Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 953 posts

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

#301

Post by o11c »

SXX wrote: post #271
o11c wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they actually banning "everything" though? From what I can see, that's entirely clickbait fraud.

The group behind this censorship attack is not just against porn games. It's also attacked games like Detroit: Become Human. So they want to censor far more than just porn.

I didn't mention "porn", and there's a reason I included domestic violence simulations in list of specific things they're targeting; when phrased like that it sounds like a reasonable category to ban. I haven't played that specific game but it certainly sounds close enough that it could be caught even if not intended (and maybe it is intended - even if I trust what people say on the internet and the game is well-meaning, that doesn't mean it is actually healthy or sane).

If it really is an example of a rare false positive, a manual fix for that one specific game is a reasonable thing to seek, without giving the pedos their heyday like most of the comments here suggest.

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

#302

Post by JumpCrisscross »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #275
evilduck wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Empirically prove it.

Making sure I get this straight. You're saying that if you shared that believe, you would go out in search of evidence to prove it? I hate to break the news, but if we read the literature published by members of Collective Shout, they have in fact done this. The evidence they have supports their claims. Let's be clear, the evidence they have is independent of the veracity of the claims, but they have done with you su…

> if we read the literature published by members of Collective Shout, they have in fact done this

Granted, I've skimmed, but I'm genuinely not seeing it [1].

The closest is this study [2], which counted how many times thirty-eight women "who self-identified as having experienced unwanted or non-consensual sexual experiences in relationships" and were "recruited via social media," when "given the opportunity to reflect on their experiences of [intimate partner sexual violence], with prompting to speculate about their partner’s motivations or any underlying causes for the violence" mentioned pornography. That's...that's not a study.

[1] https://www.collectiveshout.org/research

[2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10778012209713...

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

#303

Post by pyuser583 »

RankingMember wrote: post #115
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.

The Puritanical origins of the US reverberate to this day. While coming for "freedom of religion" sounds like a noble origin story, the context was that they wanted the freedom to practice a much stricter, restrictive form of religion than that allowed by the Church of England.

No this isn't just American. Most of the world is very anti-porn. The BRICS countries mostly outlaw porn. Even Nordic countries, which are very socially liberal, discourage it (at least production).

There's a tendency for social liberals to see their view as the only legitimate one. Sometimes they are right. But this is an area where there is lots of international push back from undeveloped, developing, and even many developed socially liberal countries.

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

#304

Post by johnnyanmac »

o11c wrote: post #188
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.

There's a lot of dishonesty relating to this. This really isn't about Puritanism, unless you're redefining Puritanism to mean having any morality at all. Do you really want to compel selling access to pedo games? Do you really want to compel selling access to rape games? Do you really want to compel selling access to incest games? Do you really want to compel selling access to domestic violence games? [this is the on…

>Do you really want to compel selling access to pedo games?

Games that are pedophilia is very different form games that appeal to potential pedophiles. The first one is not only not allowed on Steam but outright illegal overall. Steam doesn't even want you using adult models in their games for this very reason; they don't want to need to verify ages.

For the latter: I guess so? It's really hard to determine what triggers someone to commit crime. I don't think any but the most blatant cases are as simple as "play video game with teenagers in it -> I want to have sex with a real teenager". This is why it's better to focus on who's victmized instead of who may or may not be influenced.

>Do you really want to compel selling access to rape games?

there are 1000 games released on steam every month. A game's existence isn't a compelling factor to buy it.

With that in mind for all subsequent answers: yes, I dont mind games with rape being sold. I will not buy it, but if they find a market: so be it.

>Do you really want to compel selling access to incest games?

Sure. Maybe this is a hot take, but I never had a stronger attraction to my mom because I watched porn of someone else banging their "stepmother". I'm into it because it's other people doing forbidden acts (or toeing the line with the "step" aspects), not because I'm interested in doing the forbidden act myself. This goes all the way back to Romeo and Juliet; people are engaged by romance fighting against societal norms.

>Do you really want to compel selling access to domestic violence games?

GTA has been a thing for some 30 years now. I think this boat has set sail. But yes.

>keep in mind that most tag systems are pretty bad at negative filtering, either due to platform limitations or due to not being used in practice

okay. So how about we fix that instead of just banning content we don't like. Steam is already too strong for my liking, but they very much can enforce a system where an account is suspended for too many clearly bad tags.

>keep in mind that free games are immune to payment processor decisions

Itch has a donation system on all game pages. So that's not quite the case here. Also, pressurign payment processors will endanger the entire store, even if every NSFW game is free.

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

#305

Post by SilverElfin »

Regulate Visa and MasterCard and the rest. As utility services, they should not have the ability to ban or deny service to any payment that is not clearly illegal. Or we should create a public alternative with private transactions.

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

#306

Post by johnnyanmac »

atmavatar wrote: post #300
qball wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Payment processors have done it to guns just as much as they've done it to porn, both under the Obama administration.

Because one of the goals of project 2025 is to make porn illegal. Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predat…

So they want to not have women abort children, but also not have them aware of how their bodies and sex works. Surely not a formula for a dysfunctional future generation.

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

#307

Post by ndriscoll »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #245
bko wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you have to be Puritanical or particularly religious to realize that some content is generally not good for people. I've seen this destroy lives, drive addiction and lead to other forms of destructive behavior. Religion and taboo often exist for a reason, because endless self gratification does not lead to flourishing. You don't have to agree that it should be banned, but you can at least concede it's n…

I'll take the hard stance on this. I don't see how Sex is anymore harmful, addicting, or dangerous as any other number of socialties. Including Alcohol, fast food, gambling, and simply getting to into any given hobby (be it video games or playing guitar). A habit I've noticed is that a person vulnerable to being addicted to X is more prone to fall back on Y, Z, etc. even when X is fixed. So I only see "this hurts cer…

Alcohol and gambling are commonly restricted if not outright banned in various localities though, and most people would consider those and fast food to be harmful. So you seem to be agreeing with GP that while you may not think it should be banned, you find it comparable to things that are widely recognized as "generally not good for people".

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

#308

Post by some_random »

wredcoll wrote: post #265
some_random wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am absolutely against the concept of "freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences" in the same way I am against Soviet "freedom of speech but not freedom after speech".

That makes no sense. Frequently the "consequences" of speech is other speech. Are you going to try to argue that the original speech should be privileged over the response?

I do not give a shit about people responding to speech with speech. I am arguing that responding to speech by using your authority over the speaker to hurt them, or by lobbying an authority to do so is something different than speech. Did you see the context for this thread? This is the rhetorical question I responded to: "Do we have a right to object to speech that promotes and normalizes violence against us?". I hold that they absolutely do have a right to object to such speech, any speech in fact, but "objecting" is not the same as lobbying Visa/Mastercard to ban speech they believe "promotes and normalizes violence against us".

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

#309

Post by true_religion »

Although it's been tried before, we should all follow this bill, the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act which will criminalize lewd sexual material.

In the current atmosphere, it might just pass.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/167...

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

#310

Post by decimalenough »

gspencley wrote: post #266
azalemeth wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm amazed that producing porn in Iceland can lead to gaol. Can you expand upon that further?

It's in Article 210 of the Icelandic penal code and, from what I gather, this follows a pattern typically referred to as "The Nordic Model" where it is not illegal to consume pornography, but it is illegal to produce and/or distribute it. Here is an article from the Reykjavik Grapevine that deep dives on it better than I could: https://grapevine.is/mag/2021/05/07/ask-an-expert-why-is-por... And for a broader overview…

The "Swedish Model" is about prostitution, specifically making it legal to sell sex but not to buy it.

There are ongoing debates about how this applies to Onlyfans etc, with one faction claiming all sex work is abuse even if you're doing it solo in the privacy of your own home, so payments to Onlyfans should be banned.

Post reply on HN