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Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

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Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#31

Post by magicmicah85 »

mwill wrote: post #17
magicmicah85 wrote: post #3

This is an opportunity for an entrepreneur to create a censorship-resistant platform, though, I don't know how you do it profitably when CSAM and other potentially criminal content needs to be reviewed.

These conservative groups aren't pressuring Steam and Itch directly, they're targeting payment processors. I don't think it's realistically viable to compete with Steam (or Itch) without access to Mastercard and Visa. (For anyone thinking crypto: we have a different idea of what it means to be either "realistically viable" or to "compete with Steam")

You don't need to compete with Steam or Itch for games that they can't sell, you're in your own market.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#32

Post by jfyi »

misterbishop wrote: post #7

It is alarming for credit card companies to take on a politically censorious role that supersedes legal activity. This really kicked off in 2021 when MasterCard started imposing restrictive rules on sex sites like OnlyFans. The ACLU has a campaign against it: https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/how-mastercards-new-p...

OnlyFans did manage to figure it out though. Maybe this is an opportunity for them to start a gaming division.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#34

Post by fooqux »

righthand wrote: post #20
magicmicah85 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cryptocurrency is the only way I see this working.

Cryptocurrency is a nice idea but there are and have always been too many gas fees for anyone to sensibly use it. I want to buy something not support everyone that get their hands in my transaction chain. The US government can break up the duopoly and open up payments processing federally. That’s worth the investment than that pipe dream of a global, frictionless cryptocurrency.

> The US government can break up the duopoly and open up payments processing federally.

Between that and someone actually creating a viable Steam competitor, I will say the government breaking them up and rolling out their own solution would be even less likely. You'd have fights on both sides of the isle and from privacy groups. Not that we have much privacy now under the current scheme, but there's at least a tiny bit of separation between V/MC and the government.

What should happen instead is regulation. They should be held to the same standards as legal tender since they're used in place as such. They shouldn't get to decide how it's used, and that should be enforced.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#35

Post by magicmicah85 »

BoxFour wrote: post #24
magicmicah85 wrote: post #3

This is an opportunity for an entrepreneur to create a censorship-resistant platform, though, I don't know how you do it profitably when CSAM and other potentially criminal content needs to be reviewed.

Even if you manage to sidestep the issues with payment processors mentioned elsewhere, you don’t end up as a “popular platform that just happens to take a principled stance and also hosts some controversial material.” Instead, you become the hub for that kind of material — and that reputation drives away more mainstream creators who won’t want their work associated with it. See also: Kick, Parlor, etc. Rather than bu…

>Rather than building a principled broad competitor to something like Steam, you end up cornering yourself into a narrow, highly specific market segment.

Yes, that's the point. Not everyone cares about financial censorship, but the few that do will be your customers.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#36

Post by hyghjiyhu »

BoxFour wrote: post #24
magicmicah85 wrote: post #3

This is an opportunity for an entrepreneur to create a censorship-resistant platform, though, I don't know how you do it profitably when CSAM and other potentially criminal content needs to be reviewed.

Even if you manage to sidestep the issues with payment processors mentioned elsewhere, you don’t end up as a “popular platform that just happens to take a principled stance and also hosts some controversial material.” Instead, you become the hub for that kind of material — and that reputation drives away more mainstream creators who won’t want their work associated with it. See also: Kick, Parlor, etc. Rather than bu…

I've watched hikaru on kick and the only offensive thing about his stream is how he repeats himself. I don't really like how he says the same thing over and over. Chat, it's kinda starting to bother me how he repeats himself. Yeah I'm starting to think he repeats himself a bit too much for my taste.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#37

Post by BoxFour »

magicmicah85 wrote: post #35
BoxFour wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you manage to sidestep the issues with payment processors mentioned elsewhere, you don’t end up as a “popular platform that just happens to take a principled stance and also hosts some controversial material.” Instead, you become the hub for that kind of material — and that reputation drives away more mainstream creators who won’t want their work associated with it. See also: Kick, Parlor, etc. Rather than bu…

>Rather than building a principled broad competitor to something like Steam, you end up cornering yourself into a narrow, highly specific market segment. Yes, that's the point. Not everyone cares about financial censorship, but the few that do will be your customers.

when you start talking about a business for serving “the few”, you’ve already removed the incentive for most entrepreneurs (unless those “few” are the extremely wealthy and you can charge them exorbitantly).

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#38

Post by some_random »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #23
some_random wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is being pushed by an Australian Feminist organization, not the American Religious Right.

The group bills themselves as feminist, but aligns with the religious right in most of their policies. They’re directly at odds with many things feminists have fought for.

I agree completely that they align with the religious right in this aspect, but you can't pretend that sex-negativity isn't a huge school of thought in feminism. Vague calls to "stop the sexualization of women in media (aimed at hetrosexual men)" have been a huge part of the casual feminist suite of views for at least a decade.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#39

Post by josh_p »

magicmicah85 wrote: post #31
mwill wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These conservative groups aren't pressuring Steam and Itch directly, they're targeting payment processors. I don't think it's realistically viable to compete with Steam (or Itch) without access to Mastercard and Visa. (For anyone thinking crypto: we have a different idea of what it means to be either "realistically viable" or to "compete with Steam")

You don't need to compete with Steam or Itch for games that they can't sell, you're in your own market.

being discoverable on the existing markets is extremely valuable.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#40

Post by hungmung »

mwill wrote: post #17
magicmicah85 wrote: post #3

This is an opportunity for an entrepreneur to create a censorship-resistant platform, though, I don't know how you do it profitably when CSAM and other potentially criminal content needs to be reviewed.

These conservative groups aren't pressuring Steam and Itch directly, they're targeting payment processors. I don't think it's realistically viable to compete with Steam (or Itch) without access to Mastercard and Visa. (For anyone thinking crypto: we have a different idea of what it means to be either "realistically viable" or to "compete with Steam")

If we don't get a section 230 for payment processors we're looking at serious consequences for 1A because everything will be a civil suit away from getting blacklisted. Economist reported that adult performers are having trouble keeping bank accounts open -- as soon as a bank or payment processor finds out it's porn-related it gets nuked. Now that this is established practice, what's going to happen when Visa/MC gets sued for handling payments to do with disagreeable political speech? Our right to freedom of speech is currently only as strong as what Visa/MC are willing to defend in court, or you'd better be willing to live without any access to the banking system -- even if you're a gazillionaire who doesn't have to work, you've got to keep your money somewhere (and satisfy KYC).

Even if somebody thinks certain speech should be censored, I doubt they'd want what they consider unsavory speech being driven to use a payment system like Bitcoin, and for that to become the norm, it would open up much more potential for abuse.

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