Yo I’m NGL I’m usually really passionate when I feel my rights are infringed but I do not feel like my rights are being infringed. This isn’t the same thing as requiring ID to view NSFW content; this issue is not a legal one.
It’s not even like porn is js inacessible now, most of it is found on Patreon, which is both unaffected and literally accepts cryptocurrency. I will admit im suprised to see itch.io take action cos it has a reputation as a porn service, but who tf consumes porn on steam? I do not believe “what they define as NSFW will expand!” Or “next, games featuring a gay character will be banned!”, either. You are fucking bugging if you think Valve would let that happen. All they would need to do is lean heavier into steam giftcards, potentially selling them digitally, and start accepting crypto 'till the processors wanna play ball.
I don’t understand why people are bitching that the companies that they choose to use have so much power over their purchasing decisions. “First this, next sex toys! Then contraceptives!” Like Jesus fuck bro have you not heard of cash?
Your point is sound because I usually use a credit card for this, but most of my Steam purchases come from buying gift cards. However, I could easily buy those gift cards with cash.
So it requires the effort and capability to go to a place that happens to have those cards. In some areas, that is more difficult and unlikely than others, and can be more difficult for the less financially fortunate.
Thus there’s added utility cost to the person when otherwise the existing digital payment model would be more accessible.
i.e. it’s a regressive solution and less ideal.
I liken it to the utility or economic tax that is attempting to vote in some areas where they make it more difficult to actually do it.
In Australia at least, those cards are everywhere in populated areas. Supermarkets and department stores pretty-much all stock them. I’d say that over 90% of Australians live within 3km of a store that sells Steam cards and takes cash. Most of us even closer than that.
No one will lament the removal of No Mercy from sale on Steam, but whenever a net like this is thrown over an entire area of perceived problematic content, there will be well-intentioned games caught in the net too. Specifically, LGBTQ+ games are under threat - games that don’t align with the Christian values underpinning the pressure group Collective Shout.
I do not believe “what they define as NSFW will expand!”
And that’s the core of your problem, puritan activists don’t generally have the capacity to think “actually, the thing i wanted other people to not be able to see is gone, i think I’ll leave it there” because the censorship isn’t the goal, the goal is control.
It’s even worse with organised puritans , because even if a few hang it up you’ll always find a few willing to just go a little further or have differing opinions on what is “acceptable”.
I would lay good money on this not actually being as far as they originally wanted, it was just what they could get for now.
I don’t understand why people are bitching that the companies that they choose to use have so much power over their purchasing decisions. “First this, next sex toys! Then contraceptives!” Like Jesus fuck bro have you not heard of cash?
Firstly, it’s the payment processors, you know the monopoly of companies that you need to take payments from regular people.
Secondly, payment processors can and will stop providing payment services for shops that carry physical goods they deem unacceptable.
(yes crypto exists, no it’s not equivalent yet) (yes steam cards exist, no it’s not equivalent and unless i’ve missed something itch.io doesn’t have an card system)
As far as cash goes, is there a new slot where you can put the cash monies directly in to the pc/console and it credits your account ?
Or do you mean, go to the store and buy a physical copy of the hundreds of thousands of games that don’t have physical editions ?
Yes, I understand that if these people could have it their way, any kind of mature content would be completely illegal. The reason I don’t feel strongly about this is strictly because this isn’t a legal threat, and I don’t think it has that capacity to become one. Lobbying is expensive, and I don’t believe that an Australian organization has the capacity to seriously affect global/western culture more than this. Quite frankly, its impressive they were able to pull this much off, and I fully expect ts to blow over in 3 years tops.
Don’t get me wrong- its not that I don’t care about censorship, its that I don’t really view this as censorship because the consumption and purchasing of the “censored” product is still completely possible. Contrarily, if this were signed into law I would have a big fucking problem with it.
With regards to the “companies they choose to use” point I made, I was in fact referring to payment processors, hence why I proposed crypto, cash and giftcards; as in purchasing a steam giftcard with cash from a store. Obviously I don’t expect people to not have credit cards, but the anonymity and security cash provides is almost never used because people find it less convenient.
The reason I brought this up is because I have seen it proposed that this issue will expand beyond the scope of digital marketplaces, which I find downright laughable. People WILL stop using visa cards if you can’t use it to buy condoms and there’s an ATM in the gas station.
I firmly believe that if this issue is pressed further, at the very least Valve will js stop accepting payment directly through payment processors.
I’d argue that it not being a legal threat doesn’t matter too much in this case because they aren’t looking for legal control, so much as “effective” control.
If they can stop you without needing for it to be signed in to law, then they’ll take that, if they can get a law as well, then I’m sure they’ll take that too.
Don’t get me wrong- its not that I don’t care about censorship, its that I don’t really view this as censorship because the consumption and purchasing of the “censored” product is still completely possible. Contrarily, if this were signed into law I would have a big fucking problem with it.
Censorship isn’t a binary, but we can agree to disagree on that one i suppose.
To this part though
purchasing of the “censored” product is still completely possible
Not really, there are numerous titles available exclusively on itch.io and steam, those are effectively censored by your rationale as you can no longer purchase them at all.
Honestly steam gift cards don’t work at all here because it’s not a ban on buying the games using a card, it’s a ban on steam listing the titles at all, on threat of losing the payment services.
Crypto cash and gift-cards are great if you have effective access to them.
Crypto is out for most people for obvious reasons (technical knowledge, dearth of places that actually accept crypto)
Cash works until it doesn’t and governments and big tech are trying their hardest to make it as difficult as possible, there is a big push to go cashless.
It’s not that people find cash less convenient because they are lazy (some are i suppose), it’s because it’s being purposely deprecated as much as possible, or just straight up doesn’t apply to the paradigm, such as online purchases.
The reason I brought this up is because I have seen it proposed that this issue will expand beyond the scope of digital marketplaces, which I find downright laughable.
As i said, this already happens, it’s weird in how it’s applied tbh, but that’s neither here nor there.
Mastercard just says : “brand-damaging Transactions” and doesn’t elaborate, at a quick glance.
A good example of this is casino’s and other gambling related physical locations, there are a lot of hoops to jump through to get a payment processor to work with gambling, assuming they even give you the time of day.
People WILL stop using visa cards if you can’t use it to buy condoms and there’s an ATM in the gas station.
Sure for that specific thing, hard to pay cash at amazon or other online only retailers.
I firmly believe that if this issue is pressed further, at the very least Valve will js stop accepting payment directly through payment processors.
That i’d be interested to see tbh, because as i said there isn’t an equally available alternative to card payment processors (and it’s not even close).
If they did go crypto only for instance, there’d be a big move to crypto for some, but that’d be a significant loss to take on principle alone.
I don’t understand why people are bitching that the companies that they choose to use have so much power over their purchasing decisions. “First this, next sex toys! Then contraceptives!” Like Jesus fuck bro have you not heard of cash?
Because that’s what groups like Collective Shout do, sparky. They think just acknowledging that LGBT people exist is “too adult”.
When was the last time you paid cash for a Steam game?
they’ve been doing it since the late 90s/early 00s. Visa and MC have a list of “rules” for porn companies and have had them for decades. Why the vast majority of adult entertainment companies use third party processors like CCBill to specifically deal with that shit.
These dumb fucks in Australia think they’re ahead of the curve or doing “something that has never been done before” but nah man they probably did talk to Visa and MC but highly doubt they pushed them to anything. it was more like Visa/MC said “oh yeah we did this before…yeah we should probably apply what we did to Porn to the gaming industry.”
Australia is pretty weird about porn too. For years their rules basically ensured all female porn actors get boob jobs and took scissors to their labia.
Thanks for taking the time to put those resources together for me.
That’s absolutely crazy, my goodness… Some people really are insane when it comes to sex. It reminds me a bit of how you can show soft penises in American TV to some extent without it being considered pornographic, but hard penises are pornographic. But this labia issue makes even less sense than that, because it doesn’t depend on arousal. What a backwards situation
Yeah taking on this role will only bring them more problems. Once you decide to not be content neutral, you are responsible for everything you transmit.
Unironically it will bring more people to dark corners of the net, foul content was always free. Now i’m not going for these games, but also comparing the entire nsfw genre to specific games is disingenuous. At the same time violence and shocking real life images are fine, right?
Nsfw involves adult themes that aren’t sexual.
That means censoring the self expression of consenting adults.
This creates a huge bottleneck that eventually just leads to this growing in the back of the visible. Porn addiction is a problem, sure. How did pre-teens gain access to this content? Didn’t parents give them a fully capable computer at all times?
Back when i used a computer, I only had access to research and office, also flash games. Other than that I had other devices and offline games, on cd.
Modern devices have better parental controls but nobody uses them, old computers had virtually none. Turns out you can do your parenting.
The dangers of this privacy invasive solution is the exposure of personal ID to questionable places, while bringing people towards bad places, that don’t ask for things.
Kinda like pirating a game as a kid, because you couldn’t buy it, but you only got viruses afterwards. Same deal.
Have you gone to their (Collective Shout) website to check out their successful campaigns? They’ve taken down a manufacturer on Temu who makes silicon heads used for piercing. Apparently the heads looked too much like children.
the Stasi are never gonna stop at the particular marginalized group you dislike. plus nobody’s offending shit, being a freak isn’t illegal (yet). acting like it is certainly helps move the overton window that way though
I might not have worded it correctly, but if your aim is to keep women safe from sexual assault, then removing an outlet for people who want to do that, while also removing a potential indicator for that kind of behaviour its a double screw over.
Im well aware that its nothing to do with safety or decency and is just a motte and Bailey attack on our freedoms.
gotcha, my whole issue was with the whole state surveillance of “dangerous people” part of it, because trans people are gonna end up on that list just for existing
because MC and Visa are morons. According to them in porn 4 fingers and a thumb in a vagina is fine. as soon as you take said fingers and thumb, ball them into a fist, and then stick it in a vagina then they got problems with THAT and it’s a no go.
They have more stupid rules. If you piss on a woman in Europe and film it then it’s fine. If you piss on a woman in the US and film it then it’s not fine. IF you take the footage of someone pissing on a woman IN Europe and SELL it in the US then that’s fine. But Americans are not allowed to pee on Americans on US soil according to Visa and Mastercard.
here’s another one: Incest Porn is not fine according to Visa and MC. “but I see that stuff all the time!” I hear you say dear reader. Yes, because according to MC/Visa you MUST establish that this is a step family relationship in the beginning BUT further into said video you can drop the “step-” moniker and start throwing around regular dads and moms and brothers and sisters all you like.
Don’t forget Ruport Murdoch who’s been pushing the right wing agenda across the country is an Australian export. This is not unusual from that country honestly.
He is from Australia originally, but he’s been a US naturalised citizen and lived there full-time since 1985, he gave up Australian citizenship 40 years ago.
Are you saying that Valve and Itch did not respond to Collective Shout? Well, so did I… My comment was saying they were justified in doing so.
Are you saying Collective Shout are not religious nutjobs? That’s an easy mistake to make because their website and branding does a really good job of trying to hide it from a casual researcher, but the founder Melissa Reist is pretty obviously a devout Catholic- she gives interviews with Catholic organizations, appears at Catholic youth camps, and describes herself as a “pro-life feminist”, which is of course an oxymoron. She’s definitely a religious nutjob.
I was gonna say that’s not necessary here, but actually many Lemmy servers do have a completely asinine word filter, and the devs have never heard of the Scunthorpe Problem.
You know if we’re doing a numbers game Australia really exports a lot of shitty stuff. I mean the trade imbalance of fucking garbage Australian bullshit it’s pretty severe.
…whut? Are you American? Because if so that’s bloody rich. I’ll cop to Murdoch, that’s on us, I’m sorry for that. But what the hell else do we export that’s “fucking garbage”?
The biggest TERFs in the planet seem to be either Australian or British, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Also, Murdoch has caused untold damage to America that is gonna take decades or even a century to fix.
The biggest TERFs in the planet seem to be either Australian
What?? As a trans Australian that’s just completely rubbish. We aren’t having the same anti-trans rhetoric issue here that the US and UK are. In fact the biggest issue we had with TERFs was when Posie Parker came and did a speaking tour.
Seems like while Australia doesn’t export that much bad stuff, the stuff that does get exported somehow manages to be even worse than other places, for some reason. Collective Shout is a group of TERFs, and Murdoch… well we don’t need to talk about him. And also another bad thing Australia exported was videogame censorship, like the time they banned Hotline Miami 2.
Sure, Collective Shout is a TERF group but you tried to make the claim that Australia is one of the biggest sources of TERFs on the planet and that’s just rubbish. I’m going to assume you’re American as well.
That doesn’t mean you get to try and say Australia is one of the biggest exporters of TERFs because of this one incident mate. It’s not like we don’t have 'em, but they aren’t destructive to the level of the Yanks & Brits.
Multiple times now you've accused people of being American for saying that Australia outputs some garbage right wing stuff. Aside from the vampire fuck Rupert Murdoch himself, here is a list:
Sky News Australia (especially through YT and social media)
GB News (based on Australian right-wing media)
News Corp Australia
The Daily Telegraph
The Australian
Andrew Hastie
7News (this is arguably one of the worst as they sprinkle facts into their narrative to cloudy the waters)
Herald Sun
The Spectator Australia
Quadrant Magazine
All of these media sources and publications output to the rest of the world.
It doesn't matter about "well the UK has more. well the US has more".
Australia is exporting fucking garbage.
This isn't a race to bottom.
Oh, and the Murdoch Family Trust owns 40% of the Fox Corporation (which owns the US based Fox News).
So really your argument is the same that a heroin addict might have:
"If you discount my heroin addiction, I'm doing great!"
Is that what you think you’ve done here? Sweetie, all you’ve proven is that Murdoch is, indeed, a piece of human excrement. Something I admitted to way up there ^^ somewhere. Please explain how that makes us the biggest TERF exporter, because I fail to see the logic, and our laws & politics seem to contradict you. Come on sweetie, I know you’re clever enough too!
I'm not going to discount Murdock Family Trust just because it makes you feel bad.
As for exports, here you go.
Feel free to try and deny it, seems like something you're used to doing.
Murdoch’s media empire spans multiple countries, with strong conservative influence in:
United States:
Fox News, Fox Business, New York Post (via Fox Corporation)
United Kingdom:
The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times (via News UK)
Across these regions, Murdoch’s companies control:
120+ newspapers across five countries
Multiple TV networks and digital platforms with conservative leanings
Murdoch’s outlets dominate:
UK: ~25% of print circulation and large digital reach
US: Fox News is the defacto and most-watched cable news channel in the country
I'm sorry if that makes you feel all bad inside, but fix your shit.
Oh I understand now lovely, you just don’t know what a TERF is! How silly of me. So, a TERF is a Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. They call themselves feminists but they aren’t really pro-women. Does that make sense little one? 😊
I don't know what you are and don't care. Only you care about that. To be fair, you did call me "sweatie", so I think I can call you whatever I want given you initiated, sir.
I don’t think any country in the anglosphere has a monopoly on exporting shitty people, but I’m hardly going to throw stones what with this glass house I live in.
Take back your war on drugs, the war on terror, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, your insane tech broligarchy, rhe 2008 global financial crisis, your Evangelical hate brigades (actually you know what take back Mormons and Scientologists and 7th day adventists while youre at it), the GLOBAL trade disasters & inflation caused by Trump and his pissy tarrif wars, the global derailing of climate agreements again by Trump and his idiot Republican allies.
I’ll stop now because I could literally type all day the shit coming out of the US that has been causing immense damage to the rest of us.
What’s Australia’s shit?
Murdoch? He gave up Aussie citizenship and moved to the US in 1985, he’s spent the majority of his working career as an American living in America - we can at best take half ownership of him.
This handful of censorship wowsers taking down some rapey video games?
Mel Gibson?
Enlighten me because I think the numbers of your “trade imbalance” don’t even come close to adding up.
They are ok with murder and war simulation then? ROFL Smells like another religious pressure group tbh, haven’t looked into them yet.
They should go after all violence in games and media then; we’ll see how well they can fend of the pressure… Not sure if they have the ressources to survive that, so I would LOVE to see them try.
By all accounts they aren’t religious, we don’t have gestures broadly to American Evangelicalism going on here in Aus. They just seem to be TERFs and SWERFs.
hot take: people ought to start forming morals outside of legal morality. a Lotta freaks are gonna end up illegal otherwise and the freak factor certainly includes some thing you do that your prudish neighbor doesn’t like
In this context it's definitely a hot take considering the prudish neighbor was able to make freaky shit "illegal" anyway, and in far greater capacity than any single government could. Rape and incest games ain't for me but when they get banned because a handful of people decide for the rest of us how the world is supposed to look like without anyone else getting a say in the matter I take serious offense. At least if they went the legal route the process would've a) been transparent and given an opportunity for others to make a case and b) not instantly affect the entire world.
This "scary government is going to take away your rights" just leads to private enterprises taking away your rights without any oversight. This entire thing is a case in point. The government can take away your rights but at least you have a way to fight for your rights, what are you going to do against oligopolistic payment processors taking away your rights?
i hate to inform you that these lobbying groups are acting exactly like a state would, actually. maybe don’t lecture to trans people and tell us how the state works, we interact with the state way more than you will ever have to 💋
what are you going to do against oligopolistic payment processors taking away your rights?
idk, what are YOU gonna do? are cis people gonna finally fight for trans autonomy or are they gonna act like us having autonomy is too insane?
are you gonna finally listen to us like when trans sex workers told you a decade ago that banks, the police and payment processors are policing our money or are you gonna let the issue fester because you don’t want your family to know you stand with trannies and whores?
Okay, the smug "you're not one of us so don't speak" argument... Alright, then we're just not going to have a discussion. Just don't forget that if one of these groups ever use payment providers to suppress trans rights you supported this.
not surprising at all that you chose to go the blue MAGA “enjoy your camps, then” route instead of taking a step back. the only smug person here was you not realizing you’re way out of your depth
yeah, you got me. not liking liberals makes me a trump supporter. the overton window always ends at being a “progressive” slightly to the left of Ronald Reagan and anything beyond that is just the ice wall keeping us from finding out that the earth is flat
Do you know that you can edit your comment before you post? Because if you post and then edit the rest of comment in later others might miss that when replying? Anyway, not that you've actually addressed something in your previous comment I'm going to respond to that. I'm going to ignore what you've said right now because that shit is just too dumb to respond to.
idk, what are YOU gonna do?
I already complained to my government.
are cis people gonna finally fight for trans autonomy or are they gonna act like us having autonomy is too insane?
The fuck are you on about? I'm not against trans people. We should all have humane levels of rights.
are you gonna finally listen to us like when trans sex workers told you a decade ago that banks, the police and payment processors are policing our money or are you gonna let the issue fester because you don't want your family to know you stand with trannies and whores?
Again, the fuck? I'm also pro sex work because sex workers regularly get exploited and I think legalizing and regulation sex work would make their lives safer.
Also do you see how insane you act? I disagree with you on one thing and then you automatically assume I also disagree with you on (probably) all the other things. You're turning me into a villain in your own mind, and for what purpose? So you could dehumanize me? You're acting exactly like the conservatives who hate your guts.
Afraid I can’t say, I don’t believe China can do no wrong, or that Russia/North Korea are actually socialist, or other similar tankie nonsense.
What I can say is I’ve seen a shockingly large number of trans people standing up for the Visa/Mastercard oligopoly, Israel’s genocidal “military action”, private healthcare over single-payer / public options, etc… This is becoming difficult to ignore.
We need to ignore them, they’re obfuscating from the real issue. Payment processors should not have the ability to police content, full stop, end of discussion.
The person who tattled is absolutely irrelevant and a distraction
Hmm… I still have zero interest in this game series. They can do whatever they want, but I have zero interest in any western developer's take on Samurai.
It's like when Scorsese did Silence—it's nice he got to live his Kurosawa fantasy, but I have no interest in Eastern culture depicted through a Western lense, even if the source material is Eastern.
I wish they just go back to making Sly. I'd be all over an all new Sly game with fancy gadgets and shit.
Metal Gear is one of my favorite series of all time, and that’s an Eastern developer’s take on Western culture. Another series that comes to mind is Resident Evil.
I don’t see why this is necessarily a problem? Ghost of Tsushima already tells a rather loose story that borders on the fantastical, it never even attempts to be a historically correct depiction.
I didn't say it was? I said I have no interest in it.
You and Sucker Punch can do anything y'all want—I can only talk about my preferences.
Metal Gear is one of my favorite series of all time, and that's an Eastern developer's take on Western culture.
Listen, I'm suffering through the drudgery that is Death Stranding's story RN, so last thing I need is for anyone to invoke Kojima in this context 😂 Someone please tell this dude "we don't understand how [insert made up technology] works" is not an excuse for shit writing 😂
Fair enough, you’re of course entitled to your interests however you see fit ;).
Death Stranding is a weird one. It has some of the most stupid writing in video games, but also has some really strong themes and moments too. I am talking about the first one as I don’t have the budget to buy the sequel at release prices. But Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, 3 are masterpieces in my opinion, and the strange Eastern interpretation of Western spy / military culture is part of what makes it so interesting to me :)!
That seems like a really narrow-minded take. It comes off as arrogant, or maybe even prejudiced. Why deprive yourself of an objectively great gaming experience just because of some convoluted ideal that you've made up?
Also, if you really had zero interest, why even comment or be involved in the discussion at all?
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