Live data from Hacker News

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

wired.com

601–610 of 953 posts

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

#601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your propositions are contradictory. If "society" decides to harm itself, and I'm part of it, I'll have to suffer from the choices taken by others.

Are you, personally, harmed by someone having an abortion? Are you, personally, harmed by someone watching porn? Maybe it makes society as a whole weaker compared to other societies but that doesn't mean your society actually loses anything. Countries have nuclear weapons and multi-national defense pacts now. Just because China has several times the population of the US and could win a conventional war, doesn't mean…

The dangerous thing is that there are some busybodies who will believe they are harmed by such things, and so you have to take the argument a step further and precisely define harm to confirm that they have no case. It would be easier if people had a common definition of "if it doesn't involve you then it's not your business".

And the difficult thing about that is that externalities do exist for some things. Pollution affects everyone, for instance, and those externalities need to be accounted for. It's not a trivial definitional problem to distinguish valid externalities from spurious/invalid claims, unfortunately.

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

#602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Banning porn is not going to do a whole lot. Pornography is illegal in South Korea Yet, there's a lot of porn there too. A whole lot of voyeur porn too. As well as prostitution, which is also illegal. Making something legal or illegal is just signaling. The real part is how it actually is implemented in practice. And as you imply, things are pretty complex. We really need to be careful about our own tendencies to w…

Not being 100% effective isn't backfiring. No law is ever absolutely effective. But making something illegal objectively makes it more difficult to obtain, and is certainly effective at reducing access, even if it's not 100%.

At least in the case of South Korea, all porn is treated equally illegally, so the country has a really high incidence of secret cameras peeping in places like women’s bathrooms, because that’s just as illegal as a scripted porn film.

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

#603
post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The claim isn't "we don't like it", the claim is "this is damaging to society" That's their framing , it's not what they actually do. If Collective Shout was a group that studied which things caused harm, and then campaigned against those things, then the point you're trying to make could stand. They're not. They've campaigned to ban rap artists, GTA 5, "50 Shades", lingerie ads, whatever random thing is around at…

[flagged]

...ok? My comment didn't say anything about the distinction you're drawing here.

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

#604

This actually took longer than I thought. It is really weird that for all my adult content I have to go to a dedicated adult store, yet for games I can find them on Steam and gog where kids shop for games. You don’t get porn movies on Netflix or Disney stream. You don’t get adult toys in your local grocery store. Why do we sell porn on Steam? Why haven’t game stores just spin off separate store front for porn content…

Your own examples show the slippery slope this is. Walmart, Netflix, and Disney all DO carry content that some people want banned†. No matter what you're talking about, someone is going to take offense and want the content removed entirely.

Collective Shout, the group behind this latest censorship push, also wanted Detroit Become Human to be banned because the story depicted someone abusing a child. If we're banning that, why not ban memoirs of child abuse survivors or "James and the Giant Peach"?

You suggest it would be easy for Steam and Itch to run alternative storefronts. Given that they removed content that was offensive to their payment processors, they'd need to engage with high-risk payment processors to power these new store fronts. To say nothing of the technical work involved, those high-risk payment processors certainly charge more for their services. That'd raise the already high 30% that Valve takes on most transaction.

Additionally, if a games journalism website also has relationships with payment processors, are they allowed to review adult games even if those reviews don't include pictures? Or are they going to be equally punished for giving adult content a positive rating?

This all limits the options available of responsible adult consumers and costs creators of LEGAL content revenue.

===

†Here's a longer look at your examples:

Define adult toys. I assume you mean dildos. Walmart doesn't sell those in physical stores, but they do sell them online. Additionally they, like most other stores, do sell lube, condoms, and vibrating rings in their brick and mortar store. Every clothing store that sells underwear sells something many would describe as lingerie. Target has an entire lineup of "after dark" board games stocked right next to Candyland.

"After Netflix published a marketing poster showing the [11 year old girls] twerking in revealing cheerleading outfits without any context, an online petition calling for the cancellation of the US release received more than 140 thousand signatures."

'According to a source close to the production, Pixar’s next feature film, “Lightyear” does feature a significant female character, Hawthorne, who is in a meaningful relationship with another woman. While the fact of that relationship was never in question at the studio, a kiss between the characters had been cut from the film. Following the uproar surrounding the Pixar employees’ statement and Disney CEO Bob Chapek‘s handling of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, however, the kiss was reinstated into the movie last week.'

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

#605

This actually took longer than I thought. It is really weird that for all my adult content I have to go to a dedicated adult store, yet for games I can find them on Steam and gog where kids shop for games. You don’t get porn movies on Netflix or Disney stream. You don’t get adult toys in your local grocery store. Why do we sell porn on Steam? Why haven’t game stores just spin off separate store front for porn content…

Grocery stores absolutely sell sex toys now. Wal-Mart carries them as well. I'm no prude, but it's really weird to me.

Why? Those same stores have sold lube, condoms, and Trojan's vibrators since the 90's. Walmart has sold lingerie since they existed.

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

#606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also grocery stores sell alcohol, and I'm personally more fine with children getting access to porn than to liquor.

I would not agree on this one. Both is detrimental on children’s health.

One is more likely to directly cause a child's death than the other.

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

#607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Let’s take a step back from political knee jerk reactions and look at the nuance. Say 50% of the queer content on itch is innocuous dating sim games much which may not have any pornographic images at all. There is another chunk, idk the amount, that is clearly not nice and what dishonest groups bundle that 50% into. There is seemingly little interest even acknowledging that other chunk of content as being a problem t…

What data or evidence do you have to suggest that there's a significantly larger amount pornographic LGBT content than there is pornographic straight content on these sites?

Why does an LGBT creator that makes a game exploring how the Matrix is a transgender allegory have to actively distance themselves from bisexual dating simulators when I don't recall seeing anything from "Enter the Matrix" distancing themselves from straight anime girl dating simulators?

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

#608
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's the Fair Access to Banking Act ( https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/401 ), currently stuck in committee, which would make it illegal for various financial services, including payment processors, to deny service for mere reputational reasons.

I wrongly assumed this was a D bill, and would die in committee. Turns out it's actually an R bill, with exclusively R sponsors, and now I'm wondering what awful shit is hiding in it. Though almost all of the sponsors are from almost 6 months ago, so it might die in committee anyway.

> Turns out it's actually an R bill, with exclusively R sponsors, and now I'm wondering what awful shit is hiding in it.

It seems to me like if you thought something was good and then switched to thinking it was bad based just on who proposed it, you need to stop being prejudiced. Evaluate ideas (or bills) for their merits, not based on who originated them.

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

#609
post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

...ok? My comment didn't say anything about the distinction you're drawing here.

My point is that it's not just a framing, an excuse to push their likes and dislikes on everyone.

If anything, it's actually the other way around. Their puritan views of what makes a healthy society is what informs their likes/dislikes.

They are legitimately fighting for what they legitimately think will make a healthier society. If you assume otherwise, you will misjudge them.

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

#610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember how the homicide rate exploded after violent video games became popular? They know this logic doesn't make sense. People are unfortunately happy to lie about it, despite decades of evidence to the contrary. They insisted rock and roll, jazz, and dancing they didn't like were going to harm women too. Somehow that didn't seem to happen either.

Don't forget the D&D satanic panic! I also remember my local Baptist youth group burning Harry Potter books back when they came out. These people are unreasonable, they don't care about logic. They care about imposing their views and morals on those around them.

They have a religion whose identity is in being oppressed in a world where they are the de facto ruler.
Post reply on HN