itch.io

MehBlah, do games w Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors

I’m wondering who gave these credit card companies the moral authority.

inb4_FoundTheVegan,
@inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world avatar

Finicial authority beats moral everytime.

Adalast,

The fact that they hold the keys to the kingdom. Online retailers and businesses rely on credit card processors to be able to do business, which is all the leverage they need to exert tremendous pressure on the businesses they service.

This is something that really should be getting legislated against, but good luck in the US under the current administration. Maybe the EU has a shot.

finitebanjo,

I’m sure this is no coincidence that cbristofascists are in control of all the top branches of US Government.

mnemonicmonkeys,

Tbf, Collective Shout group is actually Australian

finitebanjo,

Visa and Mastercard are based in the US, though.

SkunkWorkz,

It’s not about morals. It’s purely about money. Porn sites are labeled as high risks because things like chargebacks, stolen credit cards etc happen more often at these adult websites. Not to mention the thin line between legal and illegal content. Therefore payment processors charge companies in the high risk category a higher fee since they need to audit these companies more frequently and deal with these chargebacks etc. more.

So either Itch.io goes into the high risk category and pay more for transactions or they remove porn. Maybe itch.io should just create a separate company to host these adult games.

jaupsinluggies,

But wasn’t that true before Collective Shite decided to piss on everyone else’s day?

SkunkWorkz,

maybe it’s because itch mostly sells non-porn games so they probably flew under the radar since they could have less fraudulent transaction or chargebacks as a porn site. Or the payment processors didn’t care too much that itch broke the compliance rules until someone reminded them of their duties. Like PornHub was showing illegal content for years and the payment processors only gave a shit about it until someone went to the news.

Katana314,

Plus, I thought NSFW works were a large market driver. Back in the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war, they said the winner would be determined by the porn producers.

shads, do games w Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors

Posted this elsewhere so just going to copy paste here but with regards to Collective Shout:

I think we need to get this group to weigh in on the content of certain holy books. Surely as a secular organisation they will have no problem demanding that the bible and qur’an be banned (I bet I know which one they actually would like banned).

After all we don’t want kids exposed to books that contain incest, sex, violence, rape, etc. I’m sure there are some parts of Ezekiel they will want editted at the absolute minimum.

I imagine balkanisation would be one way to make them slightly less visible/insufferable, and you know they would love some factional infighting.

Every time they get brought up they should be forced to confront that the people pulling their strings are most likely engaging in all the things they want banned from culture (regardless of culture or intent). Once they are forced to start lobbying Visa and MasterCard to block transactions to religious bodies I will accept they genuinely believe in the drivel they leak. Until then its performative puritanism.

P.s. not a fan of religion of any stripe, but I would feel as violently opposed to censoring them as I am to censoring anything else, I will accept it if its the only responsible solution until then alternative can be found.

burgerpocalyse,

you aren’t going to get fascists on hypocrisy

shads,

Well yea, but also no. I think a lot of their ability to operate is the veneer of legitimacy they have, my suggestion above, while funny, was mainly facetious, however if we could figure out a way of stripping that legitimacy away they might see more pushback from the next company they try to convince they represent a statistically large chunk of the population.

In this exact situation if Visa had just said to them: “We will take that under advisement.” Then filed the whole thing with the crayon scrawl “letters” they get from a certain “BLEACH BLONDE BAD BUILT BUTCH BODY” about not letting the Jews buy any more space lasers. Then no one would be getting rights taken away from them.

ludicolo, do games w Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors

Why not just call visa and matercard just like that stupid lobbying company. Obviously it is harder to change company’s minds, but maybe might accomplish something.

I hear shout has 1000 people on staff calling businesses, regular people could easily quadruple that.

veniasilente,

Those people (Mastercard et al) do not listen to people, they listen to money.

Show them guillotines and molotovs so they understand they might not live to use their money, and they’ll pay (regardless of if you pardon my pun) attention.

shrodes,

To quote the good folks over at the TWG Discord

See also here for more numbers to call

as you may or may not be aware, indie video game and ttrpg marketplace itch.io has recently been pressured by payment processors like Visa Mastercard to remove and delist “explicit content” from their site. this has resulted in, effectively, the mass erasure of works published by lgbtqia+ artists. this is the stated end goal of targeted action against payment processors by the group Collective Shout which angles itself to be “protecting children” by erasing adult content from existence.

obviously that’s bullshit. but there’s some stuff we can do as a community to try and fix this!

payment processors do not give a single shit about the content their products are being used to buy. they only care about liability and shareholders. Collective Shout was able to get Visa Mastercard to act with barely over 1,000 calls that’s less than half of the people in this discord. i know it’s a lot to ask every single person to make a call to their card holder, but if you have the energy i highly highly recommend doing so at either of these numbers

Visa Headquarters: (650) 432-3200 Mastercard Headquarters: (914) 249-2000

here’s a little script to follow if you’d like!

“Hello, my name is _____, and I would like to file a complaint. I find it troubling that Mastercard is blocking content on (the platforms you use) and making it difficult for me to make legal purchases. I am going to stop using Mastercard if this isn’t rescinded and fixed."

if you don’t have a call in you, you can send an email to the addresses below and add your signature to this petition from the ACLU

Visa Support: askvisa@visa.com Mastercard Support: b2b.mastercard.com/contact-us/

this quote has been rattling around my head all morning: “They’re not worth your fear, but they are worthy targets for your rage.” - Chase Carter, Rascal.news

together we will win.

MITM0, do games w Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors
@MITM0@lemmy.world avatar

So we get them jailed, they’re pedos & fascists. Start with petitions etc…

wclinton93, do games w Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors

ACLU petition concerning the payment processors: …aclu.org/…/mastercard-sex-work-work-end-your-unj…

Adalast,

Fucking signed.

RedGreenBlue, do games w Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors

Can’t wait for an EU alternative to Visa/Mastercard. Heard Wero is supposed to be that. Europe can’t decouple from US garbage fast enough.

lime,
@lime@feddit.nu avatar

we already had that: Eurocard. they needed to pay mastercard in order to be compatible with their terminals, and that relationship ended with mastercard just absorbing them.

they were started for the exact same reason that we are talking about, to get a european alternative. so obviously the answer is not free market-based.

SabinStargem,

I hope that as an American, I would have the option to use Wero for all of my purchases. I simply don’t trust my government.

mariusafa,

GNU Taller. I heard it was working in Switzerland

RedGreenBlue,

Sounds interesting!

MuskyMelon, do games w Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors

This is how crypto payments go mainstream

ipitco,

And that’s a great thing

But people like to hate on crypto because surely a centralized and privacy unfriendly payment system is better

They believe crypto = ERC20 + NFTs = scam, when the real goal of crypto is P2P uncensored transactions, and getting away of this centralized system

ICastFist,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

Some of the actual reasons people hate crypto are:

  • extreme volatility
  • many coins’ value can be easily manipulated by whales
  • most stablecoins are probably one step away of crashing down like Terra Luna
  • resource intensive - you can shout about proof of stake all you want, there are still gigawatts of energy being burned to “mint” bitcoin
  • no protections because “code is law”, even when the code is flawed
  • forking risk nearly every year
  • the coins that aren’t as resource intensive, have fast transaction times and negligible fees, are unlikely to gain traction or receive widespread adoption
  • you still have to go through the hoops of a heavily regulated exchange to get actual money from any crypto you have
ipitco,

extreme volatility

You’re free to avoid those coins then… volatility doesn’t mean bad

many coins’ value can be easily manipulated by whales

Yes, just like for stocks and pretty much every product on the market

most stablecoins are probably one step away of crashing down like Terra Luna

Stablecoins are often centralized so they’re not what the goal of crypto was, but sure. Why not hate the coins instead of the technology instead? Stablecoins are a small part of crypto.

resource intensive - you can shout about proof of stake all you want, there are still gigawatts of energy being burned to “mint” bitcoin

If you know this is incorrect, why lie and say crypto is resource intensive when it’s only a few that are like that? PoW has its flaws indeed.

no protections because “code is law”, even when the code is flawed

Every software you use is not liable for any problems that occurs with it. Incidents will always happen. All recent incidents involved someone getting hacked by other means, being menaced into sending them crypto (so it could happen to anyone with a lot of cash as well for example, or through offshore bank accounts), or a company stealing people. I’m not aware of any code fail.

Pretty much all CEX are regulated currently. And with AML and KYC coming more and more (which is bad for crypto), the “no protections” claim is really false.

forking risk nearly every year

So? In case of a fork, you keep both coins… so you should still keep the value of both?

the coins that aren’t as resource intensive, have fast transaction times and negligible fees, are unlikely to gain traction or receive widespread adoption

Isn’t that the case of Solana? But yea currently there are problems with too many coins relying on PoW, but some just can’t do without it, like Monero. It’s the cost of having this system.

you still have to go through the hoops of a heavily regulated exchange to get actual money from any crypto you have

That’s because of regulation and the banking system, not the fault of crypto? It’s because people called crypto a scam that it became like that. You can still use the crypto to purchase stuff with it instead of getting fiat. Receiving money from P2P bank transfers is also similar to this, you’ll get asked questions as soon as you go out of the normal way.

People calling crypto a scam don’t think this much through. It’s just more hard and complex than there is to the eye. Most people interface with crypto solely for trading, and people want quick profit through shitcoins, which is a very bad idea, then complain on the system. You should think twice before investing in stuff you don’t understand: whether it’s crypto, stocks, NFTs, in game items…

XM34,

Volatility doesn’t mean bad

Yes, yes it does when we’re talking about a payment system. Hence why no one pays stuff in shares except for some billionairs for tax reasons!

ipitco,

No one pays in shares because no one accepts this and it’s annoying to do?

Sure, volatility with crypto is annoying, but it will happen with a currency that works in every country, even fiat is volatile

ICastFist,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

No one pays in shares because no one accepts this and it’s annoying to do?

Sounds like crypto

volatility with crypto is annoying, but it will happen with a currency that works in every country, even fiat is volatile

True, but countries have means to keep money more or less stable. Most countries also have laws that are supposed to ensure big money owners don’t collude to play insider trading and pump’n dump every other week

ipitco,

Sounds like crypto

Yea, it is a bit of a pain as well, but it has some benefits compared to traditional payment methods, unlike paying in shares

Pretty sure crypto pump and dump criminalization is still a thing. In the end, you’re asking for someone to invest in something you benefit from, which is illegal in some places

monogram,

Naa onlyfans would have done it already.

Crypto payments are too unstable, there’s a huge & rightful stigma on crypto scams. Enjoy your bitcoin once it becomes too expensive to trade.

LettyWhiterock,
@LettyWhiterock@lemmy.world avatar

The bitcoin boom turned any crypto currency into just a volatile means of investment. None of them are seen as currencies to buy things anymore, and I don’t think that’s changing.

Not to mention the many other issues with crypto currency as a concept. But those don’t really matter in the face of, well, not being viewed as a currency anymore.

yoriaiko, do games w Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors

Can we force law banning money transactions to the churches and christian organisations?

Fight fire with fire (not literally, at least not yet, even if they did that long time ago already).

Katana314, do games w Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors

deleted_by_moderator

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  • _cryptagion,

    Collective Shout is an Australian group, not an American one.

    monogram,

    Funded by Americans

    FeelzGoodMan420, (edited )

    deleted_by_author

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  • crapwittyname,

    The only dogshit I see here is your over the top aggressive name calling.

    FeelzGoodMan420, (edited )

    deleted_by_author

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  • Sidyctism2,
    @Sidyctism2@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    u dont feelgoodman

    Katana314,

    A) Honest mistake. I appreciated people pointing out the country of origin.
    B) While the specifics of my comment were off the mark, even with this group being Australian, this group affects world commerce, and American politics has strong influence on that world in turn. Just like how president of the USA would have a big effect on the levels of violence and cruelty in Gaza. Visa is an American corporation, and they’re clearly quite on board with this censorship influence.

    hmmm, do games w Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors
    @hmmm@sh.itjust.works avatar

    I hate American Companies it will be a good time to start a new platform for NSFW games and payment platforms

    elvith,
    ms_lane, do games w Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors

    RIP Itch.io

    Choosing short term profits over long term userbase, it’s all downhill from here.

    wizardbeard, (edited )

    Short term profits? How are they supposed to make any profits if payment processors refuse to process payments to them? They can’t just spin up their own fucking payment processor.

    Beyond that, how does limiting the sale of any products make them money?

    I swear, were none of you people paying attention when this happened to the right wing ghouls in the lead up to the 2016 election? Nothing of value was lost (or would have been), but Visa, Mastercard, etc have already shown they aren’t above using their position in the transfer of money to enforce their will.

    Edit: Can’t believe I forgot about the payment processors playing games with Wikileaks. For shame. Would have been a much better example.

    Gibibit,
    @Gibibit@lemmy.world avatar

    Itch players and devs turning against the itch staff instead of the payment processors is like the friggin ouroboros of activism.

    Except an ouroboros can keep going round and round. What these people want would just implode the site in a day.

    ms_lane,

    The short term profits of going SFW only to appease payment processors vs. keeping everything but making it crypto only, which in the short term would be disastrous for income, but in the long term it would recover and they’d have independence from censorship.

    Instead they chose to keep bigger profits and start deleting accounts.

    wizardbeard,

    Tell me again how you’ve not actually read up on the issues with crypto as payment processor.

    This shit has already been tried and the issues discussed at length. I think it was Mullvad that stopped accepting BTC and did an extensive writeup on why.

    In short: the constantly shifting conversion rates make this unsustainable, as even if they accepted payment in crypto, they have to pay their bills in fiat currency. So their choices are to have crypto prices change literally every page load to reflect the exchange rate, or to just eat extra costs when suddenly 0.51btc goes from being worth $5 when the user pays to being worth $1 when they try to use it for anything else. Even with constantly updating prices, the shifting rates screwing them will still happen. The costs associated with even offering it as a payment type outweigh the actual revenue generated by an extreme order of magnitude, and even privacy/crypto oriented storefronts see something like under 1% of users using the option when it’s available.

    And that’s my understanding of the short version.

    There’s a big difference between “prioritizing short term profit” and “committing commercial/financial suicide to make a point”.

    Trainguyrom,

    Heck even friggin Musk stopped accepting crypto to buy Teslas!

    DragonOracleIX,

    Visa/MC make up most of their income. They were given the ultimatum of either banning a small group of games, or losing the ability to process payments almost entirely. Itch is not the problem here.

    Magical_Spark, do games w Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors
    @Magical_Spark@jlai.lu avatar

    Is there an alternative to those payment processors? I feel like using those are just not good if they go down that road.

    amino,

    not really. Russia made their own payment processor because of being kicked out from SWIFT but using their system would be immoral.

    it would be interesting if the EU makes their own payment processor.

    some people were peddling crypto as a way to regain autonomy but most consumers don’t have the skills to buy it using cash and sideline Visa/MasterCard. it’s also not as accessible to people without technical skills.

    4am,

    This is literally why crypto was invented, as another user put it, “before crypto bros turned it into a pump n dump scheme”

    amino,

    it’s always been a pump and dump scheme, as all black markets are

    duchess,

    There are Klarna, Paysafecard, Skrill, Sofort, SEPA direct debit and probably many more local services.

    amino, (edited )

    excluding SEPA, it’s impossible to buy most things using them in my EU country.

    SEPA also doesn’t have disposable credentials using randomized credit cards. i don’t want the stores I buy from to have my bank account info and potentially be charged by them randomly.

    deafboy,
    @deafboy@lemmy.world avatar

    SEPA payments are push. Not pull. A vendor could request recurring payments, but you have to specifically authorize them. They are very rarely used, except maybe for monthly utilitiy payments.

    amino,

    thanks for clarifying. there’s still the risk of your IBAN getting leaked in a hack, no?

    deafboy,
    @deafboy@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s not supposed to be a secret. Most companies here publish it on their invoices, so you can pay them. Some nonprofits even display it on their websites to accept donations.

    Even the some governments publish the treasury account numbers for anyone to see.

    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/c557a114-5a14-46da-bd3a-79cb6c74f6ba.png

    Gibibit, (edited ) do games w Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors
    @Gibibit@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s nice to see a more reasonable response in the comments on Fediverse. On the itch discussion board people are frothing at the mouth posting death threats and the like against itch staff.

    The anger is completely misdirected. I wouldn’t be surprised if they decide to just let itch drop dead after this abuse from two sides simultaneously. Mega corps and rights groups at one side, and their very own users on the other.

    Once this review is complete, we will introduce new compliance measures. For NSFW pages, this will include a new step where creators must confirm that their content is allowable under the policies of the respective payment processors linked to their account.

    Itch is even willing to go for partial filtering, what more do you want. The only thing that will please these people is when itch waves their magic wand and keeps everything as is. Like folks here have said, accepting crypto payments might help, but who knows how soon that is going to get regulated.

    TankovayaDiviziya,

    It’s nice to see a more reasonable response in the comments on Fediverse. On the itch discussion board people are frothing at the mouth posting death threats and the like against itch staff.

    Sounds like the bar is so low to be even comparing the two sites.

    hisao,

    Like folks here have said, accepting crypto payments might help, but who knows how soon that is going to get regulated.

    It’s kinda impossible to regulate technically. That’s the whole point of crypto. Or do you mean that the company itself might be legally prohibited to accept crypto by their local law? That’s possible I think. I guess we’re slowly but steadily approaching the demand to have actual darknet fully-crypto gaming platform operated by anonymous team.

    prole,

    It’s kinda impossible to regulate technically.

    No it’s not.

    hisao,

    Elaborate please.

    _cryptagion,

    They don’t need to, crypto is already heavily regulated. If you’ve been alive at all in the past decade, you know this.

    ipitco,

    Except Monero and a few exceptions, AML and KYC checks are everywhere. Tainted coins and shit.

    Crypto goes somewhere that they don’t like? Crypto is seized when it reaches an exchange and they ask for ID and source of funds

    hisao,

    Crypto goes somewhere that they don’t like? Crypto is seized when it reaches an exchange and they ask for ID and source of funds

    I don’t understand. Lets say I have a normal bank card, I paid taxes for all the money I got there. Sometimes I buy crypto using p2p on some platform using this card. I trade this crypto with some other crypto on the same platform. Periodically I send crypto to my personal wallet from there. From my personal wallet I buy porn games for example. At which point someone comes in and seizes anything?

    ipitco,

    They would not, but you would not be anonymous this way. You get problems when:

    • The crypto you received is through a shady source (it could be any individual which pays you with dirty coins)
    • You engaged in pro-privacy activity, which links you with illegal activity, like coin mixers to blur the origin and destination of crypto
    • You received more crypto than you bought

    As long as you stay with centralized exchanges and directly send crypto to some websites, you should in theory always be fine (as long as you don’t send them to criminal or pro-privacy services), but that’s not the original goal of crypto

    Apart from that, some countries straight up force you to declare every transaction you make with crypto, which isn’t doable for most people and puts them in illegality

    hisao,

    You don’t have to send crypto directly to websites. You can send it to your external wallet (outside of any platform), and spend from there. And no one’s ever going to be able to prove that wallet belongs to you.

    ipitco,

    It’s basically the same as directly sending

    The exchange will know what you spend crypto on

    hisao,

    No, they don’t know who that wallet belongs to and even though they may hypothesize its yours they don’t have any way to prove it. Moreover, anyone, including sellers can use unlimited amount of wallets and register them at rate 1000x faster than even the advanced CIA group would be able to tie even a single address to a particular person/company. So if Steam operated in crypto, it would take days/weeks of some of the most advanced feds in the world to try to prove that you bought something from Steam using your crypto. And they might even fail at that if you or Steam’s wallet are handled carefully, and they wouldn’t even know what exactly you bought.

    ipitco,

    Following crypto trails is easy when there’s only one destination…

    You’re putting too much trust in the system. If there’s a doubt you will be asked to clear it, they won’t do it for you

    hisao,

    Who is gonna ask? It is not your bank account, there are no rules where you send your crypto and you don’t have to explain to anyone. And there are no ways to enforce any of this. Also, a lot of crypto payment services and exchanges automatically generate unique intermediate wallets for every transaction. There is a technique to wallet management called “Hierarchical Deterministic Wallet (HD Wallet)” which seems to be golden standard nowadays, not only it makes it hard to compute your total balance, it also makes it easier to achieve “public address changes with every transaction”. So this is what most exchanges use for those intermediate addresses I assume.

    ipitco,

    Who is gonna ask?

    The exchange, the website… It happens frequently

    there are no rules where you send your crypto and you don’t have to explain to anyone

    AML and KYC procedures are a thing in crypto, just make a few searches

    hisao,

    AML and KYC

    Ofc KYC is everywhere. But that is only relevant to inputting fiat to crypto. Are there precedents of exchange asking its user about the address where he sent his crypto? Even then, what exactly happens if you answer them with whatever, like you donated to some guy, or it was a present? Regular money laws don’t apply to crypto -> crypto transfers, they are not subject to whatever taxes for presents, charity, etc, and even if they were, that wouldn’t be for the sending side.

    ipitco,

    Sure, what you said is true, but again, I’m talking about crypto -> fiat

    hisao,

    Well, I don’t really know what exactly they’re doing, but there are people like Elon Musk that probably have ways of converting cosmic volumes of crypto back and forth to/from fiat. I’d just assume that crypto -> fiat is more of a problem for individuals currently but huge businesses and corps can make it work in high volumes. So maybe Steam could make it work too for games. And then crypto becomes massively backed by games. And then maybe someone else big jumps in. And then someone smaller can also jump in, and then one day crypto might be backed by so many things that you don’t even need to leave ecosystem, because you can already buy pretty much anything there. But again, this is just assumption, I don’t know how exactly this should work. Perhaps big corps can register a crypto-branch of their business somewhere crypto-friendly.

    ipitco,

    Yea crypto -> fiat is easy for businesses that declare their income. It’s still a pain to do, but they’re used to having an entire service dedicated to that already

    A full crypto ecosystem is what crypto enthusiasts are wanting to achieve. It would be amazing.

    hisao,

    Also, do you realize that even if all exchanges are taken down, this doesn’t in any way harm crypto in general or any of your independent wallets? I mean, you should only look at exchanges as places to input and forex trade crypto, but you should always output it to your external wallets in the end for long-term storage. If some day some exchange suddenly asks any of its users to explain why they did send money to a certain address, that would be the death of this exchange. You don’t need to explain, it is not bank, there are no taxes to pay (you already paid all the taxes before you converted your money to crypto), there are no laws that could make this demand legal. Move to the next exchange.

    ipitco,

    If exchanges close, websites stop accepting them, and you can’t withdraw to fiat

    Regulation can easily kill most of the cryptocurrency market

    Trading on non CEX is a massive pain as well

    Storing for long time on cold wallets makes you vulnerable to volatility, which isn’t good for high amounts. It’s essentially investing on a high risk asset.

    hisao,

    If exchanges close, websites stop accepting them, and you can’t withdraw to fiat

    You can still trade with people directly on forums/chats, like before exchanges existed.

    Trading on non CEX is a massive pain as well

    Why?

    If exchanges close, websites stop accepting them, and you can’t withdraw to fiat

    Even in the worst case scenario there is a possibility of anonymous crypto-only exchanges on darknets.

    Storing for long time on cold wallets makes you vulnerable to volatility, which isn’t good for high amounts.

    Agree, long-term storage on external wallet isn’t a good suggestion.

    ipitco,

    True, but then crypto only becomes useful for illegal transactions which isn’t what we want

    prole,

    Nearly every cryptocurrency (aside from like Monero), is a literal open, transparent ledger that anyone can (and do) view and analyze.

    It’s not anonymous at all.

    hisao,

    Look, when you use some platform with KYC, they indeed can tie that id information you give them to your internal addresses you use on the same platform. But the moment you send it to your external wallet that link is lost. They can see the transaction but they don’t know and can’t check if that destination address belongs to you, or it’s a person who sold you something, or it’s your friend/relative, or someone you donated to, etc.

    prole,

    This is naive and incorrect. There is a reason why darknet markets these days only deal in Monero these days, for the most part.

    I’m not saying it’s trivial, but there are literally corporations dedicated to analyzing block chains for law enforcement. It’s an entire industry.

    protogen420,

    yes, even without KYC, one opsec fail and they can get quite a info on you, things like usage patterns and eventually potentially a profile, upon which will probablycreate a “credit score” of sorts and probably sell advertising data too because why not!?

    hisao,

    Okay, how exactly will this allow to ban selling legal porn games via blockchain? Because this is what is happening with payment processors.

    hisao,

    Then explain how exactly is this incorrect. If you buy and smuggle weapons for example, feds do undercover operation and pretend to sell guns, they set their own wallet, they track transactions, they co-operate with exchanges and have access to KYC data, they see you sent from exchange to wallet X, and then wallet X payed for weapons to their undercover wallet Y. What they achieve here is: they just see there is some chance that wallet X also belongs to you and maybe it’s you who are buying those weapons, but they can’t use this as proof of anything, what they can do is start spying on you from other vectors: your regular bank accounts, your social media, or even IRL to check if they can find any real evidence. That’s basically all. This is not at all a concern for people who don’t run international multibillion crime syndicates, etc. And also this all is extremely irrelevant to original topic. Because those games aren’t even illegal, it’s basically just a fkin preference of payment processors to demand Steam and Itch to take them down. If Steam operated in crypto, no amount of transaction tracking would make it possible to enforce something like this, because this is not law enforcement to begin with, it’s not illegal games and they are not taken down due to any legal concerns.

    seralth,

    deleted_by_author

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  • hisao,

    Crypto is great. As long as you stay within its ecosystem

    Making crypto backed by more and more things (like games) makes staying within its ecosystem more comfortable in the long run.

    Not to mention your still beholden to the traditional payment processors the moment you want to get your money out of crypto and back into an actual usable form.

    the moment you need to sit on the line where you’re transferring in and out real money to crypto crypto to real money on a small scale with frequent processes. You just end up right back where you started.

    Yeah, but there are already tons of widely-known legal services everybody uses like Coinbase, Binance, etc, which make it easy to P2P from card to crypto and it’s impossible to control money flows after it turns into crypto, which means controlling how people spend their money like this would be impossible. But yeah, regarding big players like Steam adopting crypto and converting into/from real money on large scale - and what payment processors can do about this if they are pissed off - this is something I have no idea about. But people like Elon Musk probably do this a lot with incredible volumes of money.

    acosmichippo,
    @acosmichippo@lemmy.world avatar

    Once this review is complete, we will introduce new compliance measures. For NSFW pages, this will include a new step where creators must confirm that their content is allowable under the policies of the respective payment processors linked to their account.

    kind of a clever way to say “hey don’t give us grief, if you want to change this go complain to visa and mastercard.”

    baatliwala, do games w Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors

    Woke liberals ruining America, nothing new

    Berin,
    @Berin@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    Collective Shout is run by christian fundamentalists

    chunes,

    The Q&A on their website makes them look like nonreligious feminists then? Where did you get that impression from?

    Berin,
    @Berin@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    According to this article by Rock Paper Shotgun, they have connections to known fundamentalist and conservative groups.

    baatliwala,

    My attempt to crack a shitty joke has backfired more than expected lol

    Berin,
    @Berin@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    kindly use /s next time please^^;

    Passerby6497,

    Conservative fundamentalists and blaming liberals for their own actions

    Name a better duo

    spankmonkey,
    @spankmonkey@lemmy.world avatar
    chunes, do games w Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors

    I never thought I would say this, but cryptocurrency might have a use after all.

    daniskarma,

    Buying drugs and gooner games. That’s the satoshi dream.

    Tanoh,

    This is exactly what it was designed to solve before cryptobros turned it into a pump and dump scheme.

    If you want to buy something from seller X that is between you and X and no one else. No goverment, payment processor or other third party can get a cut or stop it for any reason.

    azertyfun,

    So do regular fiat payment processors that are beholden to citizens and not faceless shareholders. Wero and Pix for instance.

    Democratic governments are supposed to safeguard your ability to exchange legal tender for legal goods and services. The fact that Visa/MC have a duopoly and a stranglehold on the entire online economy is a major governance failure that needs to be rectified ASAP.

    Crypto goes a lot further and says no-one, not even the government, should be able to prevent a transaction from taking place. Not necessarily an invalid idea but it does come with some huge unanswered challenges, such as “what happens when someone makes 1B€ through fraud and refuses to hand over the coins” and “how do we even prevent large-scale fraud in the first place”.

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