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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

#621

Post by fenomas »

phire wrote: post #609
fenomas wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...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.

It's an imagined difference. Picture two people, each working to get a particular book banned. One is a petty moralizer trying to impose his likes and dislikes on everyone, and the other is legitimately fighting for what he believes will make society healthier. How do I tell which is which when their actions are identical?

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

#622

Post by creer »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #119
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.

Presumably, the belief of Collective Shout is that there is a causal link between acting out incest, rape, and sexual violence in games and acting on those behaviors in real life. What would you do if you harbored that belief?

The issue is not with Collective Shout, who are rightly free to argue whatever they want. The issue is with payment processor - who fall all over themselves and invoke all sorts of random claims, to use their extreme power to ban content.

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

#623

Post by rustystump »

esseph wrote: post #530
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the same as an online store. There is a way for people to know kids are in a place they shouldn't be or to deny them access to adult content in real life. In Steam, there isn't

Adult content on steam is marked as such very clearly. Under Community Content Preferences, you'll see an option for Mature Content and Adult-Only Sexual Content. You'll also be preventing from accessing mature content depending on the filters in your account settings, and in the Family Management section of steam, for Family Shared Libraries.

Next you’ll tell us that all facebook users are over the age of 16 just like marky mark promises us.

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

#624

Post by innocentoldguy »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #447
ben_w wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't like porn? Don't buy it. Simple as that. The claim isn't "we don't like it", the claim is "this is damaging to society". I don't agree with such things in many cases (and many people disagree with me when I'm the one saying something is damaging to society), but it's important to note the difference or you will always be arguing against something other than their claim. > No one, including governments or paym…

It's pretty wild that people think that porn is more damaging to society than censorship.

In some ways, porn is more damaging, isn't it? For example, there's a lot of sex trafficking going on in the porn industry, but not so much in the censorship industry.

I strongly oppose censorship and believe that payment processors and banks should be prohibited from engaging in it. Still, I have to admit that porn can be extremely destructive.

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

#625

Post by creer »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #427
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.

Similarly, if you don't like something, you shouldn't have to sell it. Or host it. Or process payments for it.

> you shouldn't have to sell it [etc]

Until you abuse your market power. See Apple store vs adult content, see credit card companies vs an endless list of obsessions.

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

#626

Post by orthoxerox »

decimalenough wrote: post #310
gspencley wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's in Article 210 of the Icelandic penal code and, from what I gather, this follows a pattern typically referred to as "The Nordic Model" where it is not illegal to consume pornography, but it is illegal to produce and/or distribute it. Here is an article from the Reykjavik Grapevine that deep dives on it better than I could: https://grapevine.is/mag/2021/05/07/ask-an-expert-why-is-por... And for a broader overview…

The "Swedish Model" is about prostitution, specifically making it legal to sell sex but not to buy it. There are ongoing debates about how this applies to Onlyfans etc, with one faction claiming all sex work is abuse even if you're doing it solo in the privacy of your own home, so payments to Onlyfans should be banned.

> even if you're doing it solo in the privacy of your own home

The frame the problem as being vulnerable to escalating customer demands if you make custom content. Like, "insert this object and take a photo, insert this larger object and take a photo, insert this uncomfortably large object and take a photo, insert this painfully large object and take a photo, insert this clearly damaging object and take a photo".

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

#627

Post by xvector »

sitharus wrote: post #587
Rapzid wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and I think they should be banned from doing so In general though outside protected classes business can, and should IMHO, have a lot of discretion over who they choose to do business with and how they do business. Unless we want a carve out for payment processors. Treat them as a utility of sorts? Sounds like an interesting idea TBH. To me it's critical though that society has room to moderate itself where the gov…

> Unless we want a carve out for payment processors. Treat them as a utility of sorts? Given that there are two payment processors that have about 90% global market share (excluding China) and your bank chooses the payment processor for the most part, yes we should regulate them and force them to process payment for any legal business. They have the ability to effectively determine what we can spend our money on when…

> yes we should regulate them and force them to process payment for any legal business.

There is actually a bipartisan bill proposing precisely that: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/987

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

#628

Post by jjaksic »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #425
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.

You know. I used to be all about what you're going for. But I realized that porn to a certain extent is like cocaine. It's possibly one of the drivers for world wide declining population. Tons of dudes satisfying themselves without the urge to go out and do the real thing. There's growing science about this too. I don't like the conservative angle which is to be "proper" or it's against god, but from the scientific s…

I don't know if porn really affects population growth. There are so many other factors that do that to a much greater extent, such as: 1) gender equality and women working, 2) education, 3) contraception, 4) lower child mortality, 5) the fact that 200 years ago kids were an asset (free labor on the farm and support in old age) but today they're just a huge expense, 6) the fact that even a few decades ago child care consumed much less time as kids could be left to play outside, but today you have to supervise them 24/7 at least until they're 12. Etc etc. people don't have kids for a long list of reasons, none of which has to do with men watching so much porn they can't have sex even once.

But even if that was true, who's to say that population has to keep growing? There's 8 billion of us, isn't that enough? Housing prices are through the roof and most young people can't even hope to be able to afford a house. Human population has doubled about 4 times in the last 100 years. If it doubles yet again there's going to be 16 billion of us. Do you think the world and humanity can sustain infinite exponential growth? I don't think so. The only reasons to want population growth is because the pension system is a Ponzi scheme, but that's a completely different problem.

I also find it interesting that on one hand the argument against porn is, "porn is bad because it encourages X behavior in real life", but then another is "porn is bad because it discourages sex in real life".

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

#629

Post by creer »

Reason077 wrote: post #375
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.

> ”I wish there was a payment processor who was brave enough to say a big fucking NO to censorship.“ Perhaps we could develop some form of secure digital currency that is not reliant on central authorities such as banks, payment processors, or governments?

That is underway, with adult content providers (for example) now generally accepting payment methods that do not rely on credit card companies. All the way to accepting Home Depot gift cards that can be bought for cash.

The issue is that for now, and for a long time ahead, all these content providers feel that most of their clients would prefer to use a credit card. So they need all of their content to be acceptable to these people. Which comes with lots and lots of lowest common denominator rules. Even if some people do not use credit cards.

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

#630

Post by guy_5676 »

devnullbrain wrote: post #442
flumpcakes wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Itch is only doing this in the short term as they don't have enough time to go through all of the NSFW games on their platform.

And 4chan is only introducing the Captcha until the spam stops

Porn is a massive cash cow for itch, they are very incentivised to get the NSFW stuff up again asap
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