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Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

pcgamer.com

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Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#191

Post by 93po »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #82
p_ing wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First Amendment applies to the _government_, not private entities.

I think the larger point here is that the government is suppressing protected speech by using private sector actors as intermediaries.

if we're going to point to this there are much much more problematic instances of this happening, in particular democratic pressure to platforms like twitter and facebook to suppress certain information as "disinformation" even when it later came out to be true (hunter biden laptop)

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#192

Post by numpad0 »

scotty79 wrote: post #57
mschild wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adoption. You'd have to onboard hundreds/thousands of banks and terminal providers so they accept/give out your card. I excpect the underlying technical stuff isn't that hard compared to getting people and companies to actually use it.

Aren't cards last century technology? I'm paying with my phone anyways. Seller can use phone as well. Why does it need to involve incumbent banks and terminal providers at all? If Valve started something like that the banks would bang on its door relentlessly just to not be left out of the loop. Gaming is the business bigger than movies, music and books combined and Valve is Google of games.

The backend of electronic payment is a huge mess of microservices, and lots of those services has portions of infra shared with Visa/Mastercard. So whichever alternative service you use is likely vulnerable to the same pressure.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#193

Post by Hamuko »

loa_in_ wrote: post #183
Hamuko wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I called MasterCard twice and both times they a) guessed that I was calling about content on Steam without ever mentioning Steam b) said that they only restricted "illegal adult content" and have "standards based on rule of law". Said absolutely nothing about protecting the brand. Also couldn't say if said "standards" were actual laws or MasterCard's own (legal) standards.

Good argument to record any calls with them and submit the recordings to the press

You don't really have to record the phone call. If anyone in the press wants to hear them saying that they don't block legal content, call them and ask about Steam. They have a ready-made PR response that they will read to you.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#194

Post by TimorousBestie »

infecto wrote: post #150

[flagged]

It’s not credible that Collective Shout actually caused some change in policy. They’re being used to deflect blame from Visa/MC, who in any case have done rolling purges of adult content creators’ accounts for decades.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#195

Post by Herz »

ginko wrote: post #159
Herz wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU is already working on an alternative: Wero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment) Honestly, I'm really critical towards EU, but this is one of the few things that EU does well. When the market is stagnating, it's better than nothing to propose an alternative or some kind of benefits in order to change the market a bit. Like the Roaming in EU. Regarding the rest, the EU is mining competition with the obsessio…

I don't even think this is a problem of competition (although more is welcome). This is just Visa+Mastercard abusing their market position and the EU should come down on them like a ton of bricks. Incur heavy fines or break them up if necessary.

I disagree. The need for regulation in this case stems from a lack of competition.

Regulations are empirical decisions, based on a very limited amount of data, whose implications can be endless. Regulations are a shortcut capable of poisoning the market and competition. Just look at what's been done with energy, automobiles, AI, GDPR, etc. Bureaucrats are not gods; they often make mistakes and don't predict the future. Regulations should be the last resort.

Furthermore, we're talking about a US monopoly here. The goal would be to grab a share of the pie through honest competition, not to enstablish golden collars.

Regulation should facilitate competition, not legitimize the status quo.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#196

Post by [deleted] »

tmvphil wrote: post #41
giantg2 wrote: post #27

Lots of outrage at the card companies, but strangely, no outrage at the laws that actually caused this. One is the Australian law to remove that type of content and the other is the US law that says the payment processor can't participate in illegal transactions.

As opposed to a hypothetical scenario where it is legal to participate in illegal transactions?

[deleted]

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#197

Post by ethbr1 »

pwillia7 wrote: post #171
cedws wrote: post #50

I'm glad the Mastercard-Visa duopoly is finally getting some attention, these companies shouldn't be allowed to exercise the financial control they do. Payment infrastructure is not a free market - you can't just choose to pay via some other processor if they turn you down, they ARE the processors. Therefore, they should be under intense scrutiny when they refuse.

Does the government view it as 2 throats to choke and so the risk is 'worth it' or is it just a condition of gilded age II and corp and political greed and corruption? Why did we make all those monopoly laws only to completely forget they exist or why we ever made them?

It's mostly just the way things turned out without government intervention.

American Express' card started in 1958, as a pivot of their then already 100-year-old business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Express#1920s%E2%80%9...

Visa also in 1958 as a Bank of America (and friends) card, which quietly expanded into the mid-60s: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Inc.#History

Mastercard in the mid-60s from banks who BoA wouldn't invite into the Visa clubhouse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastercard#History

And Discover in the mid-80s because Sears was big enough to be its own financial services firm: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discover_Card#History

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#198

Post by zb3 »

wongarsu wrote: post #144
zb3 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both require repealing AML/CFT laws. But maybe that's the way and we should focus on the underlying crime instead..

Bitcoin (and most other crypto) unintentionally strikes an interesting balance here. Through the ability to trace blockchain transactions and impose KYC laws on exchanges you can in principle figure out who most money belongs to. That puts you in a position where if A wants to send B money you can't prevent that, but you can go after either A or B. That gives you freedom of payment, but after the fact you can still g…

Until the bank closes your account because it's deemed "high risk" and they're absolutely allowed to do that without explanations.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#199

Post by amiga386 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #190
amiga386 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve's payment processors told Valve they would withdraw payment processing unless Valve banned specific categories of game from their online store. The payment processors did not cite any law; Valve selling those games was not illegal. Instead they cited Mastercard's rules, which say that they cannot submit transactions that Mastercard believe might damage Mastercard's goodwill or reflect negatively on its brand. T…

> Valve's payment processors told Valve they would withdraw payment processing unless Valve banned specific categories of game from their online store Do we have a statement from Valve saying as much?

Click on the article link at the top of this page and find out. Let me quote the article for you:

> In a statement provided to PC Gamer, Valve said that it had tried to work things out with Mastercard directly prior to removing the games, and suggested that Mastercard did have at least an indirect influence on the outcome.

> "Mastercard did not communicate with Valve directly, despite our request to do so," a Valve representative said. "Mastercard communicated with payment processors and their acquiring banks. Payment processors communicated this with Valve, and we replied by outlining Steam’s policy since 2018 of attempting to distribute games that are legal for distribution.

> "Payment processors rejected this, and specifically cited Mastercard’s Rule 5.12.7 and risk to the Mastercard brand."

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