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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

#821

Post by stevenAthompson »

godelski wrote: post #676
stevenAthompson wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are optimizing but under differing constraints Most often this doesn't happen because one side fails to understand the other, it happens because one side is dishonest about their motivations or goals. In this case, the censors would like you to believe that they think pornography is harmful. The reality is that they're religious zealots who feel the need to prevent other people from making their own choices ab…

IME it doesn't help to villainize the other side, it only escalates things. You're right that there are bad actors, but I don't think this is accurate for the majority of people. You need to differentiate the people leading a group from the people within a group. Leaders may be highly manipulative bad actors, but that doesn't mean that the people that they duped are. It may not be good logic, or even self-consistent,…

I agree with most of what you said, and it was well said.

However, I disagree in two ways.

Firstly, while villainizing them is unhelpful convincing them is utterly impossible when religion is involved. It doesn't matter if we learn to understand their perspective, especially as logic/reason often doesn't apply and they aren't being honest about their goals and motivations.

I think the best anyone can hope for in such cases is for all parties to agree that we all have belief structures, and that we don't get to force those beliefs on others via the law. IE - "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins." It's the only rational basis for a society in which different belief systems coexist. The United States used to understand this, but we seem to have forgotten.

Secondly, I do agree that it might be easier to reason with folks the further you get from the top of the ladder. The "true believers" who fly airplanes into buildings or who want to outlaw eating candy because it might lead to smiling on a Sunday didn't start down that path last week.

The issue with the bottom up approach is that the folks on the bottom seldom have any real power, and for good reason. If pawns were allowed to move backwards they would kill their kings.

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

#822

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #814
rayiner wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't like porn? Don't buy it. Simple as that Except we live in a society and what goes into it affects all of us. Why does Germany ban Nazi content? Why do governments have minimum wages?

I believe you oppose the banning of Nazi content?

[deleted]

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

#823

Post by hollerith »

tptacek wrote: post #814
rayiner wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't like porn? Don't buy it. Simple as that Except we live in a society and what goes into it affects all of us. Why does Germany ban Nazi content? Why do governments have minimum wages?

I believe you oppose the banning of Nazi content?

He is a lawyer in the US and most lawyers in the US oppose the banning of Nazi content, which is why Nazi content is not and has never been unlawful in the US.

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

#824

Post by AraceliHarker »

nosignono wrote: post #221

Weirdly, Amazon sells TONS of porn and NSFW content, and yet doesn't lose their Visa/Mastercard processing. Game of Thrones, both the books and the show, contain content much, much more explicit than many of these games. Yet Itch and Steam have to pull stuff or their very existence is threatened.

Someone who watches Game of Thrones as pornography is a paraphiliac.

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

#825

Post by AraceliHarker »

nulld3v wrote: post #548
rustystump wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

LGBTQ+ treats incest no differently than how everyone else treats it. It's still generally taboo, and since it's not a sexual minority suffering from unjust persecution/discrimination, it is not offered any special protections.

Incest is condemned largely because it often takes the form of rape due to power imbalances.

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

#826

Post by simoncion »

npteljes wrote: post #763
simoncion wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a downvoter, but I have a few minutes to kill, so sure, I'll bite. > Why do you then tell others how to live their lives? In all reasonably-free societies, the default stance is "Mind your damn business, and everyone else will mind theirs.". Deviations from that default veer into "telling other people how to live their lives" territory. Sometimes it's right and proper to actively interfere in the lives of oth…

I definitely agree on the payment processor situation. In my opinion, businesses should also be free to refuse business for whatever reason, but, with the very important caveat that when they so large that to be considered a utility, they can't refuse legal business, like in this case Mastercard and Visa. There is not exactly an alternative to them. The point I'm more interested in here is the "Why do you people alwa…

> "Why do you people always presume they know what is best for other people?"

Well. Let's examine the context of the conversation. You replied to the statement "Don't like porn? Cool, don't buy it or avert your eyes!" with "Why do you then tell others how to live their lives? Is really leaving everyone to their own devices the good idea?"

Most folks have a healthy relationship with porn, and a reasonably-healthy relationship with sex in general. Given that the US is a reasonably-free society, its default stance is "Mind your damn business, and everyone else will mind theirs.". You rejected the call to avert your eyes from something that is moderately offensive. This indicates that -when it comes to porn- you're not content to mind your own business while people quietly go about their own. This means that you are the busybody poking his nose in other people's business.

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

#827

Post by AraceliHarker »

lupusreal wrote: post #490
garciansmith wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bookstores sell kids books and adult material just fine. The adult stuff might be behind the counter or in a certain area, same as stores like Steam where you have to actively seek it out.

Video rental stores, when those were still a thing, were the same way. They'd have a room in the back with a curtain to section it off.

First, it's highly concerning that some companies have gained immense power through monopolization, a point also made by former FTC Chair Lina Khan. Separately, in physical stores, there's an incentive to comply with laws because police would intervene if pornography were sold alongside regular goods. However, online, there's hardly any punishment for distributing pornography. This has led to a proliferation of people trying to sell porn on mainstream platforms to maximize profits and gain attention. Online, pornography is consumed far too casually. While it doesn't need to be completely eliminated, I believe there needs to be a clearer separation. Also, it seems many of those currently criticizing Visa/Mastercard are Trump supporters, and I'm curious about the FTC's stance on mergers and acquisitions between large corporations.

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

#828

Post by akoboldfrying »

Saline9515 wrote: post #767
akoboldfrying wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't read this yet, but I'm going to take a wild stab and guess that none of those "current studies" mentioned in the literature review were RCTs, because an RCT would entail deliberately exposing people with a predisposition towards paedophilia to CSAM, and that doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would ever be allowed by an ethics board. If that's the case, then all these studies were observational studies,…

There are many publications studying how porn exposure shapes sexuality and our vision of the human body, especially in the young age, but not only. By your logic, CSAM consumers would be "magically" unaffected by viewing this porn subcategory. How convienient.

Read carefully: I'm only claiming absence of (genuine) evidence, not evidence of absence.

Until genuine evidence is available, either outcome seems plausible. It could be that consuming CSAM pushes people towards committing sex crimes, or it could be that it "magically" doesn't, the same way people playing violent video games are "magically" unaffected by doing so.

ETA: An example of the inability of porn to influence sexual behavior is the plight of gay Western men in the 1950s-1980s. During this time homosexuality was absolutely demonised across essentially all of Western society, so there was ample interest from gay men in "correcting" their "errant" desires (this is not to say that all gay men felt this way). At the same time, heterosexual porn was widespread and easily available, though admittedly to a lesser extent than it is today. Given these forces at play, if it were possible for a gay man to develop an interest in having sex with women merely by looking at heterosexual porn, it does seem like there would have been large numbers of gay men who successfully "converted" to straight men. But AFAIK it is disputed that any such genuine conversion has ever taken place.

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

#829

Post by WhereIsTheTruth »

They want to fix the online hack that allows people to create their own sub culture and become financially independent with it

It is only just about controlling people, has nothing to do with porn

Otherwise they'd go after Valve for empowering and facilitating the biggest legal (disguised) online gambling market to minors (counter strike case gambling, steam cards and the whole marketplace)

Again, this is all about controlling individuals, they do not care about anything else, you can drink 1000L of Vodka a week, they won't care about your insignificant life

They have an agenda (digital wallet/ID), they'll do what ever it takes to make it happen

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

#830

Post by GoblinSlayer »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #738
plaguuuuuu wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If kids are on steam they're also on... ya know... the internet. It's not complicated to realise that this achieves none of the stated objectives

Yes that's my point. The Internet does not have the kind of separation or age-checking that real life has, and maybe that hasn't been good for kids or adults

Steam isn't internet, you have to buy things there, which is a strong authentication than requires all your personal data (KYC).
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