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

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

#361

Post by fc417fc802 »

gspencley wrote: post #207
RankingMember wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not so sure you can point the finger at the USA for this. I ran an online porn website for almost 20 years. For 15 years it was my primary source of income. I'm in Canada which, compared to the USA is extremely progressive. In 2022, after a decade of doing business with a certain bank as this business, never having hidden anything about what we did, my wife and I received an urgent, signature required, overnighte…

I'd suggest that foreign investors dictating domestic policy is a huge problem. For a core institution like banking there ought to be a law forbidding them from discriminating against otherwise legal activities except in the case that a different law permits or requires them to do so. That would also absolve them of any PR concerns because "everyone has to; legally speaking we don't have any choice".

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

#362

Post by pnw »

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.

The Collective Shout group pushing for the censorship is Australian, not American.

Most people are unaware of Australia's long history of censorship which continues to this day.

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

#363

Post by throw50928 »

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.

IMO, in addition to, the shaky belief that rape games promote rape in real life to the audience, etc., maybe there is the belief attacking the creators like, "there is a person/group of people we know profit off the fictional depictions of rape/see concept of rape itself as good for cash flow. Because these people went through all the trouble and effort creating, publishing this work focused on rape in gratuitous detail - so its significantly more likely they hold beliefs outside the safe norms society upholds, than someone whose only conception of rape is 'its horrible' and doesn't need to think about implementation, writing graphic scenes, going out of their way to create and market 'a rape simulator', and so on. As punishment for perception of being immoral people their income source needs to be shut down."

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

#364

Post by codedokode »

How do porn sites accept money then? Steam should just make a separate company for adult games and use the same payment methods as porn sites.

Also this reminds me of Apple that for example demanded Telegram to block adult channels (including non-porn channels where authors blog about their sex life) from AppStore's Telegram version.

Also if cryptocurrency were more popular and widespread, then banks would have less leverage to do this.

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

#365

Post by Cthulhu_ »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #296
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…

> you can at least concede it's not entirely arbitrary content like say a sitcom I'd actually hypothesise that if you locked three sets of teenage boys in rooms, one with only porn games, one with only social media and one with only sitcoms, that the first group would likely emerge the healthiest of the three. I'm basing this on my bias towards activity and that nobody seems to have bothered with actually doing resea…

What do you consider "healhty", though? It's a very broad term that doesn't actually mean much on its own.

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

#366

Post by fc417fc802 »

anonym29 wrote: post #354
pyuser583 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Several of the BRICS (& other "global south" / non-neoliberal / non-western) countries also imprison journalists and nonviolent political opposition groups, and some even have the death penalty for minor cannabis possession. "Everyone else does things this way" isn't a legitimate justification.

A justification of what, though? It isn't a cohesive argument on it's own but it is important perspective. If a significant fraction of societies have arrived at policies that contradict your worldview I think that ought to give you pause. (Note that I say that as someone who holds far more extreme views about legal freedom of expression than the vast majority of people out there.)

That's getting somewhat off topic though. In the context of this thread it's merely the observation that attributing this to "puritans" or "christianity" or "US history" is rather misguided. The US and western Europe are very much the outliers here.

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

#367

Post by gxt »

nosignono wrote: post #205

This is absolutely a wedge to censor LGBTQ+ content. If you can separately argue that adult content should be blocked and LGBTQ+ themes are for adults, then you can block queer content online en masse. Visa and Mastercard have too much power, and are too willing to capitulate.

[flagged]

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

#368

Post by derefr »

gspencley wrote: post #207
RankingMember wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not so sure you can point the finger at the USA for this. I ran an online porn website for almost 20 years. For 15 years it was my primary source of income. I'm in Canada which, compared to the USA is extremely progressive. In 2022, after a decade of doing business with a certain bank as this business, never having hidden anything about what we did, my wife and I received an urgent, signature required, overnighte…

> we fell outside of their "risk appetite."

If you take that statement at face value (not sure if you should), it's fascinating to think that your business was able to operate for two decades with what I assume are the standard problems people in the porn industry face (e.g. chargebacks from customers unwilling to admit they subscribed in their SO's presence and so pretending it was a scam, etc.)

And yet seemingly none of the bank's risk heuristics based on actual transaction profiling ever went off.

Wouldn't that mean that, in practice, being in the porn industry isn't as high-risk as banks / payment processors think it is?

And would this not then suggest a gap in the market, for an (ideally vertically-integrated) bank + payment processor + card issuer + KYC provider, who is willing to

1. evaluate risk on a customer-by-customer basis (through e.g. continuous dynamic network analysis of transaction flow, with txs annotated with their KYC info) rather than by actuarial categorization; and

2. avoid seeking any investment (at any remove) by parties who would insist they avoid these types of customers?

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

#369

Post by reaperducer »

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.

The Puritanical origins of the US

Like slavery, smallpox, and tipping, Puritanism was Europe's gift to the new world.

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

#370

Post by anonym29 »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #366
anonym29 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several of the BRICS (& other "global south" / non-neoliberal / non-western) countries also imprison journalists and nonviolent political opposition groups, and some even have the death penalty for minor cannabis possession. "Everyone else does things this way" isn't a legitimate justification.

A justification of what, though? It isn't a cohesive argument on it's own but it is important perspective. If a significant fraction of societies have arrived at policies that contradict your worldview I think that ought to give you pause. (Note that I say that as someone who holds far more extreme views about legal freedom of expression than the vast majority of people out there.) That's getting somewhat off topic t…

Are you defending the morality of authoritarian states imprisoning journalists and nonviolent political opposition groups?

It's one thing to recognize that it happens, another to recognize the practice as legitimate, virtuous, or even desirable.

To be clear, I'm not accusing you of promoting these practices, just asking you to clarify your position.

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