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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

#441

Post by the_af »

t-writescode wrote: post #402
trothamel wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collective Shout, which organized this, claims to be an Australian feminist organization. (Admittedly, this may be an act.)

The irony is that many if not most of the porn ARTISTS I have know or known of are women, in a subculture that skews male *heavily*. And video games are just art. So, women, drawing and writing stuff they like, being banned and losing an income stream. I don’t think drawing or writing porn is exploitative at all.

One of the best porn web comics (which I recommend, though like all web comics it has its highs and lows) is Oglaf [1], and the artist drawing the sexy pictures is Trudy Cooper... a woman.

If somehow the puritanical mob banned stuff like that, I'd be genuinely sad.

[1] https://www.oglaf.com

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

#442

Post by devnullbrain »

flumpcakes wrote: post #351
shevis wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And 4chan is only introducing the Captcha until the spam stops

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

#443

Post by godelski »

ben_w wrote: post #241
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 buy it. Simple as that. The claim isn't "we don't like it", the claim is "this is damaging to society". I don't agree with such things in many cases (and many people disagree with me when I'm the one saying something is damaging to society), but it's important to note the difference or you will always be arguing against something other than their claim. > No one, including governments or paym…

  > it's important to note the difference or you will always be arguing against something other than their claim.
I think this is critical insight and applies to a lot of topics. I think it is true for pretty much every heated topic.

The mistake we often make is that we believe that the other side is not optimizing correctly. Instead, it is often that they are optimizing but under differing constraints. If we don't pay attention to these differing constraints we'll just end up with infuriating arguments as it will ,,sound like'' we're talking about the same thing, but actually aren't. It's one of the major difficulties of communication: we have to make a lot of assumptions to interpret the other person.

Importantly, there's no way to convince the other person that they're wrong unless you are able to understand their model. It's easy to assume you do, but if your model boils down to "they're dumb" or "they're evil" then all you can do is fight. You have to understand your enemy and all that...[0]

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/17976-if-you-know-the-enemy...

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

#444

Post by godelski »

bobthepanda wrote: post #437
pstuart wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the claim is "this is damaging to society" There is some truth to that, but if one were to operate at that level then Facebook would be illegal. Porn is a convenient thing to weaponize anger in your constituents (just like babies not being born). It pushes emotional triggers and riles people up and then they're waiting to be told what to hate/attack next.

The real debate is which is worse to society, its existence or attempting to ban it. Banning porn is not going to do a whole lot. Pornography is illegal in South Korea and if anything they have some of the worst gender toxicity.

  > Banning porn is not going to do a whole lot. Pornography is illegal in South Korea
Yet, there's a lot of porn there too. A whole lot of voyeur porn too. As well as prostitution, which is also illegal.

Making something legal or illegal is just signaling. The real part is how it actually is implemented in practice. And as you imply, things are pretty complex. We really need to be careful about our own tendencies to want things to be simple. It always backfires...

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

#445

Post by tomrod »

kreco wrote: post #312
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This is not the correct way. If cigarette was banned from the beginning, we would still see people getting mad without much evidence. The truth is the evidence is coming half a century after when everyone got cancer. Precautionary principle should always prevail. That's why we just don't go full GMO, and you would still not wait for any proof that "it's harmless". You also don't use a random pesticide, unless you hav…

I disagree, the precautionary principle (Chesterton's fence) is heavily overused, often as a bludgeon and for power maintenance.

This is sort of like Jordan Peterson's claim that something is true if it improves evolutionary fit - a claim that seems reasonable on the surface but is rotten nonsense inside.

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

#446

Post by JackFr »

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 buy it.

Ok.

Don’t like porn? Don’t sell it.

“CENSORSHIP! PURITAN NAZIS!”

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

#447

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

ben_w wrote: post #241
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 buy it. Simple as that. The claim isn't "we don't like it", the claim is "this is damaging to society". I don't agree with such things in many cases (and many people disagree with me when I'm the one saying something is damaging to society), but it's important to note the difference or you will always be arguing against something other than their claim. > No one, including governments or paym…

It's pretty wild that people think that porn is more damaging to society than censorship.

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

#448

Post by the_af »

morkalork wrote: post #156
the_af wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the specific organization we're discussing is not feminist, they only disguise themselves as such.

You can't really say that, there are many variations; for example, the women advocating for prohibition of alcohol way back in the day were feminists. Socially, their views would be more aligned with this Australian organization.

But that'd be damning: these views (banning alcohol) of some of the early feminist movements are hopelessly outdated. Alignment with them would make Collective Shout conservative... and aligned with today's religious right, as I'm arguing all along.

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

#449

Post by rustystump »

SXX wrote: post #432
rustystump wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like my game platforms how I like my streaming platforms. One for explicitly porn, and another for explicitly not porn. GoT on netflix while spicy is not porn. The issue is mixing porn with not porn. I shouldnt have to go click a bunch of special porn tags to not see that shit on the home page. I like anime games but cant seem to keep them without the hentai. Poor experience. The fact the default is porn games in y…

Porn games are never ever visible by default on Steam. They were always opt-in. And no, Steam don't mess them up with Cyberpunk.

That is not true. Very often i find porn games not filtered out so does my partner. Which is once again, why having distinct store fronts would have solved this. No system is perfect in tag this tag that so it is better to be explicit with it so things do not leak. This is what happens when you mix it. The xyz groups get ammunition.

Can you imagine if youtube launched an onlyfans like filter to allow nsfw content?

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

#450

Post by Lerc »

pstuart wrote: post #433
ben_w wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't like porn? Don't buy it. Simple as that. The claim isn't "we don't like it", the claim is "this is damaging to society". I don't agree with such things in many cases (and many people disagree with me when I'm the one saying something is damaging to society), but it's important to note the difference or you will always be arguing against something other than their claim. > No one, including governments or paym…

> the claim is "this is damaging to society" There is some truth to that, but if one were to operate at that level then Facebook would be illegal. Porn is a convenient thing to weaponize anger in your constituents (just like babies not being born). It pushes emotional triggers and riles people up and then they're waiting to be told what to hate/attack next.

You then have to ask, "In what way is it damaging?" Some porn is exploitative, but also so are other things. Why is the attack being made upon porn and not exploitation?

If the things being criticised appear in many areas, it is hard not to draw the conclusion that they chose their target because it involves sex, and that is what they have a problem with.

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