551–560 of 621 posts
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what far left are you talking about exactly?
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Far left is critiquing those who don't virtue signal enough. That isn't censorship at all.
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You should bark at Steam if you want more curation. What people are pissed at is a card payment network abused for moral regulation.
I don’t mean that I agree with the concept of corporate power abuse or the hypothesized source of the pressure. But I’m not spending one second of my life protecting this kind of content, and the fact that it’s being euphemistically called “Adult Content”, a very approximate description, shows that the source of the current outcry _knows_ it’s very bad looks to be defending any of the games that have been confirmed b…
I'm trying to find a good analogy. Perhaps if someone in your town built a giant meat grinder in their backyard, and as a test run they requested the vilest and most heinous criminals to be sent to them, you'd still see a private entity getting to grind the people they want as a serious issue.
Not wanting to spend a second on that issue, just because of who got sent there, would be quite a position.
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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.
I don't have insider information about how often Steam gets hit with fraud alleged chargebacks, but I can't imagine it's a significant percentage.
> Don’t get me wrong: it’s progress. But it’s far from a panacea.
Progress in this day and age is great. Progress right now is at least 2 orders of magnitude better than patiently waiting for a panacea.
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…
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Even these are not far left, they're just basic liberal left. Which groups or media that are commonly labeled 'far left' that are calling for nationalizing all land. Or eliminating all inheritances. Or nationalizing all communications and transportation industries. Or nationalizing the Federal Reserve (that one's really gone horseshoe theory, and is a republican plan now). The only thing 'far left' people want to nat…
The meaning of words can change over time and across space. The meaning of left and right in US politics encompasses more topics than the matter of who may legally own things. Pretending that those referred to as left and right are all the same because the only true scottsman is Karl Marx is silly.
I was just pointing out that even these are not actual socialists, they're Democratic Socialists of the stripe you find in the mainstream in a lot of staunchly capitalist European nations. There are definitely zero literal far-left politicians, objectively speaking.
Socialist/social democrat are two related but distinct concepts are confusing for those not versed in political science, but their definitions have certainly not changed: democratic socialists for example don't advocate for communal ownership or central planning. The actual policies put forward by DSA candidates in the US, viewed through a political science analysis, are vanilla liberal. The only thing making them 'far left' is that actual far right monied interests have systematically dragged the Overton Window into a place where "public figure performing the Nazi salute on the capitol steps" is "controversial, in some circles" rather than "immediately career-ending."
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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…
Hard disagree on every point. Just because implementations aren't always perfect does not mean you should not have public services. I know a librarian who spends an inordinate amount of time helping the elderly and tech illiterate members of the public with creating emails, because they're necessary. However, you can't create emails anywhere without a phone number these days - a post office option would fix that. Ema…
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There's a bill for almost exactly that currently pending in committee: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/401 If you like the idea, read the text on there and call your senators to support it.
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…
> (c) Civil penalty.—Any payment card network that violates subsection (b) shall be assessed a civil penalty by the Comptroller of the Currency of not more than 10 percent of the value of the services or products described in that subsection, not to exceed $10,000 per violation.
I see 2 problems as it is currently written: (1) The penalty's too low, & (2) restricting dispense of the law to only the Comptroller renders it ineffective.
(1) is easily solvable with regards to editing the text alone: raise the limit to 50% & $100k respectively.
(2) is also solvable, by striking out "by the Comptroller of the Currency", or adding in ", or by a federal court, whichever penalty is higher, " at the end of that part.
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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. Why not? Lots of people, especially in lower income brackets, don't have ANY credit cards at all. I know many. They buy groceries and gas with cash and pay their utilities by ACH or mailing a check. Everything else they need, they buy locally. What you mean to say is that it's _inconvenient_ for you personally to boycott Visa/Mastercard. Which may be true e…
The US has some clear laws against government controlling speech and, in the abstract, that makes it pretty much impossible to censor games. Various factions - exactly who it is difficult to pin down - have been working hard to set up a system where they can shut things down without ever explicitly instructing anyone to do anything. This appears to be the system engaging by accident because some crazy from Australia…
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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.
You’re shifting from a First Amendment claim to a broader “potential for abuse” argument. That’s fine, but let’s be precise. 1. Government pressure only triggers a First Amendment issue when it’s actual, not hypothetical. Courts require clear state action or coercion. 2. Mastercard acting on its own isn’t censorship in the legal sense, it’s a private company making content-moderation decisions. You may not like that…