlyFans as degenerate, as did Sweden. We should probably be _increasing_ enforcement of public morality through private systems. “You can just start your own payment processor.”
Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors
#159Cryptocurrencies are sufficiently diverse and popular in this day and age that this should be a non-issue at this time. So many sites accept them already. I even advise using Monero to fully shield the user.
They're still miserable from a UX perspective and for those of us in KYC countries? It can be very burdensome to verify ourselves and actually exchange real money for them. Buying litecoin and sending it to someone else was a huge pain in my butt to put it mildly.
Re: Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors
#160China just banned OnlyFans as degenerate, as did Sweden. We should probably be _increasing_ enforcement of public morality through private systems. “You can just start your own payment processor.”
Why does "morality" enforcement always devolve into obsession with what other people do with their genitals among consenting parties and completely ignore empathy, welfare of humankind and others, or any of the inconvenient and possibly expensive "Treating people beneath you nicely?". We never see such "moralists" punishing those who do such profoundly immoral things like actively forbidding helping the homeless.
What moral standards do you think should be enforced? Do you think that "models" should have age verification?