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.
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.
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 I am going to stop using Mastercard if this isn’t rescinded and fixed."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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
So how do we go about suing these guys? They’re erasing art. And no, I’m not just some gooner who wants more jackoff material, Itch apparently removed anything with nudity in it.
I am a guy who wants more jackoff material, and I am an adult, and I am allowed to have sources for that material that is not some piecemeal ad hoc storefront where I subscribe to individual developers who drip feed content as it gets developed.
I am all for supporting artists and have subscribed to a few Patreons when my wallet allows, but I like having a place where I can play some demos or games that an artist puts up for free because why not? I am so sick of storefronts being targeted like this. All of the porn on Steam is behind an age gate, and sure, Itch could use such a gate, but it doesn’t need to delist an entire form of art.
Since our launch in 2010, we have achieved many wins: billboards objectifying women pulled down, sexualised childrens clothing withdrawn from sale, sexually violent games banned, Andrew Tate’s pimping courses removed from Spotify, and an age verification trial underway to help protect kids from exposure to porn. Last year saw a record 34 wins.
On one hand, they help tighten the grip of economic fascism, on the other hand they also piss off Tate… #confusedboner
How’s this confusing? They’re a Puritanical group. They do Puritanical things. They want people to live a Puritanical life. Literally nothing deep about it.
They are a dangerous cult fueled by a ton of repressed feelings. But so is Tate! If they wanted to fight each other for a while that would be pretty sweet.
These are the sort of people who actually ban Christmas. And that’s what scares me. They can’t tell the difference between cheeky yet harmless fun, basic human variation, and evil, and they will make that your problem it they get enough power
While both men and women can be sexualised, it is primarily women who are being objectified, and women who are far more likely to be negatively impacted by it as demonstrated earlier.
When men are sexualised in media and advertising, they are not typically demeaned, portrayed as decorative objects or posed as vulnerable and submissive in the ways that women are. Men are also rarely dismembered and presented as a collection of sexualised or individual body parts. Instead, men are depicted as hyper-masculine and strong. The sexualising and objectifying treatment of men may serve to enhance their power and status rather than to reduce it.
Having said that, we do not support ‘equal opportunity’ objectification. We encourage individuals to speak out against objectification including when men and boys are subjected to it.
I kept wondering why their focus was only on “girls, girls, girls” all over the place and everything was pink.
So media involving the dehumanization of men is totally cool with them. A game about raping men would be totally fine and no issues there because it’s not “typical”. Just don’t do anything to the girlys.
As if the sexualization of men doesn’t have a negative impact on men as a whole…telling men that the only way to be sexy is to be masculine and strong isn’t at all damaging to them? How does that make any bit of fucking sense? Not all men can live up to those unrealistic depictions with a 6 pack and big muscles nor should all men aspire to be that.
The thing is, I actually appreciate the idea of “de-objectifying” people in terms of fictional design; but I want that to be encouraged as part of the creative expression. A sexy female character with an identity and story behind her is a lot more fun to me than one just created to have big boobs. Heck, those same design principles can help design sexy men that appeal to female/gay groups.
But needless to say, forcing those views as part of these acts isn’t helping anyone. It’s just exerting forceful control, and we know how well that works for art.
This is becoming the norm. Don’t think there can be some new payment processor based off traditional finance and banking that can get around this. Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Square, SEPA, FedNow, etc will all rather block transactions to companies that deal in NSFW or whatever is considered dangerous content than try and be some neutral payment rail.
Any in terms of cryptocurrency, any stablecoin will end up subject to the same problems where the issued stablecoin is backed by a governments currency or bonds or even like corporate bonds which are regulated by countries and those are all clear ways to regulate what is appropriate for spending money on. Stablecoins have freeze and clawback mechanisms, at least the ones that are legally compliant. Really to me the only solution is for non-stablecoin/gold/etc backed cryptocurrencies to become popular for payments
It’s gonna be a hard push for a lot of these companies to stop accepting transactions for NSFW stuff unless they can prove it’s harmful or they get legal repercussions because it’s a big part of business. In an economy where “year over year growth” is such a big deal, neutering transactions that account for (guessing generously) 7% of your revenue is a hard pill to swallow without serious force.
We already have the example of now itch and steam getting hit by payment processor restricted on content. YouTube and advertisers wanting to not be shown on categories of content and demonetized channels. I remember headlines about Pixiv and payment processors some time ago
Lose access to the major payment processors and they’ll lose far more than 7%. Until there’s a means of payment thats popular enough to replace centralized authority payment processing, it’s an easy choice for businesses to sacrifice their sex related sales to not sacrifice the larger portion of their sales that they’d lose without support of major payment processors.
The way things are going, there’s going to be the need for popular NSFW specific stores that don’t use Visa/Mastercard, private bank transfers, or national bank transfers. There’s a split in internet video where porn sites are separate from stuff like YouTube. This payment processor content moderation is in the same vein as advertisers on YouTube and other social media networks
Oh for sure, the sites are getting in trouble. But that’s because advertisers don’t want to be associated with those things.
But the payment processors, that’s literally how they make money. Can’t make money off the top if there are no transactions. Banks will still let you deposit your money if you get it from a drug deal, bit of a don’t ask don’t tell there, but it’s the government that has problems with how you got it. (hyperbole but you get my point)
I still think separating from credit card co.'s is a good idea regardless. But its pretty rare for them to turn down transactions unless they have to.
Hell Cashapp is jokingly called the “drug dealer financing app” but you don’t see them getting shut down any time soon.
Meanwhile, on my feed there’s a post directly below this one about a compiler that will give you BSDM messages for good and bad coding and can even be hooked up to a remote butt plug to pleasure you when you compile a successful program.
itch.io
Najstarsze