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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

#351

Post by flumpcakes »

shevis wrote: post #326
flumpcakes wrote: post #319

They are targeting incest/rape games. I wouldn't call that 'LGBTQ' like some people seem to imply. If Itch and Steam don't want to police their store fronts _before_ the law gets involved, then I am not surprised that other businesses such as payment providers will choose not to work with them. Visa and MasterCard are in the business of making money, they're not doing this for fun.

The problem is that they are opting to ban all games labeled “NSFW”, not just rape/incest games.

Itch is only doing this in the short term as they don't have enough time to go through all of the NSFW games on their platform.

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

#352

Post by flumpcakes »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #342
flumpcakes wrote: post #319

They are targeting incest/rape games. I wouldn't call that 'LGBTQ' like some people seem to imply. If Itch and Steam don't want to police their store fronts _before_ the law gets involved, then I am not surprised that other businesses such as payment providers will choose not to work with them. Visa and MasterCard are in the business of making money, they're not doing this for fun.

I think I missed the part where Valve or these games were in violation of any laws.

MasterCard/VISA clearly think the risk is there.

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

#353

Post by teddyh »

mywittyname wrote: post #273
derbOac wrote: post #229

Why isn't there another counter group putting pressure on them to not pull this kind of thing?

Because it's slightly/majority embarrassing. The groups backing this ban will find the worst of the worst thing, and paint you as a massive supporter. And their militant zealots will endanger your life if you become significant enough. It takes a certain kind of person to stand up for pornography. And most are not that kind of person.

“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.”

— Commonly attributed to H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

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

#354

Post by anonym29 »

pyuser583 wrote: post #303
RankingMember wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No this isn't just American. Most of the world is very anti-porn. The BRICS countries mostly outlaw porn. Even Nordic countries, which are very socially liberal, discourage it (at least production). There's a tendency for social liberals to see their view as the only legitimate one. Sometimes they are right. But this is an area where there is lots of international push back from undeveloped, developing, and even many…

Several of the BRICS (& other "global south" / non-neoliberal / non-western) countries also imprison journalists and nonviolent political opposition groups, and some even have the death penalty for minor cannabis possession. "Everyone else does things this way" isn't a legitimate justification.

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

#355

Post by rahkiin »

flumpcakes wrote: post #319

They are targeting incest/rape games. I wouldn't call that 'LGBTQ' like some people seem to imply. If Itch and Steam don't want to police their store fronts _before_ the law gets involved, then I am not surprised that other businesses such as payment providers will choose not to work with them. Visa and MasterCard are in the business of making money, they're not doing this for fun.

They should consider banning sale of the Bible and Game of Thrones from Amazon as well

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

#356

Post by vdqtp3 »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #159
delecti wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrongly assumed this was a D bill, and would die in committee. Turns out it's actually an R bill, with exclusively R sponsors, and now I'm wondering what awful shit is hiding in it. Though almost all of the sponsors are from almost 6 months ago, so it might die in committee anyway.

> and now I'm wondering what awful shit is hiding in it. Had to look into it a bit. From looking at the text of the bill, it looks like the sponsor did not like Operation Choke Point [0], which was specifically targeting banks that did business with Payday Lenders, Ponzi Schemes, and other shady vendors. This also included pornography, but I'm willing to bet that's not what Sen. Cramer was upset about. More likely, h…

That's disingenuous. There were plenty of legit business types included also. Directly from your link:

    ammunition sales

    ATM operators

    cable box de-scramblers

    coin dealers

    credit card schemes

    credit repair services

    dating services

    debt consolidation scams

    drug paraphernalia

    escort services

    firearms sales

    fireworks sales

    get rich products

    government grants

    home-based charities

    lifetime guarantees

    lifetime memberships

    lottery sales

    mailing lists/personal info

    money transfer networks

    online gambling

    pawn shops

    payday loans

    pharmaceutical sales

    Ponzi schemes

    pornography[5]

    pyramid-type sales

    racist materials

    surveillance equipment

    telemarketing

    tobacco sales

    travel clubs

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

#357

Post by crooked-v »

o11c wrote: post #188
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.

There's a lot of dishonesty relating to this. This really isn't about Puritanism, unless you're redefining Puritanism to mean having any morality at all. Do you really want to compel selling access to pedo games? Do you really want to compel selling access to rape games? Do you really want to compel selling access to incest games? Do you really want to compel selling access to domestic violence games? [this is the on…

The same group driving this has attempted to get games like Detroit: Become Human banned because they include even the basic concept of mistreatment against women as part of the dramatic narrative. Not glorifying it, just having it exist, even when explicitly framed as a negative thing the narrative explores the consequences of.

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

#358

Post by flumpcakes »

gs17 wrote: post #341
flumpcakes wrote: post #319

They are targeting incest/rape games. I wouldn't call that 'LGBTQ' like some people seem to imply. If Itch and Steam don't want to police their store fronts _before_ the law gets involved, then I am not surprised that other businesses such as payment providers will choose not to work with them. Visa and MasterCard are in the business of making money, they're not doing this for fun.

> _before_ the law gets involved There's no law (as of now). If there was a law, Valve would happily de-list these things. For example, a recent custom map for Mount and Blade that was banned in South Korea: https://automaton-media.com/en/news/valve-cooperates-in-bann...

This is my entire point: Valve and Itch do not police their store fronts (Itch actually does, it won't allow any games it thinks are 'hatred' but other content is OK) and now the payment processors think the risk is too great.

I think one solution for Valve/Itch to continue with the 'no policing policy' is for governments to step in and say all video games needed classification like films do.

I think a few of these video games that are sold would be found to breaking some law if anyone cared to test it.

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

#359

Post by flumpcakes »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #347
flumpcakes wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incest rape simulators, zoophilia, lolicon? I think this stuff has no place on 'normal' store fronts like Steam and Itch. It should be on an 18+ only store front at the very least.

The movie rental stores, back when they existed, used to have a room behind a curtain that adults could access.

And they wouldn't be selling zoophilia/lolicon/incest pornography.

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

#360

Post by crooked-v »

flumpcakes wrote: post #319

They are targeting incest/rape games. I wouldn't call that 'LGBTQ' like some people seem to imply. If Itch and Steam don't want to police their store fronts _before_ the law gets involved, then I am not surprised that other businesses such as payment providers will choose not to work with them. Visa and MasterCard are in the business of making money, they're not doing this for fun.

Collective Shout also actively targets games like Detroit: Become Human that are hardly 'incest/rape games'.
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