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Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

kotaku.com

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Re: Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

#61

Post by advisedwang »

grishka wrote: post #50
Aspos wrote: post #25

There should be a national payment processing operator as an alternative to VISA/MC. Just like they do it in many other countries.

We have one in Russia, called Mir (world/peace, somewhat ironically). While, yes, there was literally zero downtime on card payments when Visa and MC left the country, they are still irreplaceable for international payments. As a result, everyone who needs to make them or travels a lot has a foreign bank account now, with, you guessed it, a Visa or MC card. Edit: forgot to say, Mir cards used to work in a few other c…

I mean, that sounds like the best of both worlds

Re: Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

#62

Post by mrsilencedogood »

codedokode wrote: post #39

Why payment processors do it? Why people in America do not want to earn more money from commissions? Strong church lobby? Legal risks? I think its mostly religious groups who who are against adult content and sex, or there are other groups? Also this is why we should work to increase circulation of cryptocurrency. No stupid religious restrictions and stupid political sanctions. Also why PornHub and OnlyFans are immun…

For specifically sexually explicit stuff, it's because chargebacks are __significantly__ higher for these types of purchases. High enough that it messes with the credit and counterparty risk modeling that processors use. You can use your imagination to come up with many reasons these result in more chargebacks than normal purchases.

Theoretically, they could just split out "explicit" vs "normal" risk categories, but there's two top problems there: 1) it's just fundamentally a smaller-yet-way-more-annoying category than the rest of their payments, and 2) tons of your partners (banks etc etc) have blanket-banned for all of the above reasons.

So... here we are.

Re: Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

#63

Post by jerf »

chimeracoder wrote: post #48
jerf wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

October 2021, Mastercard unilaterally imposes additional constraints on adult sites: https://www.commercegate.com/mastercard-issued-an-updated-se... August 2021: OnlyFans CEO Blames Porn Ban on 'Unfair Actions' of Banks, Media: https://www.pcmag.com/news/onlyfans-ceo-blames-porn-ban-on-u... April 2024: Japanese Adult content platform DLsite disables Visa/Mastercard payment after attempt to outsmart credit card compan…

> It's not a sudden new thing. The financial theory seems to explain all the facts. Literally all three of the examples you list were the direct result of lobbying from groups like Exodus Cry and Morality in Media. These campaigns had been in the works for years, and were well-known to people in the industry, who had been sounding the alarm for years . It's maddening that people not only refuse to listen before the a…

OK, I've checked that claim more carefully and confirmed it to my satisfaction. Comments retracted. Left my links up in the GP comment for context for yours.

Re: Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

#64

Post by codedokode »

advisedwang wrote: post #55
codedokode wrote: post #39

Why payment processors do it? Why people in America do not want to earn more money from commissions? Strong church lobby? Legal risks? I think its mostly religious groups who who are against adult content and sex, or there are other groups? Also this is why we should work to increase circulation of cryptocurrency. No stupid religious restrictions and stupid political sanctions. Also why PornHub and OnlyFans are immun…

The payment processors say the reason is high fraud and charge-back rates in those industries that make it unprofitable to service. I don't know if this is true or an excuse. Either way, its an excellent reason why this critical infrastructure shouldn't be under corporate control.

Well that is fair point, but cannot they just increase the commission to cover them? Also I think it is weird that when someone steals a bank card, they use it to buy adult games instead of buying an iPhone or MacBook and shipping it to the third world country.

Re: Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

#66

Post by [deleted] »

codedokode wrote: post #39

Why payment processors do it? Why people in America do not want to earn more money from commissions? Strong church lobby? Legal risks? I think its mostly religious groups who who are against adult content and sex, or there are other groups? Also this is why we should work to increase circulation of cryptocurrency. No stupid religious restrictions and stupid political sanctions. Also why PornHub and OnlyFans are immun…

[deleted]

Re: Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

#67

Post by KennyBlanken »

presbyterian wrote: post #8
schnebbau wrote: post #3

So who is pressuring the processors?

Conservative religious groups

Yup. I forget the exact name of the campaign - it was something like "twelve pillars" - but decades ago the religious right realized that they were losing everything in court and their candidates were wildly unpopular in elections. So they shifted to just infiltrating banking and forcing their moral superiority complex on everyone else that way.

That's why porn stars can't have checking accounts (and then become targets of property theft and violent crime - because the criminals know they are unbankable, so they have piles of cash around.)

Fun fact: the most "Christian" religious states have the highest rates of teen pregnancy, rape, divorce, murder, property crime, etc. Plus christian religious leaders seem to be attracted to child sexual abuse like Elmo is to piles of cocaine.

I feel like maybe one should focus on cleaning up one's own moral house and lead by example before screeching to everyone else that they're going to hell for jerking off to a picture of a naked man or woman on the interwebs.

Re: Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

#69

Post by chimeracoder »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #42
voxic11 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But who is pressuring the banks? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point

Banks frequently refuse to do business with, or heavily restrict, businesses that they deem risky from a financial perspective. Adult content, pharmaceuticals and travel are all industries that experience significantly higher occurrence of fraud and chargebacks than others. For example, your spouse sees a weird item on your credit card for a porn site. "Wasn't me! Must be stolen I'll report it." Sometimes it's the ot…

> Adult content, pharmaceuticals and travel are all industries that experience significantly higher occurrence of fraud and chargebacks than others. For example, your spouse sees a weird item on your credit card for a porn site. "Wasn't me! Must be stolen I'll report it." Sometimes it's the other direction.

No, it has nothing to do with chargebacks. It's not even presented that way in their policies when they ban it. They consider it a "brand risk", which is completely different.

Re: Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

#70

Post by mrsilencedogood »

paxys wrote: post #56
mountainriver wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve heard this is apparently less about morality and more about payments getting contested by men getting caught by their spouses

That's not the reason. Cost of chargebacks falls entirely on the merchant. Visa/MC have no reason to care.

What happens if the merchant folds or disappears? Stripe (or Visa or whoever) then are the bagholder. And if someone has a ton of chargebacks, it's not uncommon they're then difficult to collect from.
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