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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

#161

Post by bornfreddy »

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.

> Cryptocurrency is a nice idea but there are and have always been too many gas fees for anyone to sensibly use it.

That's not true, at least not in general. Polygon (and USDT/USDC on Polygon) fees are near zero, Ethereum is lately very cheap, and even Bitcoin fees are no longer outrageous. EDIT: ...and Bitcoin Lightning is cheap.

A lot of p0rn payment processing is done in crypto for exactly the censorship reasons. If you can't use the payment processor, who cares what their fees are? (not saying they are cheaper or more expensive than crypto - I don't know)

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

#162

Post by djoldman »

The decision to provide or not some services or products should be free from considering downstream use.

It would be ridiculous to deny a water supply hookup or electrical mains to a church because the water or electrical companies are opposed to those beliefs.

Analogously, legislation should be passed to prohibit considering downstream use for all financial transactions.

If the government wants to go after criminals, it can do it by itself.

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

#163

Post by m463 »

can16358p wrote: post #105

What is wrong with these people who try to block certain content? Don't like porn? Don't buy it. Simple as that. No one, including governments or payment processors, should be in the position to decide whether a platform can sell something or not. I wish there was a payment processor who was brave enough to say a big fucking NO to censorship.

I remember checking out llama when it first came out. (meta's published LLM model)

"what is the best sex position?"

[blah, blah, ... non-answer]

"How do you get a sex change?"

[long detailed answer]

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

#164

Post by _mlbt »

delecti wrote: post #104
crooked-v wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The text is on there and is very straightforward. As far as I can tell it's a basically good bill.

I agree that the text sounds good. I'm worried about the consequences I might not think of. What legal services are the Ds and Rs thinking of that currently have trouble with payment processors, and which are causing a lot of Rs to sponsor and no Ds? Because I'm sure it's not porn and video games.

Operation Choke Point is referenced by the proposed bill...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point

> Operation Choke Point was an initiative of the United States Department of Justice beginning in 2013 which investigated banks in the United States and the business they did with firearm dealers, payday lenders, and other companies that, while operating legally, were said to be at a high risk for fraud and money laundering.

There's a whole list on the Wikipedia article of the kinds of legal businesses that were targeted by this. Some of them make sense, but others look like very serious 1A and 2A violations.

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

#165

Post by [deleted] »

can16358p wrote: post #105

What is wrong with these people who try to block certain content? Don't like porn? Don't buy it. Simple as that. No one, including governments or payment processors, should be in the position to decide whether a platform can sell something or not. I wish there was a payment processor who was brave enough to say a big fucking NO to censorship.

[deleted]

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

#166

Post by bongodongobob »

can16358p wrote: post #105

What is wrong with these people who try to block certain content? Don't like porn? Don't buy it. Simple as that. No one, including governments or payment processors, should be in the position to decide whether a platform can sell something or not. I wish there was a payment processor who was brave enough to say a big fucking NO to censorship.

Don't like porn? Don't sell it in your store, simple as that.

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

#167

Post by WorldMaker »

jacobsimon wrote: post #58
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")

Maybe a silly idea, but here’s a solution to prevent financial censorship: make the game free. Or monetize via another way—ads, subscriptions, credits. There’s actually a lot of options for Steam if they aren’t being pressured directly to remove the content.

Most of the games that have been deindexed on itch.io and some of the ones that were banned/removed were free or Pay-What-You-Want/Donation-Ware (some even via Patreon or SubscribeStar rather than itch.io's own payment processing).

The problem isn't just "the Payment Processor doesn't want to support this game" but also "this game shows Guilt-By-Association that your platform's money might go to 'criminals' or 'sinners'."

Guilt-By-Association is real gross, but a large part of the current fight, too, especially looking at itch.io's payment processor-required actions, not just Steam's.

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

#168

Post by isaacdl »

m463 wrote: post #163
can16358p wrote: post #105

What is wrong with these people who try to block certain content? Don't like porn? Don't buy it. Simple as that. No one, including governments or payment processors, should be in the position to decide whether a platform can sell something or not. I wish there was a payment processor who was brave enough to say a big fucking NO to censorship.

I remember checking out llama when it first came out. (meta's published LLM model) "what is the best sex position?" [blah, blah, ... non-answer] "How do you get a sex change?" [long detailed answer]

Well, those are somewhat different types of questions. One is subjective opinion, and the other is a bit more factual/straightforward.

I'm also not entirely sure what this has to do with the comment you're replying to.

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

#169

Post by matthewrobertso »

RankingMember wrote: post #115
can16358p wrote: post #105

What is wrong with these people who try to block certain content? Don't like porn? Don't buy it. Simple as that. No one, including governments or payment processors, should be in the position to decide whether a platform can sell something or not. I wish there was a payment processor who was brave enough to say a big fucking NO to censorship.

The Puritanical origins of the US reverberate to this day. While coming for "freedom of religion" sounds like a noble origin story, the context was that they wanted the freedom to practice a much stricter, restrictive form of religion than that allowed by the Church of England.

This is the result of campaigning by an Australian group

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

#170

Post by bongodongobob »

crinkly wrote: post #143

The very idea of a store front for software needs to die. It’s a single strangle point that serves only to concentrate power and create a legal or regulatory target. There should be no platform to “abuse”. There should be no control point.

Everyone is free to build their own website to market and distribute their games.
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