Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

pcgamer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

821–830 of 967 posts

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

#821

Post by krick »

ijk wrote: post #183
maxbond wrote: post #161

Why do payment processors do stuff like this? Is there some regulation that requires them to? I get that they don't want to process fraudulent transactions, but I'd think the response to a higher percentage of fraud from some industry would be to charge them more. It doesn't make sense to me why they would be concerned about the content of games, as long as everything is legal and the parties concerned aren't subject…

One factor is the ongoing campaigns from number of moral crusading groups who lobby them to cut off payment processing for things they don't approve of. NCOSE has been working for decades on the project, and targeting credit card companies has been a successful tactic for them for a decade or so. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/visa-and-mastercard-ar... [2] https://www.newsweek.com/why-visa-mastercard-being…

I wonder how this type of pressuring can be made illegal. To be clear: I certainly think this has to be made illegal, and even attempt to coerce a payment network to force a business to do something should be a serious crime. If the product is not illegal, you can sell it, either on your platform, or on a third party platform (Steam), if the platfrom is ok with selling your product. It's arguable, but perfectly reasonable to say that Steam can also choose to not sell it if it doesn't want to. But then, of course, it doesn't seem like a huge leap to say that a payment network can choose to not handle transactions for some type of business if it doesn't want to. Sure, you can appeal to it being a de-facto monopoly, but isn't Steam a de-facto monopoly as well? I mean, I have some trouble formally drawing a line here, yet it clearly seems not right to me, that a payment network can choose at all if they want to handle this or not.

And, as I said, attempt to apply pressure on a payment network, in order to apply pressure on its customer, in order to apply pressure on their customers... well, I think it's pretty obvious why this is a problem, and that things are not supposed to work this way.

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

#822

Post by LorenPechtel »

mango7283 wrote: post #606
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But even in the case of Steam, there just isn't a constituency for being pro-incest. This is the last political fight you'd want to get into. Of course the constituency that is openly pro-incest is small. On the other hand, I believe the constituency for a quite encompassing freedom of speech has to be taken seriously.

I think the matter here is the activists are being strategic now and chipping away by targeting very specific content to get delisted. As you rightly said, most people are not going to sign their name to defend a incest/non-con fringe game specifically, so the counter petition is necessarily going to be on a broad ideal and therefore diffuse

Yeah. I find sex games have basically zero appeal to me, period. But either show me the victim or leave them legal.

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

#823

Post by johnisgood »

vladms wrote: post #752
johnisgood wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, but look at the original statement, that cash is mainly used for illegal activities. I do not think that is true. Now, check this out: > Cash was the most frequently used payment method at the POS in the euro area and was used in 52% (59%) of transactions, but the share of cash payments has declined. > Cash was the most frequently used payment method for small-value payments at the POS, in line with previous surv…

Not sure if "mainly" means in terms of total value, number of transactions or people using it. If I would be to guess it would be total value. Now, these guys might be biased, but to quote: "The EUR 500 note alone accounts for over 30% of the value of all banknotes in circulation (1)." ( https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/cash... ). That would suggest to me that at least 30% of the value of cash…

I do not pretend that I know either, to be honest.

That said, there is "For payments over €50, cards were the most frequently used payment method.", which means they primarily use cash below 50 EUR, and you cannot do much illegal purchases with 50 EUR, it is such a small amount.

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

#824

Post by wat10000 »

krick wrote: post #821
ijk wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One factor is the ongoing campaigns from number of moral crusading groups who lobby them to cut off payment processing for things they don't approve of. NCOSE has been working for decades on the project, and targeting credit card companies has been a successful tactic for them for a decade or so. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/visa-and-mastercard-ar... [2] https://www.newsweek.com/why-visa-mastercard-being…

I wonder how this type of pressuring can be made illegal. To be clear: I certainly think this has to be made illegal, and even attempt to coerce a payment network to force a business to do something should be a serious crime. If the product is not illegal, you can sell it, either on your platform, or on a third party platform (Steam), if the platfrom is ok with selling your product. It's arguable, but perfectly reaso…

I don’t think it should be made illegal, it should be made impractical.

One way would be to ensure proper competition in the payments space. If there were dozens of options then some of them would decide that it’s a competitive advantage to ignore the busybodies and cater to people who want to buy this stuff. We see this at work with hosting. There’s a multitude of options and it doesn’t seem like adult sites have much trouble finding a host that will allow them, even if others might reject them.

Another would be to regulate payment processors like common carriers and require them to serve everyone equally regardless. We see this model with the Post Office. As long as you’re not sending something that will compromise the safety of the workers, they’ll ship it.

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

#825

Post by wat10000 »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #488
p0w3n3d wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tbh that's quite alarming what you've just said, and I'm not saying about government. I'm saying about an additional huge sales tax. I understand that wiring money or sending them in an envelope is the thing of past, but e.g. in my country and in whole EU the digital payment is promoted as the only righteous, because "cash is only used by gangsters and human traffickers" etc. And this is really playing against us and…

Credit cards are much less heavily relied on in Europe than in the USA. Europe basically runs on debit cards that every kid can have and where the fees are minuscule. There are countless banks providing the service and everything is highly regulated. On top of that, Europe still curbed Visa and Mastercard several times for antitrust behaviour. And the idea that physical money primarily aids social fraud, money launde…

Debit cards are really common in the US as well. Pretty much every bank gives you one with a checking account and they’re accepted everywhere. You’ll have no problem never getting a credit card, aside from a couple of very specific cases such as renting a car where they’ll require a substantial deposit if you don’t use a credit card.

But it’s irrelevant to this issue, because the debit cards are still handled by Visa or Mastercard.

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

#826

Post by LorenPechtel »

wood_spirit wrote: post #500
irusensei wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the biggest issue here is that somewhere down the line we gave payment processors the responsibility of policing for crime and terrorism. Our governments and regulators punish those institutions for "not doing enough" to prevent such things from happening. You might think I'm defending the multibillion company but here comes the catch: all of this is expensive so when you are doing something funky even though…

As a generalisation it seems sensible that it should be illegal to knowingly handle illegal things and the proceeds of illegal things. It’s hard to say that it’s ok to profit from someone else’s crime. If I sell you a bike cheap, no questions asked, then you ought be as culpable as me as you don’t have reasonable doubt that it’s stolen. Etc. This can be weaponised. The lobbies go after visa and Mastercard etc by givi…

Yeah, but there should be a concept of what level of scrutiny is warranted. Pornhub had a legitimate problem in that in permitting user content they made it extremely hard to keep their system from being used for improper purposes (underage, revenge.) But neither would I expect any system to be 100%. Should you have known? If so, you're wrong. Things look reasonable? No fault.

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

#827

Post by LorenPechtel »

maxbond wrote: post #161

Why do payment processors do stuff like this? Is there some regulation that requires them to? I get that they don't want to process fraudulent transactions, but I'd think the response to a higher percentage of fraud from some industry would be to charge them more. It doesn't make sense to me why they would be concerned about the content of games, as long as everything is legal and the parties concerned aren't subject…

"Completely abhorrent" is subjective. If you want it banned, show me the victims that would be saved. Otherwise, what happens behind closed doors is none of our business.

And the legality of them--we still have obscenity statutes on the books. Garbage as far as I'm concerned, but they're still there.

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

#828

Post by cindyllm »

deadbabe wrote: post #784
Nevermark wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So grotesque violence appeals to fewer people, but banning gets focused on material more people find acceptable, even desirable? This really is a culture/posture driven issue. It is not as if many people think (emphasis on "think", as in being honest, reasoning carefully and being scientific about evidence) that banning sexy curves in a video game is going to impact the prevalence of sexy curve imagery, or "save" any…

What a gross endorsement of Jeffery Epstein.

[dead]

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

#829

Post by slt2021 »

wat10000 wrote: post #824
krick wrote: post #821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how this type of pressuring can be made illegal. To be clear: I certainly think this has to be made illegal, and even attempt to coerce a payment network to force a business to do something should be a serious crime. If the product is not illegal, you can sell it, either on your platform, or on a third party platform (Steam), if the platfrom is ok with selling your product. It's arguable, but perfectly reaso…

I don’t think it should be made illegal, it should be made impractical. One way would be to ensure proper competition in the payments space. If there were dozens of options then some of them would decide that it’s a competitive advantage to ignore the busybodies and cater to people who want to buy this stuff. We see this at work with hosting. There’s a multitude of options and it doesn’t seem like adult sites have mu…

VISA/MC duopoly have like 60% margins, they are essentially a rent seeking feudal lord on the entirety global commerce.

Pure leeches, that are now engaged in censorship

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

#830

Post by Arch485 »

raincole wrote: post #773
j_m_b wrote: post #761

So funny how people think this is a moral crusade. You should read articles around the tech stack for payment processing at any adult site. People try to do chargebacks all of the time on these kind of services. "Hunny what is this transaction on our account for BigBussomsCom?" .. "Oh must be some kind of fraud" "then let's call the bank and straighten it out". It's variations of this, over and over that lead to the…

It's so funny that people think it's about chargeback. If you buy smut game on Steam, your bank statement won't show the name of the game. It looks exactly like any other transaction you make on Steam. > "Hunny what is this transaction on our account for BigBussomsCom?" .. "Oh must be some kind of fraud" "then let's call the bank and straighten it out" This is a scenario that literally can't happen in the Steam case.…

To add: AFAIK most adult content websites bill under a different, innocuous name as well. You don't get a charge on your credit card from BigBussomsCom, you get a charge from SuperCard or something like that. (uh... I know because of a friend...)
Post reply on HN