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

Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

pcgamer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

541–550 of 621 posts

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#541

Post by immibis »

p_ing wrote: post #58
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.

There's no meaningful attention, here. Until it is on the US Gov't radar, this 'attention' is just a collection of upset redditors furiously posting forum messages which will fissile out in a few months, at most. Besides, it's not like you can boycott Mastercard or VISA.

> Besides, it's not like you can boycott Mastercard or VISA.

Every single time I have the option to buy an event ticket by SEPA transfer or credit card, which is actually very often, I choose SEPA transfer.

One time I even used Bitcoin.

It does seem to be mostly event tickets that have this option, for some reason. And I'm not talking about the TicketMaster monopoly, either.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#542

Post by stinkbeetle »

tzs wrote: post #527
efitz wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What kinds of things?

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#543

Post by giantg2 »

Maken wrote: post #536
giantg2 wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So what? Steam simply didn't want to start a fight with its payment providers over some niche content. The problem is that this incident has proven it's possible to ban whatever content you want, globally, by pressuring middle management in Mastercard and Visa.

"Steam simply didn't want to start a fight with its payment providers over some niche content."

Or the content was never supported by Steam, per their policy. You can check Wayback machine for support for my position. Dod you have any evidence of Steam's motive otherwise?

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#544

Post by Maken »

giantg2 wrote: post #543
Maken wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? Steam simply didn't want to start a fight with its payment providers over some niche content. The problem is that this incident has proven it's possible to ban whatever content you want, globally, by pressuring middle management in Mastercard and Visa.

"Steam simply didn't want to start a fight with its payment providers over some niche content." Or the content was never supported by Steam, per their policy. You can check Wayback machine for support for my position. Dod you have any evidence of Steam's motive otherwise?

I don't think inferring causality here is far fetched. They were fine with the content before. And we know it because said content was banned in some countries (including Australia) to comply with local regulations, so they clearly knew what the games were about.

Given that fact we have two options: either they decided to change their approach to content moderation and remove games that previously passed all their checks, with these games being coincidentally the same that were requested by Mastercard; or they decided to remove every game requested by Mastercard regardless of Steam's own policies.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#545

Post by efitz »

btown wrote: post #489
weberer wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relevant part is section 5b. >(b) Prohibition.—No payment card network, including a subsidiary of a payment card network, may, directly or through any agent, processor, or licensed member of the network, by contract, requirement, condition, penalty, or otherwise, prohibit or inhibit the ability of any person who is in compliance with the law, including section 8 of this Act, to obtain access to services or produc…

Then the goalposts shift to: “This isn’t for reputational risk, it’s because we consider fraud more likely for this type of industry, and we are within our rights to take a proactive approach to fraud.” And there is no requirement that they disclose the reasons for that decision. Don’t get me wrong: it’s progress. But it’s far from a panacea.

For fraud related risk they should still be considered a common carriers but may adjust rates for certain types of transactions or businesses, if, in good faith and backed by empirical data, they can demonstrate the monetary risk to the card processor, and that the increased transaction costs are aligned with the level of risk and are not punitive or discriminatory.

The key point here is ”good faith”.

I don’t want to disadvantage their business or make them absorb fraud costs, but I want all excuses off the table.

OTOH Visa and MasterCard testified in front of Congress a couple of months ago that they have >50% profit margins which indicates to me that there is a regulatory failure in antitrust here.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#546

Post by yupyupyups »

khalic wrote: post #430
0983736882 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole debacle is making a lot of people show their true colors. Grim.

I think some are really afraid of the fabled slippery slope, but yeah, the gaming world is home to a very dubious bread of pro CP, sex obsessed (as in “every media I consume must make me horny”) and misogynistic punks. Edit: not making any claims regarding the size of that population, most gamers are just regular people enjoying some escape, like me

To prove your point:

https://www.collectiveshout.org/gamers-threats-and-abuse

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#547

Post by rcxdude »

alexvitkov wrote: post #127
krainboltgreene wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but also the crypto option has been tried and absolutely doesn’t work.

It really hasn't. Everything has been tried with crypto, except actually buying things with it.

It was tried, way back when it started, and it didn't work very well. Maybe a modern blockchain can work better, but the transaction volumes of credit cards are orders of magnitudes above the busiest blockchain today.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#548

Post by seangrogg »

charlieyu1 wrote: post #465
efitz wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I won't trust the Congress. Far left and far right are both pushing for more censorship

Center shit, not censorship.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#549

Post by seangrogg »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #483
pembrook wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

You assume people are buying something because "both sides" are doing it. But what about those who aren't ideologically aligned with either end and instead exist in the space between?

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#550

Post by khalic »

yupyupyups wrote: post #546
khalic wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think some are really afraid of the fabled slippery slope, but yeah, the gaming world is home to a very dubious bread of pro CP, sex obsessed (as in “every media I consume must make me horny”) and misogynistic punks. Edit: not making any claims regarding the size of that population, most gamers are just regular people enjoying some escape, like me

To prove your point: https://www.collectiveshout.org/gamers-threats-and-abuse

Oh I am not clicking on their website, they are a known anti lgbt group that claim to be associated with this very issue.
Post reply on HN