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Tossing around "free speech" in this case is kinda silly. The first amendment only applies to the government, not some company.
So I do actually believe Mastercard when they say this, but holding them accountable anyway is probably for the best. They're likely the single group with the most influence over the regulators.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tossing around "free speech" in this case is kinda silly. The first amendment only applies to the government, not some company.
Incorrect, it applies to companies too as companies are citizens according to citizens united ruling over a decade ago.
This doesn't even make sense. If a corporation is a person, then 1A Freedom of Speech means that the government cannot restrict the corporations political speech.
The corporation is absolutely allowed to restrict their users free speech, including political speech, because A) the bill of rights only binds the government, not corporations and B) it would actually be against free speech to compell a private corporation to engage in speech it does not agree with.
Should you be forced to post political or sexual content that you disagree with on your accounts or on a wall at your house? Of course not. Similarly, if you start a business, you cannot be forced to post political or sexual content you disagree with. Your freedom of speech as a business is what matters here.
The idea that we have "speech anarchy" where all people can say anything they want and punish anyone who doesn't reproduce their speech is insanity.
If only we had some kind of decentralized internet money system.
"Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down, but Valve says payment processors 'specifically cited' a Mastercard rule about damaging the brand"
(For the people who don't click the link to read the article.)
Could also hit the iOS-Android bird with the same stone!
Mastercard don't care you want porn, or games, or whatever. Neither does VISA. They like money. They want money and want people to move their money so they can siphon off some of it for their own pockets. Almost nobody is going to avoid using a bank because their card provider let some other people buy rude games on steam.
The payment processors don't care. They want you to send money through them so they can take their cut.
Steam doesn't care. The people making the games don't care. They all just want to sell stuff.
The only thing that impacts this really is chargebacks, which iiuc are much more common with adult stuff.
But payment processors can't guarantee what mastercard or visa will do, and players like steam (and they're huge, this is not about tiny store issues) can't guarantee what payment processors will do and given the potential downside - blocking all sales - people need to be careful.
While I can see how these situations come up, it's also absolutely insane as an end result because I just want to give *my money* to someone else. I've ended up using crypto before for buying things, not for ideological reasons, but purely because I could buy them and then give them to someone else for the "flagged as risky" goods/services because I couldn't pay for things using my money and my card.