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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

#251

Post by jdasdf »

jimbob45 wrote: post #236
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")

they're targeting payment processors They're not "targeting" payment processors. Payment processors have to deal with significantly more problems due to the nature of porn games and chargebacks. Fix those problems and the payment processors won't have a reason anymore to ban porn (or anything). What's the point of a capitalist economy if not for startups to target market needs like these?

Those problems are artificially created by regulation. There is nothing inherent to these topics that makes servicing them physically impossible.

Charge backs, etc... can be effectively solved by appropriately pricing in such risks (or not offering those services at all).

This isn't a payment processor issue, it's a political choice.

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

#252

Post by Saline9515 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #239
nlawalker wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really disagree with you, but to play devil's advocate - when you see something that you think is harmful to society, what determines whether or not it's moral and appropriate to advocate for and work towards its abolition in what you see as the best interest of everyone? Is "Don't like X? Don't buy it" as far as we should go with... AI-produced child porn? Rolling coal and other egregious pollution? Online g…

>whether or not it's moral and appropriate to advocate for and work towards its abolition in what you see as the best interest of everyone? That lines creates justification for anything and even everyone to be banned, sadly. >Is "Don't like X? Don't buy it" as far as we should go with... AI-produced child porn? My line is "is there a victim harmed with the action". Shooting a gun? Yes, someone is often harmed and kil…

The problem with simulated CSAM is that there is a risk that the viewer develops a fetish for such repulsive practices. It has then destructive consequences for the viewer and, should he try to perform it, his victims.

Either way, I don't see the harm of forbidding it. The web doesn't lack regular pornography alternatives, free or paid.

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

#254

Post by kelseyfrog »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #239
nlawalker wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really disagree with you, but to play devil's advocate - when you see something that you think is harmful to society, what determines whether or not it's moral and appropriate to advocate for and work towards its abolition in what you see as the best interest of everyone? Is "Don't like X? Don't buy it" as far as we should go with... AI-produced child porn? Rolling coal and other egregious pollution? Online g…

>whether or not it's moral and appropriate to advocate for and work towards its abolition in what you see as the best interest of everyone? That lines creates justification for anything and even everyone to be banned, sadly. >Is "Don't like X? Don't buy it" as far as we should go with... AI-produced child porn? My line is "is there a victim harmed with the action". Shooting a gun? Yes, someone is often harmed and kil…

The assumption they're making is "interactive incest and sexual exploitation games influence people's real life behavior".

In purely hypothetical terms, what would we if there was evidence for this? I can see some folks standing by their ideals and concluding that even if this was true, we shouldn't ban these games, while others would conclude that there is a moral obligation to future victims to ban them.

How would you behave if you shared the belief that incest and sexual exploitation games influence people's real life behavior?

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

#255

Post by johnnyanmac »

fossgeller wrote: post #145
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.

Well maybe they are bothered by its sexist content. People all are about free speech when it comes to censorship in media, but not that many talk about how objectification of women is still very common in it. I’m sure that there are dating sims that are just fine, but let’s be honest here, these platforms are filled with much weirder stuff . Some of them even enter the morally grey areas imo.

>Well maybe they are bothered by its sexist content.

several Otome and BL content was hit by this as well. I don't think this is about protecting the women and children.

>not that many talk about how objectification of women is still very common in it.

It's not 2005 anymore. Show me any modern AAA game still doing this.

in terms of porn... well, yes. Your reward is sexual gratification with your chosen mate in any given game. Porn is inherently objectifying. I don't think you're seen enough of the porn market if you think porn is focused onobjectifying women, though.

>but let’s be honest here, these platforms are filled with much weirder stuff .

We're on Hacker News. I really hope we had enough background growing up to not wish for "weird" to be illegal.

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

#256

Post by JumpCrisscross »

nlawalker wrote: post #212
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 don't really disagree with you, but to play devil's advocate - when you see something that you think is harmful to society, what determines whether or not it's moral and appropriate to advocate for and work towards its abolition in what you see as the best interest of everyone? Is "Don't like X? Don't buy it" as far as we should go with... AI-produced child porn? Rolling coal and other egregious pollution? Online g…

> when you see something that you think is harmful to society, what determines whether or not it's moral and appropriate to advocate for and work towards its abolition

Evidence. If you think something is harmful to society, you have a hypothesis. The next step is to test it. Not assume it's true and ban everything.

I have seen zero evidence that any of these games are harmful. If I had to hazard a guess, and this is again just a hypothesis, I'd actually suspect that a teenager exposed to porn games is less likely to suffer mental-health issues than one on algorithmic social media or forming intimate connections with chatbots.

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

#257

Post by gs17 »

jimbob45 wrote: post #236
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")

they're targeting payment processors They're not "targeting" payment processors. Payment processors have to deal with significantly more problems due to the nature of porn games and chargebacks. Fix those problems and the payment processors won't have a reason anymore to ban porn (or anything). What's the point of a capitalist economy if not for startups to target market needs like these?

> Payment processors have to deal with significantly more problems due to the nature of porn games and chargebacks.

This is commonly repeated, but doesn't hold up. Chargeback fees (especially for card-not-present transactions) are paid by the merchant and are simply increased (with reserves required) for high-risk accounts. It also wouldn't make sense to target hyper-specific niches if it were really about chargebacks, they would go after all of it, and go after things like the CS marketplace.

But the biggest giveaway IMO is that they do not allow, e.g., Steam selling these games crypto-only. It's either remove them entirely or remove credit cards entirely. If it was really about specific titles having high fraud/chargeback rates, selling them some other way would be fine.

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

#258

Post by tryauuum »

hello from Russia, which was disconnected from the rest of the world by our overloads Visa and Mastercard

There's a whole buisness model of russians paying to a company in Kazahstan so that they buy a steam game and gift it to a russian user

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

#259

Post by scythe »

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.

Seems like a good place to repost my comment from earlier:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44676726

> I think the root of the problem is that it's just extremely unpleasant to moderate user-generated adult content. It's already difficult to moderate content on a somewhat serious online forum like Hacker News. Facebook moderators have been in the news and on South Park due to the emotional drain of the task. Who's going to sign up to pore over everyone else's weirdest thoughts given form? Certainly not me.

> So this results in websites that allow people to upload pornography having lapses of moderation where something bad gets through every now and then. One day some creepy clip goes viral among some social conservatives and they try to make legal threats against the site and anyone they consider "affiliated". This creates problems, credit card companies are very protective of their reputations, and they usually decide the conservatives seem less bad.

> Then someone sets up a new site that allows user-generated adult content and the cycle repeats.

Anyway, a truly censorship-resistant platform is not going to be able to control child porn or anything else, by definition. Censorship occurs at the level of bits, and pornography doesn't exist at the level of bits.

What you need is something like Section 230 but tailored for the situation facing user-generated adult content. Strict liability is not a good framework for criminalizing the possession of any digital material, be it a schematic for thermonuclear weapons or whatever else.

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

#260

Post by danielvaughn »

imo nothing wrong with a platform deciding what content it wants to host.

But there’s also nothing wrong with allowing this type of content. Who wants to help me build an uncensored game distribution platform? We could call it Steamy.

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