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Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

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Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#631

Post by lmm »

tptacek wrote: post #333
Aeolun wrote: post #282

I think it’s hilarious we allow stuff like Postal or Soldier of Fortune without a question, where the whole focus is on going crazy and murdering a whole bunch of people. But try to show a sensual human body, instead of one that’s ripped into small pieces, and oh my god, this is going too far!

You could just ask, "why do payment processors pressure content vendors not to offer this kind of content". You're starting from the premise that there's some weird puritan thing happening, but there's really nothing puritan about American business culture. There are other explanations! You can get a long ways just by assuming that the people involved in these transactions are utterly amoral .

> You could just ask, "why do payment processors pressure content vendors not to offer this kind of content". You're starting from the premise that there's some weird puritan thing happening, but there's really nothing puritan about American business culture. There are other explanations!

Someone, somewhere is making a choice to pressure content vendors to not offer this kind of content, and not to pressure them to not offer other kinds of content. It may be upstream of the payment processors but there is absolutely a weird puritan American thing going on somewhere, and it's much more interesting to get to the bottom of that since that's the point where change could happen. If everyone involved was amoral, these profitable games would continue being sold.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#632

Post by louthy »

pqtyw wrote: post #618
louthy wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> required verifying that I was an adult Log in to your account and toggle the “I want porn” option? It’s annoying, but not onerous. > And I know for a fact that the UK has much stricter limits on kink and BDSM in adult content as well. I know what you’re referring to, but don’t know the full details. I believe it’s around violent porn (rape, etc). We certainly have a “think of the children” brigade. I still think th…

> It’s annoying, but not onerous. So government regulating stuff like that does go against much of the thing you said in the comment above? > doesn't turn into some societal ideological divide. When governments try to introduce mass surveillance of personal communications to "protect the children" liek ChatControl maybe it should turn into one. Instead of everyone just handwaving and ignoring it...

>> It’s annoying, but not onerous.

> So government regulating stuff like that does go against much of the thing you said in the comment above?

It isn't law. But even if it was, that doesn't contradict what I am talking about. I'm talking about the export of puritanism. If you think having to turn the porn button from 'off' to 'on' in your phone contract's options is the same, then I don't know what to say.

> When governments try to introduce mass surveillance of personal communications to "protect the children" liek ChatControl maybe it should turn into one.

Yeah maybe, but that's not the topic of conversation here. The topic was about puritanical beliefs in the US and how its export affects the world (like the Visa issue).

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#633

Post by mango7283 »

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #628
mango7283 wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact of the matter is you will find more people willing to publicly bat for GOT than you will find people willing to bat for an "indie incest non-con game". And it's not like GOT has not received criticism for its content or that people haven't tried.

The movements here (the pro-censorship movement & the anti-sexuality movement) are mainly driven by religious beliefs, and as such, it comes as no surprise that they do not want to apply censorship in a fair or even logically consistent way; they merely want to ban things they personally do not like.

As I pointed out earlier, it's also valid that they are savvy enough to pick their battles and divide and conquer - you can't take down a critical mainstream success like GOT or GTA, but you can go after fringe games with content most people would be uncomfortable publicly defending.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#634

Post by louthy »

aaaja wrote: post #627
louthy wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was waaaay after it had become an 'issue' in the US and exported. I also doubt they would describe themselves as "left-wing feminists". That language is incorrect at best and inflammatory at worst. In 2014, Time magazine declared trans rights as "America's next civil rights frontier" [1]. For Women Scotland was formed in 2018 [2]. (Just looked at your comment history. Just, wow... is the trans issue the only one…

For Women Scotland wasn't the start of the opposition to gender identity policy in the UK. It was founded, by four women who met on Mumsnet, specifically to address policy in Scotland. Feminist women opposed to the Tory government's plans to introduce "gender self-id" law and similar policy had already started organising by this point. Groups like Woman's Place UK and Fair Play For Women. This had nothing whatsoever…

Keep moving those goalposts!

Look, you have the right to believe whatever you want, but making every single discussion you have on here about how much you hate trans people is not really something I want to get involved with. Good day.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#635

Post by tptacek »

lmm wrote: post #631
tptacek wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could just ask, "why do payment processors pressure content vendors not to offer this kind of content". You're starting from the premise that there's some weird puritan thing happening, but there's really nothing puritan about American business culture. There are other explanations! You can get a long ways just by assuming that the people involved in these transactions are utterly amoral .

> You could just ask, "why do payment processors pressure content vendors not to offer this kind of content". You're starting from the premise that there's some weird puritan thing happening, but there's really nothing puritan about American business culture. There are other explanations! Someone, somewhere is making a choice to pressure content vendors to not offer this kind of content, and not to pressure them to n…

Your premise is that they are, for the payment processors, profitable. They very probably are not.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#636

Post by louthy »

pqtyw wrote: post #623
saghm wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and then most of them left and came here, which the article cites as having caused a "radical" divergence: > Almost all Puritan clergy left the Church of England after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the Act of Uniformity 1662. Many continued to practise their faith in nonconformist denominations, especially in Congregationalist and Presbyterian churches.[2] The nature of the Puritan movement in Eng…

> Church of England Doesn't mean that continental Europe wasn't full of puritanical nutjobs. Calvin himself ran a dystopian theocratic state\hellhole in Geneva yet hardly anyone references that when talking about conservativism in Switzerland. > Even 120-130 years after the point There was a significant generational backlash towards puritanism and a push towards pluralism/secularism by the late 1700s. IMHO Second/Thi…

> Doesn't mean that continental Europe wasn't full of puritanical nutjobs.

I believe English puritans were also in Holland and France for a while.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#637

Post by aaaja »

louthy wrote: post #634
aaaja wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Women Scotland wasn't the start of the opposition to gender identity policy in the UK. It was founded, by four women who met on Mumsnet, specifically to address policy in Scotland. Feminist women opposed to the Tory government's plans to introduce "gender self-id" law and similar policy had already started organising by this point. Groups like Woman's Place UK and Fair Play For Women. This had nothing whatsoever…

Keep moving those goalposts! Look, you have the right to believe whatever you want, but making every single discussion you have on here about how much you hate trans people is not really something I want to get involved with. Good day.

[dead]

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#638

Post by [deleted] »

oatmeal1 wrote: post #366
Aeolun wrote: post #282

I think it’s hilarious we allow stuff like Postal or Soldier of Fortune without a question, where the whole focus is on going crazy and murdering a whole bunch of people. But try to show a sensual human body, instead of one that’s ripped into small pieces, and oh my god, this is going too far!

Gender of who is murdered has a lot to do with it too. I don't think you'll find a video game where you predominantly kill women. The most infamous scene of murder in video games is the Call of Duty mission "No Russian" where you optionally commit terrorism at an airport. If you pay attention you'll notice they kill much more men than women, and made sure that despite pleasant weather none of the women were wearing d…

[deleted]

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#639

Post by can16358p »

I'll never understand what is these payment processors' problem with adult content.

If someone wants to sell something and someone else wants to buy something, it should be nobody else's business to police it as long as two parties are settled.

That's why I want to see crypto take over and get rid of the middleman and regulators.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#640

Post by throwaway2037 »

ses1984 wrote: post #581
louthy wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, it doesn't help anyone to generalise. Europe has a wide demographic. But, one thing that doesn't happen is its attitude to sex affecting worldwide commerce or other worldwide issues. Here in the UK religion and sex are not part of the national conversation. A politician mentioning their love of god would seem weird to us. The only way it enters the national conversation are when right-wing religious zealot…

Religion is a factor in Polish politics.

Absolutely. Italy too. I think a better way to phrase it: There are many countries in Europe where a right wing party uses the rise of Islam due to immigrants as a political issue.
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