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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

#511

Post by aprilthird2021 »

garciansmith wrote: post #483
mixologist wrote: post #467

This actually took longer than I thought. It is really weird that for all my adult content I have to go to a dedicated adult store, yet for games I can find them on Steam and gog where kids shop for games. You don’t get porn movies on Netflix or Disney stream. You don’t get adult toys in your local grocery store. Why do we sell porn on Steam? Why haven’t game stores just spin off separate store front for porn content…

Bookstores sell kids books and adult material just fine. The adult stuff might be behind the counter or in a certain area, same as stores like Steam where you have to actively seek it out.

It's not the same as an online store. There is a way for people to know kids are in a place they shouldn't be or to deny them access to adult content in real life. In Steam, there isn't

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

#512

Post by paulddraper »

rpdillon wrote: post #502
mixologist wrote: post #467

This actually took longer than I thought. It is really weird that for all my adult content I have to go to a dedicated adult store, yet for games I can find them on Steam and gog where kids shop for games. You don’t get porn movies on Netflix or Disney stream. You don’t get adult toys in your local grocery store. Why do we sell porn on Steam? Why haven’t game stores just spin off separate store front for porn content…

> You don’t get porn movies on Netflix or Disney stream. You don’t get adult toys in your local grocery store. I'd be more interested in questioning these than why porn is available on Steam. I mean, Disney is essentially an anti-porn product, so I get that, but Netflix is a perfectly reasonable platform for porn. I don't see any reason adult toys can't be sold in Walmart or whatever. > Backlash is inevitable. I don'…

Walmart does sell them. Next to pharmacy.

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

#513

Post by mrbonner »

nosignono wrote: post #221

Weirdly, Amazon sells TONS of porn and NSFW content, and yet doesn't lose their Visa/Mastercard processing. Game of Thrones, both the books and the show, contain content much, much more explicit than many of these games. Yet Itch and Steam have to pull stuff or their very existence is threatened.

It's art. Not porn!

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

#514

Post by aussieguy1234 »

For those who think this is about just banning adult content, think again. What's actually happening is any content disliked by certain billionaires is being flagged by payment providers under their influence.

Some examples, like this one are for porn but the same approach could be used for anything even remotely controversial.

Anyway, maybe Witcher 3 could be next. Great game, but it happens to have some sex scenes, so....

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

#515

Post by _bent »

patmcc wrote: post #461
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They may both be damaging, but currently we have a lot more porn than censorship, so it looks like it's causing more damage. If we flip to having a lot more censorship we'll feel that damage more clearly. Or we won't, depending how successful the censorship is.

> it looks like it's causing more damage

what damage is it causing?

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

#517

Post by cindyllm »

unclad5968 wrote: post #500
elijahdl wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pornography is the canary in the coalmine of protected speech. When you give a group the ability to censor content on the basis of "obscenity", then that group and other groups can use this to label other subjects they don't like as obscene. LGBTQ+ interest topics are especially vulnerable to this, as it is often made the case that being gay or trans is only about sex. You don't have to consume pornography yourself i…

I don't think LBGTQ+ are too harmed by the removal of "Sex adventures Incest Family" or "Interactive Sex Mother Son Incest BDSM" or "Reincarnation adventure going to rape all NPCS VR" front he steam store. I don't think too many LGBTQ like to include rapists or incest adventures into their group. I could be wrong though.

[dead]

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

#518

Post by fc417fc802 »

anonym29 wrote: post #370
fc417fc802 wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A justification of what, though? It isn't a cohesive argument on it's own but it is important perspective. If a significant fraction of societies have arrived at policies that contradict your worldview I think that ought to give you pause. (Note that I say that as someone who holds far more extreme views about legal freedom of expression than the vast majority of people out there.) That's getting somewhat off topic t…

Are you defending the morality of authoritarian states imprisoning journalists and nonviolent political opposition groups? It's one thing to recognize that it happens, another to recognize the practice as legitimate, virtuous, or even desirable. To be clear, I'm not accusing you of promoting these practices, just asking you to clarify your position.

I am expressing neither support nor opposition to any particular policy position in that comment, merely putting forth the general principle that any time you find yourself to be an outlier you should very carefully examine how that came to be. It's a natural extension of Chesterton's fence.

I think it also follows from such a principle that in general the relevant reasoning should be explicitly articulated when discussing the topic.

> It's one thing to recognize that it happens, another to recognize the practice as legitimate, virtuous, or even desirable.

Suppose that a thing is explicitly chosen by the majority of the world's population, or dictated by the majority of governments, or imposed by the majority of cultural norms. I am suggesting that dismissing it in favor of your own reasoning is fine, but that doing so lightly is arrogant and misguided.

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

#519

Post by drdeca »

_bent wrote: post #515
patmcc wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may both be damaging, but currently we have a lot more porn than censorship, so it looks like it's causing more damage. If we flip to having a lot more censorship we'll feel that damage more clearly. Or we won't, depending how successful the censorship is.

> it looks like it's causing more damage what damage is it causing?

I can say that I think my past use of pornography has harmed me. I haven’t used it in over 2 years, but I still on a daily basis observe the effects it had on me. Others might argue that it is only because of my views that the effects are “harmful”, but I think they are wrong.

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

#520

Post by ramesh31 »

mixologist wrote: post #467

This actually took longer than I thought. It is really weird that for all my adult content I have to go to a dedicated adult store, yet for games I can find them on Steam and gog where kids shop for games. You don’t get porn movies on Netflix or Disney stream. You don’t get adult toys in your local grocery store. Why do we sell porn on Steam? Why haven’t game stores just spin off separate store front for porn content…

>Why haven’t game stores just spin off separate store front for porn content? It is basically free, since they already have the infrasructure.

Because the payment processing is unreliable and prohibitively expensive. For all the whining about "moral pearl clutching", the reality is that adult oriented businesses deal with massively higher rates of fraud and charge-backs. Visa and Mastercard couldn't care less about the ethical issues, it's simply a risk calculation for their business.

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