Steam is cracking down on porn games, to keep Payment Processors happy.
Steam is cracking down on porn games, to keep Payment Processors happy.
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285 comments
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On the one hand, oh noz, the incest games. Who will live without the low effort AI goon crap?
On the other hand, why do the payment companies get to dictate what sales are made? It's my fucking money, or my fucking store. It's not the job of the payment processors to determine if I'm buying illegal goods, just that the money goes from me to the store.
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It's been like this for a while in the porn industry. In an interview a while back, Bree Mills says she gets more limited by payment processors than the government (though that might be switching).
Ever wonder why every faux-incest video goes out of the way to say everyone is a step family? Step father, step daughter, step mother, step brother, all somehow living in the same house, over 18, and no blood relation? The first amendment protects them from the US government, so that's not why. Credit card companies are why. The old Taboo series was distributed differently back in the day. Can't make that anymore.
This also applies to some of the more extreme BDSM stuff, like blood play or scat. Won't find them on kink.com.
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Yeah, processors and web hosts both play a huge role in policing content. The beasiality and lolicon websites haven't been disappearing for the last 15 years because moral awakening. It's been the web hosts shutting down websites because they violate some local law and it interfered with there profits.
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Well in germany doing porn that implies incest or csam even if the actors are not related or over 18 can still get you jail time
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CSAM sure, but is incest porn really mentioned in the StGB? There's 173 StGB, but that is for the actual act and not pretending.
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Well after a bit of research it seems i was wrong with incest porn. Even the act is not punishable as long as it is not vaginal sex
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I was surprised to see that you are correct. 173 StGB only mentions "Beischlaf" and that is indeed only vaginal intercourse. You learn something new every day.
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Sup babe, wanna netflix and Beischlaf?
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The payments can become a legal liability for the processors. I believe there are federal laws that have penalties for anyone who facilitates transactions for certain prohibited goods or services. It's the same reason cannabis shops have such a hard time getting payment and banking services.
The payment processors have very little incentive to take risks here. As others have noted, there isn't much competition pressure.
EDIT: I went to find a source, and found the cannabis analogy isn't right. Seems that Visa and MasterCard really are the primary censors of the porn industry. This archived FT article went in depth. https://archive.ph/zXKuD
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It's not even legal risk. It's brand risk.
There's a difference with cannabis shops because that's actually still federally illegal. As such, the required business accounts and tax documents required to use a national payment processor are often not forthcoming. It's a low level regulation that you can't generally tell a federal bank you'd like an account to store the proceeds of a federal crime.
With porn, the legal standards and protections are pretty well established. As long as the company is in possession of the required tax documents and business accounts, there's no legal risk beyond the standard due diligence they need to do for every customer. Visa isn't generally liable if a tire shop is discovered to be breaking a non-financial law. What processors don't want is to have their brand attached to something that they worry could make them look bad.
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Not really. In the US, the first amendment protects a lot. Just like with YouTube censorship, capitalism has created a more restrictive regime through financial pressure than the government does. This has affected the porn industry, as well (see another comment in this subthread on that).
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They are just testing their power, make you get used to it. Someday they will make pressure for some ideology. Whenever there's a morality argument in place prepare to get fucked.
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As a form of protest, we should all start scooping up incest porn games.
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Found Jamie Lannister's account.
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I mean isn’t this effectively the problem bitcoin aimed to solve originally? Don’t get me wrong, crypto is fucked and I’m not advocating for it here per se. But a locally processed, secure, digital version of cash bypasses the need for any of this. Granted it bypasses the need for some of the most powerful institutions on the planet too, and so will never happen in a truly egalitarian sense.
Also just cause it’s bugging me, you understand that a credit card, or even a debit card or PayPal/venmo account, does not equate to ‘your money’ the way physical cash does, right?
Im not saying you shouldn’t have the right to privacy when making a purchase. But mandating the processors of that purchase ignore what that money is doing is a fools errand as that’s basically a core mechanism in their operation and generation of profit.
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I'm in a similar boat. I actively dislike incest/fauxcest porn and porn games. I don't find it "naughty taboo" but gross and often fetishizing straight-up abuse. I'm not sad to see such games and videos, that I can never quite filter out because they are never consistently tagged, go. I am worried that they will try pulling the same shit as Tumblr and OF.
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Why shouldn't the payment processors get a say in the payments they process? Illegal or not, why should they be forced to process payments that facilitate things against their beliefs?
Steam could pursue other payment processing possibilities instead of acquiescing to their demands.
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Steam could pursue other payment processing possibilities
Imagine you can't use visa or mastercard. What other fucking payment card acceptance system are you going to use for payment processing in under 30 seconds?
Why shouldn’t the payment processors get a say in the payments they process
Because it's none of their business what I buy. If a store is a reputable business that isn't defrauding me, and are a legal entity, then whatever they sell to me or I buy from them should only matter to me and the seller.
Illegal or not, why should they be forced to process payments that facilitate things against their beliefs?
So half the market can get nuked once the CEO decides whatever faith du jour they have disallows whatever?
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Imagine you can't use visa or mastercard. What other fucking payment card acceptance system are you going to use for payment processing in under 30 seconds?
This is one of the few places where I think cryptocurrency could be useful. It ain't much, but there it is.
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Incorrect! Bitcoin transactions take 10 FUCKING MINUTES.
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There are countless other cryptocurrencies than Bitcoin
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And literally not a single one of them is useful for the purpose of quick, efficient, and secure transactions.
Blockchains are slow and inefficient by design, since they need to build consensus. On any sufficiently popular blockchain, transactions are either fast or secure, never both.
The "fix" that the crypto industry has come up with is to re-invent banks, except with even more crime and virtually no regulations. Now you're just entrusting FTX with your coins to enjoy "immediate" transfers, how could that possibly go wrong?
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getmonero.org 1 minute average confirmation time, private by default. Eth average confirmation time is 6 seconds and right now it's doing 16 transactions per second, not counting L2s. Blockchains are way more secure than a centralized database controlled by a financial institution that can freeze or deny you the right to use your money or fat-finger your life savings away with no recourse.
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16 transactions per second
Please, that's nothing. In a mass adoption scenario, the whole thing would either crumble or eat a significant portion of the world's electric production.
I won't have an argument about the futility of the whole decentralization endeavor and how it fails to meaningfully address any of the very real concerns that central banking has addressed over the centuries. History has already proven all of you fools.
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It's 16 tps right now because that's the current demand, highest tps recorded was 57, not counting L2s which are doing 430 tps right now (stats) and can handle way more, for example the biggest one called base can handle 1400 tps alone and the next major eth upgrade is targeting 100000 tps capability.
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The costs are much worse than the time imo.
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How many fingering minutes is that?
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Bitcoin has lightning or you could use a chain with faster blocks.
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Lightning Labs launched the Lightning Network in 2018 with the goal of reducing the cost and time required for cryptocurrency transaction. Specifically, the bitcoin blockchain can only process around 7 transactions per second (compared to Visa Inc., which can process around 24,000 transactions per second). Despite initial enthusiasm for the Lightning Network, reports on social media of failed transactions, security vulnerabilities, and over-complication lead to a decline in interest.
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I'm not really that familiar with LN, to be honest. It looks like there's almost $500 million in the network available for transactions (source), and according to this report, there were about 6.6 million transactions in August of 2023.
Not MasterCard or Visa levels, for sure, but also not a 10 minute wait for a transaction to complete either.
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Imagine you can't use visa or mastercard. What other fucking payment card acceptance system are you going to use for payment processing in under 30 seconds?
Amex. Discover. Diners Club. Venmo.
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and will they accept me selling incredibly controversial pervert games that disgust even the most perverse?
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I don't know. Visa and MasterCard did for 20 years, so maybe. I don't really care either way. I'm not going to judge people who play "Interactive Sex - Daddy Daughter Incest Volume 4" but I'm not going to go to bat for them either. I can think of way better hills to die on.
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sure, we're both on the same page, but pointing out non-alternative alternatives isn't exactly a contribution to a discussion.
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I feel it was a good answer to the question posed
Imagine you can't use visa or mastercard. What other fucking payment card acceptance system are you going to use for payment processing in under 30 seconds?
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Ok, and you forgot cash. That can be used to process payment too if you think about it.
Just not an appropriate solution for this context though, is it?
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Considering your question was about a "payment card acceptance system" "for payment processing in under 30 seconds", no, cash is not an appropriate answer to your very specific question.
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These payment processors are businesses. They provide a service. Like valve does. It seems to me like you're making an argument for valve, but not for these other businesses which only differ in the service they provide.
If your point is "our society is too dependant on a small selection of payment processors and we need better options," that's a separate discussion and one I don't think I'd disagree with.
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Yes, Valve and Visa/MasterCard differ massively in their service. Valve operates a store within a specific industry, Visa/MasterCard process payments across our whole society.
It should be clear to anyone that payment providers must be held to a much stricter standard and have certain requirements of neutrality imposed on them. If not then in the best case you risk destroying the "free market" part of free market capitalism, worst case you're weakening democracy by letting unelected, unaccountable people decide what is and what isn't legal.
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There's also no choice. Which payment processor and credit card do I choose so that I can buy any legal pornography I want? How do you even get a card that's not.visa or MasterCard for.l general use? I've only ever had one of those
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Well I find it a bit ironic to invoke the "free market" while simultaneously asserting they should not be free to choose who they go to market with. Isn't the point of the "free market" that if Visa or Mastercard won't facilitate the needs of the market, someone else will?
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Payment processors should be following the most free speech laws there are, because they have de facto monopolies. If they do have a choice though, if they don’t want to support porn, then they could choose not to be a payment processor.
Ideally they should be nationalised, or perhaps internationalised.
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Well I think bottom line is that's the rub, the burden to become a payment provider is high... which it should be, but that's because we need pretty damn good regulations on them (as obviously if their security goes to crap, the consiquences are insanely high).
In addition it kind of is a small group by design because, we can't have it as a large group. If we have a nice even spread across 50 payment processors, then either everyone needs 50 credit cards, or every service that needs to be paid needs contracts with 50 payment services.
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Because they're a financial institution, not an individual. They don't have beliefs.
Arguing that corporate "beliefs" (image management) and interests take priority over societal order is ridiculous.
We regulate banks and financial institutions all the time. We regulate businesses all the time.
They should suck it up and treat businesses with legal activities and proper tax documents as just another business. Kinda like how we have laws that say that public shipping companies need to generally treat all customers the same. It's why they don't typically ask what's in the box aside from questions related to operational characteristics. Porn doesn't spontaneously ignite and threaten an aircraft, but lithium batteries can.
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Arguing that corporate "beliefs" (image management) and interests take priority over societal order is ridiculous.
Good thing I'm not arguing that.
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why should they be forced to process payments that facilitate things against their beliefs?
You'll excuse me for thinking this means you think corporate beliefs are more important than the social benefits of neutral financial institutions.
To answer your question again without assuming anything about your opinion: they should be forced to process payments because they don't have beliefs, it's better for society if financial institutions only look at the business relevant portions of a business, and a legal obligation is perfectly sufficient to protect their business interests in reputation management. All the same reasons we don't let shipping companies refuse customers for morality reasons.
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financial institutions are just like any other company, the only issue the feds try to protect them
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What if these payment processors have decided it's bad business for them to process payments for incest porn games?
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🙄 On what grounds would doing so operationally impair the platform? Is it illegal? Does it prevent them from servicing other businesses in a timely fashion? Does it cost more money in a way that can't be reflected in the service fee structure?
Explain to me what reason they would have for objecting that isn't just a different way of phrasing "morality judgment" or "image management".Do you also think that a shipping company should be able to refuse to ship products from businesses they don't approve of, even if it's functionally identical to something else they would ship?
What about either of those companies refusing service to someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity?People used to say it's bad business to service gays, blacks, Jews, Catholics, Hispanics and the Irish. At some point we decided that businesses need to shut the fuck up and just do business without judging, or else their service has no place in society.
The free market that businesses love so much exists entirely through the grace and in the service of society at large. If they fail to at least not harm society, why should society extend that courtesy to them?-
shipping company should be able to refuse to ship products from businesses they don’t approve of
Sure, I don't have a problem with that. I would use another shipping company.
What about either of those companies refusing service to someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity?
That is not remotely the same thing and a gross false equivalence.
We're talking about platforming incest hentai games and you're making a comparison to serving Black and queer people. I don't think we're going to see eye to eye on this, have a good one.
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No, it's similar because it's a business making a value judgement instead of a business judgement. It would be different if your exact argument hadn't been used against those groups in the past.
I doubt we'll see eye to eye as well. I'm not okay with discrimination and I don't think the beliefs of corporations matter, even when they're being judgey about sex stuff I don't understand.
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If you seriously don't understand how often queer content is falsely linked to sexual depravity in order to censor it, please take a closer look at the rhetoric of the far-right in the United States and U.K. It is absolutely not a false equivalence, it is a very serious threat that other queer game developers are now very concerned about.
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Because corporate religions are obviously more important than individual religions and beliefs. It goes against my beliefs to pay overdraft fees. Do you think that shit would hold up? They are constantly changing the rules that you have to follow and enforcing their will on everyone whether they use their service or not.
Religion is vile.
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I'm genuinely confused about what point you are trying to make.
Edited to add, why doesn't someone who understands the point better than I do try to elucidate? Instead of just downvoting me for stating that I didn't understand. Like what does corporate religion mean? I'm so confused.
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The banks have their own "ethical code" or "operating principle"' which invariably are just carbon copies of the board of directors or owners religious disposition. So you get shit where capitalism is enforcing the morals of a deeply depraved peoples onto the entirety of the country and world.
I know incest is gross. But it doesn't hurt anyone. And for them to come in and say "spending money on that filthy sin is ILLEGAL!!!" because they control the only methods by which that content can be accessed, is literally corporate fascism. It's "rule by corporation" not cooperation as a democracy should be.
The very idea that ANYONE who supports a free state would support those who control the most wealth also controlling ALL OTHER WEALTH ON THE PLANET by virtue of limiting what it may be spent on, is so egregiously, heinously evil that I wish to personally skull fuck anyone who espouses it.
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Because it’s not their fucking money! If someone is selling a thing, offers to sell it to me for money, and I give them money, I get the fucking thing! The processors can fuck right off with their Victorian bullshit.
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Things of questionable moral value have been available for sale for as long as money has existed. It’s not like this is new. Payment processors got into this business knowing perfectly well that some purchases may not align with their moral values. In fact, they’ve been profiting off it for decades. They don’t get to suddenly clutch their pearls now.
To be clear, I won’t miss the incest games. I just don’t like the precedent this is setting.
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Processors don't even deserve the right to even learn what morals even are. They are business entities, and shouldn't have any rights at all, honestly. They're just there to move money and shouldn't get any say at all in what that means. None.
Honestly, (to your last point) fuck anyone who is into that shit in any kind of practical way.(if they wanna goon about it, that's another discussion. But even with adding "step", it's kinda close to that vanta black color on the sunniest day.
But if having erotic software keeps them out of their siblings and parents and kids' beds, then more power to em.
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Why shouldn’t the payment processors get a say in the payments they process? Illegal or not, why should they be forced to process payments that facilitate things against their beliefs?
Because they hold an effective monopoly over the payment process.
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But they don't hold a monopoly. And at least for now, they are private businesses. If your argument is that they should be nationalized, that's a different conversation and I think we'd agree on more.
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In a world without regulation etc... maybe. Bottom line we've given payment processors power. Bottom line we need to buy things in the digital world, unless crypto can actually be stabilized or designed in a way that doesn't require an unsustainable massive energy waste and polution to use.
There either needs to be a universal good as cash payment processor that anyone can easily use... or we need to force ones that exist to transfer payments without bias.
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Because I'm not a right-libertarian who ignores how corporations setup coercive structures all their own in a perversion of free association.
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Because they're functionally a utility. If they want to throw their weight around they should be forced to compete with a public option
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Steam could pursue other payment processing possibilities instead of acquiescing to their demands.
why is valve obligated to serve up this garbage? simply not being party to it is the best answer.
still nothing explaining why valve should be serving up this garbage. just downvotes. weak.
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If you mean the games in question, well they aren't obligated and they've clearly chosen they don't care to bother anymore.
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