Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors • Hacker News Board

Re: Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

#81

Post by Aurornis » Wed, May 13, 2026, 4:16 PM UTC

codedokode wrote: post #64

advisedwang wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The payment processors say the reason is high fraud and charge-back rates in those industries that make it unprofitable to service. I don't know if this is true or an excuse. Either way, its an excellent reason why this critical infrastructure shouldn't be under corporate control.

Well that is fair point, but cannot they just increase the commission to cover them? Also I think it is weird that when someone steals a bank card, they use it to buy adult games instead of buying an iPhone or MacBook and shipping it to the third world country.

They do! It's called a high risk merchant account. Their payment processor would do it: https://stripe.com/ie/resources/more/high-risk-merchant-acco...

> Also I think it is weird that when someone steals a bank card, they use it to buy adult games instead of buying an iPhone or MacBook and shipping it to the third world country.

iPhone or MacBook purchases are expensive enough to trigger fraud detection reliably. A $19.99 adult content purchase less likely to.

It's not just stolen credit cards, though. Adult content purchases have another problem where purchasers often deny having made the purchase when their significant other finds it on the credit card statement. Shaggy's "It wasn't me" defense.

Re: Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

#82

Post by legitster » Wed, May 13, 2026, 4:16 PM UTC

codedokode wrote: post #39

Why payment processors do it? Why people in America do not want to earn more money from commissions? Strong church lobby? Legal risks? I think its mostly religious groups who who are against adult content and sex, or there are other groups? Also this is why we should work to increase circulation of cryptocurrency. No stupid religious restrictions and stupid political sanctions. Also why PornHub and OnlyFans are immun…

I don't think it's so much a religious lobbying thing as it is a consent and liability thing.

If you're a processor (payment or otherwise), you have to be absolutely sure there's no CP or non-consensual content on there. The penalty for even one thing to slip through is damning, and they're under extreme pressure to be the gatekeeper on all of this.

That means you have to manually review everything. That means paying someone to sit through and review all sorts of... questionable... media. A lot of work was shipping this off to overseas review farms. And we occasionally hear reports on how degrading and traumatizing this kind of work can be.

So for Visa, Mastercard, et al I think they are more or less chomping at the bit to just be completely out of this genre of businesses.

Re: Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

#83

Post by iknowstuff » Wed, May 13, 2026, 4:16 PM UTC

codedokode wrote: post #39

Why payment processors do it? Why people in America do not want to earn more money from commissions? Strong church lobby? Legal risks? I think its mostly religious groups who who are against adult content and sex, or there are other groups? Also this is why we should work to increase circulation of cryptocurrency. No stupid religious restrictions and stupid political sanctions. Also why PornHub and OnlyFans are immun…

Can’t they use some push payment methods where a qr gets scanned to send money, like venmo/cashspp?

Re: Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

#84

Post by KennyBlanken » Wed, May 13, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #42

voxic11 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But who is pressuring the banks? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point

Banks frequently refuse to do business with, or heavily restrict, businesses that they deem risky from a financial perspective. Adult content, pharmaceuticals and travel are all industries that experience significantly higher occurrence of fraud and chargebacks than others. For example, your spouse sees a weird item on your credit card for a porn site. "Wasn't me! Must be stolen I'll report it." Sometimes it's the ot…

This hand-waving about fraud is complete nonsense.

The banking industry shrieks about fraud and chargebacks yet gyms, which are basically the scummiest retail businesses on the planet aside from payday lenders, are allowed to use the ACH system and get direct access to money, not credit - that is a royal pain in the ass to revoke?

So much so that my state has an entire set of laws devoted toward curtailing the gym industry's various shitty cancellation policies? I believe they're even prohibited from requiring ACH payment - they must offer other options.

And what about all the local newspapers that make it impossible to cancel? Or all the made-for-TV product companies?

Re: Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

#85

Post by brnaftr361 » Wed, May 13, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

It feels like there's been a significant cinching of personal rights recently. I wonder if it has anything to do with crypto's relatively recent adoption by institutional movers. NordVPN offers crypto payments, I expect virtually every other operator would too. Seems like a good way to get adoption rolling. Tunnel to somewhere that providers will service without an ID check and stay more anonymous by the dint of the crypto exchange.

Maybe I'm trippin.

Re: Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

#86

Post by xyzzy_plugh » Wed, May 13, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

chimeracoder wrote: post #69

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks frequently refuse to do business with, or heavily restrict, businesses that they deem risky from a financial perspective. Adult content, pharmaceuticals and travel are all industries that experience significantly higher occurrence of fraud and chargebacks than others. For example, your spouse sees a weird item on your credit card for a porn site. "Wasn't me! Must be stolen I'll report it." Sometimes it's the ot…

> Adult content, pharmaceuticals and travel are all industries that experience significantly higher occurrence of fraud and chargebacks than others. For example, your spouse sees a weird item on your credit card for a porn site. "Wasn't me! Must be stolen I'll report it." Sometimes it's the other direction. No, it has nothing to do with chargebacks. It's not even presented that way in their policies when they ban it.…

For some types of explicit content, sure, I don't disagree. I've seen instances where "fraud" was used as an excuse for an otherwise unpalatable brand.

There hasn't been sufficient reporting on all the lobbying and back-room dealing.

Re: Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

#87

Post by coredog64 » Wed, May 13, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

advisedwang wrote: post #55

codedokode wrote: post #39

Why payment processors do it? Why people in America do not want to earn more money from commissions? Strong church lobby? Legal risks? I think its mostly religious groups who who are against adult content and sex, or there are other groups? Also this is why we should work to increase circulation of cryptocurrency. No stupid religious restrictions and stupid political sanctions. Also why PornHub and OnlyFans are immun…

The payment processors say the reason is high fraud and charge-back rates in those industries that make it unprofitable to service. I don't know if this is true or an excuse. Either way, its an excellent reason why this critical infrastructure shouldn't be under corporate control.

Ask the Canadian truckers how well government control of banking worked out ;)

Seriously though, I think the fix here is not who controls it but legislation that codifies when this type of payment deplatforming can (or cannot) be done. Make some carve-outs for smaller processors (e.g. if your church group wants to set up a pr0n-free version of Stripe, go to town)

Re: Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

#88

Post by maxk42 » Wed, May 13, 2026, 4:18 PM UTC

wahnfrieden wrote: post #79

codedokode wrote: post #39

Why payment processors do it? Why people in America do not want to earn more money from commissions? Strong church lobby? Legal risks? I think its mostly religious groups who who are against adult content and sex, or there are other groups? Also this is why we should work to increase circulation of cryptocurrency. No stupid religious restrictions and stupid political sanctions. Also why PornHub and OnlyFans are immun…

Collective Shout is behind several major campaigns. Info on its conservative lobbyist leader, their extreme views and hypocrisies: https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/s/1FHaaaIs6T As for why they do it? Because conservative Christian lobbying is a lucrative grift: https://youtu.be/ms26YefUNds?si=3KLCj1RALES3aKDT The owner runs a for-profit speaking engagement business alongside the registered charity. Many such people get…

And they're Australian, not American.

Re: Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

#89

Post by natbennett » Wed, May 13, 2026, 4:18 PM UTC

codedokode wrote: post #39

Why payment processors do it? Why people in America do not want to earn more money from commissions? Strong church lobby? Legal risks? I think its mostly religious groups who who are against adult content and sex, or there are other groups? Also this is why we should work to increase circulation of cryptocurrency. No stupid religious restrictions and stupid political sanctions. Also why PornHub and OnlyFans are immun…

Article and comments are underrating the impact of reputational risk on payment processors and on Kickstarter itself, for hosting/facilitating sexual content.

Some amount of adult comment is CSAM, or otherwise broadly disfavored. Some companies (Pornhub, OnlyFans) are willing to specialize in discriminating between “regular” adult content and the objectionable stuff, and they have payment processors similarly willing to specialize.

Some of that specialization involves being willing to take on political exposure. Mainstream payment processors are unusually exposed to risks like “being dragged in front of Congress” — there are a lot of reasons a politician might want to put pressure on a general financial infrastructure provider. So reducing obvious ways to get embarrassingly dragged in front of Congress is rational.

Re: Kickstarter is forced to ban adult content by payment processors

#90

Post by chimeracoder » Wed, May 13, 2026, 4:18 PM UTC

quux wrote: post #77

codedokode wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that is fair point, but cannot they just increase the commission to cover them? Also I think it is weird that when someone steals a bank card, they use it to buy adult games instead of buying an iPhone or MacBook and shipping it to the third world country.

It's not people using stolen cards, it's people feeling shame or regret after making an intentional purchase and using chargebacks to "undo" the purchase

> It's not people using stolen cards, it's people feeling shame or regret after making an intentional purchase and using chargebacks to "undo" the purchase

If this problem were as pervasive as people keep saying it is, it would put the merchants out of business long before it would have any noticeable impact on the card brands (Visa, Mastercard) who are typically the ones actually pushing bans like these[0]. Even if the merchant is successful in winning the chargeback, they are the ones who have to pay the fees for it, which means that any business with a predictable and consistently high enough chargeback rate will just stop collecting payments long before the upstream providers care.

A lot of people here don't actually understand how payment processing, risk underwriting, and chargebacks work - which is fair, because it's an arcane area of knowledge that most people don't interact with! But it means that a lot of things which sound like simple and easy explanations are actually completely off base and nonsensical.

[0] I do not have knowledge of the Kickstarter situation specifically, and the article is light on primary-source details, so I am explicitly not commenting on this specific case.