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Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

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351–360 of 621 posts

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#351
So... Mastercard's statement is very clear:

> Put simply, we allow all lawful purchases on our network.

But their "Rule 5.12.7" is... not so clear:

> A Merchant must not submit to its Acquirer, and a Customer must not submit to the Interchange System, any Transaction that is illegal, or in the sole discretion of the Corporation, may damage the goodwill of the Corporation or reflect negatively on the Marks.

Well, which one is it now? All lawful purchases (pretty clear-cut) or only lawful purchases that will not "reflect negatively" on Mastercard in Mastercard's opinion (vague as hell)?

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#352
This problem is upstream of the credit card companies. How far upstream? Not much. It's their investors. Like Bill Ackman [1] and Blackrock. These companies live in a fantasy world where everything can be "Disney-ized" and made family-friendly. They see how negative press campaigns like Collective Shout can damage a brand's image. And their "solution" is to turn the world into a big Disney theme park where there's no sex, drugs, or rock 'n roll. You may not mind that world, hell, you may even WANT that world, but it's completely impractical and these investors are too stupid to realize that their initial success (pressuring Steam to remove incest-themed games) won't translate into long-term success. (I mean what do you expect, they are MBAs and CFAs. They've been trained to see the world as a series of clinical abstract charts, which is why anyone who can apply a sociological filter to the world runs rings around them.)

[1] - https://archive.ph/zXKuD

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate? If crypto is the only viable option to pay for something, I would agree due to the low amount of people familar in dealing with crypto. If it is an additional option, what part of it is not working?

https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail...

Well that was before Lightning was invented - that elimnates the high fees.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#354

I really hope Steam will start to accept Bitcoin (via Lightning possibly) over this. Due to its decentralization, it is censorship free by default. And if Steam accepts Bitcoin, that would be a massive boost for the liquidity aspect of BTC: You could basically sell your BTC to anyone who wants to make a Steam purchase, making it similarly fungible as Amazon gift vouchers.

Didn't Steam previously accept Bitcoin and then stop as no-one was using that option?

I learned that they did, but this was in 2017 before Lightning was a thing.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#355
post #279
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regarding the rest, the EU is mining competition with the obsession of regulating everything. Like with DMA/DSA that force gatekeepers to open up? SEPA that mandates free immediate bank transfers? Caps on credit/debit card transaction fees? The million infrastructure projects? Ensuring that AI can't be used to make life or death decisions if it's decision making can't be explained (which the AI act boils down to)?…

I stated quite clearly that not every regulation is bad. But it seems that you want to hear that every decision made by the EU is right. I'm sorry, but I'm not a religious person. And I think self-criticism is a great privilege of democratic (not dictatorial) countries, so let's use it. > Ensuring that AI can't be used to make life or death decisions if its decision-making can't be explained (which the AI Act boils d…

> I stated quite clearly that not every regulation is bad. But it seems that you want to hear that every decision made by the EU is right. I'm sorry, but I'm not a religious person. And I think self-criticism is a great privilege of democratic (not dictatorial) countries, so let's use it.

But you still said that you think most of the EU's are bad, so I'm opening the discussion with multiple that I consider to be good.

> Just because you can explain how you arrived at a specific decision does not mean that failure does not exist. Every machine is fallible. Every human is fallible. Moreover, you cannot determine decision-making made by humans. So how can you trust humans? Why should you trust them?

Of course not, but being able to explain the decision, and thus prove that it is wrong, and have humans being able to correct it, is good. It means that stuff like United Healthcare Group using algorithms to decide if care can be paid for, with a terrible failure rate, and employees just shrugging "computer said no" cannot happen in the EU. The fact that this kind of things are considered as "EU is killing AI with too much regulation" is really concerning to me.

> Is killing the car market "forcing the competition"? How?

How is the EU killing the car market, exactly?

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#356
post #103
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mullvad VPN takes cash, you post it to them.

This realistically doesn’t work that well above anything like a micro scale. It’s also a crime to mail cash across many borders, so it only really works domestically.

What about a system of agents who locally take cash then bulk transfer to Steam? Like some kind of middleman: a processor, if you will, of payments.

Cash handling isn't really the problem with this suggestion

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

why cant we? are you self-censoring because there's some policy forbidding us to talk about something clandestine here? i dont have access to the joke, or inside club, or inner sanctum, and maybe theres other people like me that want to know more and if the mystery is self-imposed then i might respectfully push back that we cant talk about it

Looking at their comment history - they're just a garden-variety conspiracy theorist who think Jews control the world.

Some selected comments:

* sarcastic use of "gentiles are evil": https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=43139725

* "dig deeper" with a Jewish-founded company: https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=39043221

* repeated sarcastic reference to "chosen people" : https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=42723812 , https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=43412398

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that Visa and MasterCard are the primary payment options for OnlyFans, makes this story a mess. Some time ago Visa and MasterCard very vocally banned Pornhub (at least) from using their cards, 100% sure this comes from them.

You mean like this? https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/19/onlyfans-to-... Ultimately the ban was undone in exchange for onlyfans limiting the type of content available on the platform. So effectively, payment processors dictate which type of sexual activities, performed by consenting adults, are OK to depict and sell. Why? Why do they have that power?

The government historically uses the the financial industry to police crimes and behavior that it does not want to or that it is not expedient to police directly. Clearly they like the outcomes of the payment networks' rules and enforcement decisions and see no need for things to change.
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