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Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

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Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#521

Post by khalic »

charlieyu1 wrote: post #469
khalic wrote: post #130

Before getting all worked up, I would advise people to look at what games exactly were banned, and see if it’s a case of power abuse or simply a case of “we can all agree that rape and incest games are disgusting and have no place in an entertainment web site visited by kids”.

We should ban GTA for promoting all sorts of crime including murder and have no place in an entertainment web site visited by kids.

Your point being? We can’t treat different content differently? Do you not agree this is insane content?

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#522

Post by IcyWindows »

tr_user wrote: post #398
guywithahat wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot think of anything worse than an official post office email I have to maintain. Do you not remember how many government sites would simply shut down after business hours because they couldn't figure out how to do on-call? Have you ever used US-treasury direct? This site would be slow, the code base would be unmaintained, it'd get enormous amounts of spam you have to sort through to get some important tax docu…

None of what you say is inherent in a public service. The DMV often gets singled out as an inefficient system that is emblematic of the failure of public option, but I assure you as someone who's had to deal with a privatized version, you're not getting better service and in fact the fees are much more expensive without recourse or oversight. The answer to a bad system is a good system. Adding a middleman who is only…

Washington state has privatized much of the DMV, and it's much better then what I've experienced in other states.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#523

Post by Kinrany »

infecto wrote: post #179
Kinrany wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument from free speech is that government should not be allowed to censor, regardless of the mechanism. Payment processors currently offer that mechanism.

If the government were coercing Mastercard into censorship, that would be a free speech issue. But absent state pressure, a private company choosing not to do business with certain content isn’t censorship in the constitutional sense. That’s just market behavior. If you want to challenge the influence of financial infrastructure on speech, that’s a separate (and valid) policy debate but it’s not a First Amendment vio…

It's a free speech issue if the government _can_ pressure Mastercard and, separately, Mastercard _can_ act as a censor. That government isn't using this ability in this particular instance is no more of a consolation than if there was a law that permitted censorship but was not used for that or enforced in practice.

Severing either of these two links would be enough though.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#524

Post by giantg2 »

raincole wrote: post #76
giantg2 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they start their own payment processing company, they will then be subject to the same laws and regulations and the existing processing companies. Who manages the money doesn't matter. Even if you use Crypto, Steam would still remove the games due to the Australian law.

Steam didn't remove the games due to Australian law lol. Where did you get this idea? Steam games' availability is per-country. They could've removed games for Australian users only. NSFW games are not shown to Chinese and German players on Steam since forever.

"lol"

This whole thing came about because of the Australian campaign to remove rape games consistent with law. Payment processors could be found liable for processing payments related to illegal activities. Steam anad the payment processors could have made it region specific, but didn't, probably for PR reasons.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_video_games_i...

Also, Steam Direct didn't update their policy on game content from what I see. Doesn't look like Steam fought back. Seems as though Steam has never supported games with rape, incest, child exploitation, etc.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#525

Post by giantg2 »

IanCal wrote: post #412
giantg2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with charge backs and everything to do with the Australian and US laws.

What laws are stopping Mastercard taking money for adult games but not onlyfans or pornhub?

It's not for adult games, but for sexually violent games in Australia. Also, Pornhub already appeased the payment processors when they purged a bunch of content.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_video_games_i...

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#526

Post by giantg2 »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #75
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.

Why would there be outrage at laws when the article we're talking about specifically says this isn't about any laws but instead about a Mastercard rule about damaging their brand?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_video_games_i...

Also, Steam Direct didn't update their policy on game content from what I see. Doesn't looked like Steam fought back. Seems as though Steam has never supported games with rape, incest, child exploitation, etc.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#527

Post by tzs »

efitz wrote: post #371
rob74 wrote: post #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, whic…

We need Congress to make a law here in the US that businesses involved in facilitating financial transactions in the United States are considered “common carriers” and must not discriminate against, cancel or disadvantage any customer or legal transaction, without a court order. We can write language to allow booting people for fraud, hacking, etc if “legal” + “court order” are insufficient.

Careful. That could backfire.

Right now there are things that a significant majority think are terrible and shouldn't exist but aren't a high enough priority to actually make illegal because they are small because most mainstream service providers don't want to serve them.

Take that away an those things might grow enough that they do become a priority for legally banning.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#528

Post by giantg2 »

v5v3 wrote: post #101
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.

But it wasn't illegal to put up a NSFW game if sold to a adult. Were Steam selling it to kids?

It is if it includes things like rape, which supposedly was what was removed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_video_games_i...

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#529

Post by altairprime »

shagie wrote: post #514
altairprime wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mastercard can deny all transactions from Australia-billed cards to one merchant if they wish to. They are absolutely wired up for “Area of Use” internally and have this data available to their transaction approval processes. That they chose not to use it, instead pressuring merchants to remove content disliked by an Australian puritanical fringe group, is the corporate laziness I describe. Why respond with their own…

Mastercard does not have that information. Mastercard doesn't do the billing. The bank does the billing. Mastercard does not know the location where a given card holder is (or for that matter, any demographic information about the card holder). They know where the merchant is, but that's less useful for digital goods.

Per section 7 here — https://www.mastercard.us/content/dam/public/mastercardcom/n... — MasterCard could simply remove Australia from Itch’s Area of Use, at which point they would not be permitted to accepted MasterCard from Australian customers, which the merchant could trivially enforce by country filter on the billing address.

I suspect we’re going to find out that Stripe is unwilling to risk losing Mastercard in Australia and also unwilling to implement passthrough AoU restrictions to their sublicensees, and Mastercard isn’t willing to act against any single customer of Stripe or else they don’t profit from the “not our problem” discount rate they issue Stripe to make it their problem.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#530

Post by giantg2 »

Maken wrote: post #315
ohdeargodno wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it hasn't been the case. The group in question, Collective Shout, has been pressuring Mastercard. Not Mastercard Australia, not Steam Australia: it's a concerted action to take down things they don't want. It's not a one time thing either: sex workers have been under attack by similar extremist catholic bigots. Furries, porn, anything they see as deviant is being attacked. And MC/Visa are happy to help. Do I mind…

This so much. The problem here is not the content that was blocked, it's the completely unaccountable process that was used to block content worldwide bypassing any legal protection.

Steam Direct didn't update their policy on game content from what I see. Doesn't looked like Steam fought back. Seems as though Steam has never supported games with rape, incest, child exploitation, etc.
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