Gamers Bombard Visa & MasterCard With Emails and Calls Over Steam and itch.io Censorship

Lol I'm on the visa line with Visa now, they have a prepared statement about this.
They are trying to say they only ever block purchases unless it's illegal.
They explicitly said they DO NOT moderate purchases unless it is illegal multiple times. I kept challenging her and saying it's not illegal, yet they moderate, but she told me she can only read the prepared statement and repeated it multiple times. She then told me I would have to email them to "share my perspective" and then hung up on me.
- I love how facts are just rendered to perspectives now.
  
  It's a common tactic of fascists. If you point blank refuse to accept reality and just keep repeating the same lie over and over maybe people will believe it. Of course it doesn't really work. The people that were going to believe you already believe you, and the people who don't believe you, will never believe you. Sadly despite the fact that it doesn't work, they keep doing it.
  
  Corporations lie blatantly all the fucking time.
  Its just that they lie in ways that usually are not able to be legally defined as some kind of a legally actionable version of a lie.
  They are usually more worried with ever having outwardly admitting something that they could be sued over, than they are with any kind of human to human sense of accountability or believability.
  Every, single, thing they are mass releasing or designing as an official stance has gone through some kind of legal team, or a team under a legal team that follow's guidelines from a legal team.
  This is just how megacorps work.
  They are not people, they are a sociopathic machine, operated by people who very much tend to be sociopaths.
  
  That is true, these are perspectives. Nobody knows the truth, only a projection if it upon their world.
  It's just that by that they are claiming that it's their perspective which decides what will happen.
  In other words, they are saying "so whatcha gonna do".
  
  I could not have worded it any more succinctly. This is what capitalism + the internet has done to us.
- Good thing what they say doesn't matter, since goal is to tie up the lines.

I like the story but hate the fact it's all in separate tweets.
- They just wasted your time too with their strung out story. They're in too deep!
- Here's the summarized version:
  Be Polite.
  Act as if you only understand 'the effects', have a nebulous notion of 'the cause'.
  Act like you know little other than this, and insist they explain it to you like you are a five year old.
  Waste as much of their time as possible, without becoming hotheaded, instead become sad-confused.
  "I'm not so much angry, as I am disappointed" type of vibe / energy.
  And if possible, be genuinely kind to the low level, actual people you talk to, they literally do not make the rules.

If anyone has the GPUs to self-host LLMs to spam the shit out of them, it's gamers. Gotta get on an easy-to-self-host project to distribute to the community 😄
- you can probably use the tts tools from hume.ai
  
  I think the limiting factor would be getting your number blocked. Maybe someone could get a bunch of VoIP numbers?

I support this but I find it fascinating the steam this can build and quick activism with guides and yet I never see any of this stuff when it comes to political policies
- Threats to the bottom line is the thing that motivates companies faster than anything else.

Here's a list of MasterCard's toll-free phone numbers in various countries: https://www.mastercard.fi/content/dam/public/mastercardcom/na/global-site/documents/global-services-phone-numbers.pdf
And here's the same for Visa: https://www.visa.fi/content/dam/VCOM/download/personal/security/gcas_general_numbers.pdf
And the content of that file, in case that they might remove that link:
Mastercard Global Service™
Local Toll-Free Telephone Numbers
American Samoa 1-1-800-307-7309
Japan 00531-11-3886
Anguilla 1-800-307-7309
Korea, Republic of 0079-811-887-0823
Antigua and Barbuda 1-800-307-7309
Liechtenstein 0800-89-7092
Argentina 0800-555-0507
Luxembourg 800-2-4533
Australia 1800-120-113
Malaysia 1-800-804594
Austria 0800-07-06-138
Mexico 001-800-307-7309
Bahamas 1-800-307-7309
Monaco 0-800-90-1387
Bahrain 8000-0087
Montserrat 1-800-307-7309
Barbados 1-800-307-7309
Netherlands 0800-022-5821
Belgium 0800-1-5096
New Zealand 800-441-671
Bermuda 1-800-307-7309
Norway 800-12697
Bolivia 800-10-0172
Panama 001-800-307-7309
Bonaire 001-800-307-7309
Peru 0800-77-476
Brazil 0800-891-3294
Philippines 1-800-1-111-0061
Cambodia 800-881-001 then 877-288-3891*
Poland 0-0800-111-1211
Canada 1-800-307-7309
Portugal 800-8-11-272
Cayman Islands 1-800-307-7309
Puerto Rico 1-800-307-7309
Chile 1230-020-2012
The Russia 8-800-555-02-69
China 10-800-110-7309**
Saba 1-800-307-7309
China 2 10-800-711-7309***
St. Eustatius 1-800-307-7309
Colombia 01-800-912-1303
St. Maarten 1-800-307-7309
Costa Rica 0-800-011-0184
St. Kitts-Nevis 1-800-307-7309
Curacao 001-800-307-7309
Saipan (N. Marianas) 1-800-307-7309
Cyprus 080-90569
San Marino 800-870-866
Czech Republic 800-142-494
Saudi Arabia 800-844-9457
Denmark 8001-6098
Singapore 800-1100-113
Dominica 1-800-307-7309
South Africa 0800-990418
Dominican Republic 1-800-307-7309
Spain 900-822-756
Finland 08001-156234
Sweden 020-791-324
France 0-800-90-1387
Switzerland 0800-897-092
Germany 0800-071-3542
Taiwan 00801-10-3400
Greece 00-800-11-887-0303
Thailand 001-800-11-887-0663
Grenada 1-800-307-7309
Trinidad and Tobago 1-800-307-7309
Guam 1-800-307-7309
Turkey 00-800-13-887-0903
Guatemala 1-800-999-1480
Turks and Caicos 01-800-307-7309
Hong Kong 800-966677
United Arab Emirates 800-0444-3895
Hungary 06800-12517
United Kingdom 0800-96-4767
India 000-800-100-1087
United States 1-800-307-7309
Indonesia 001803-1-887-0623
Vatican City State 800-870-866
Ireland 1-800-55-7378
Venezuela 0800-1-002902
Israel 180-941-8873
Vietnam 120-11576
Italy 800-870-866
Virgin Islands, 1-800-307-7309
Jamaica 0800-307-7309
Virgin Islands, U.S. 1-800-307-7309
Last Updated 31 January 2019
The contents of the file for Visa's phone numbers:
Δ Await second dial tone
Anguilla 1-800-847-2911
Antigua 1-800-847-2911
Argentina 0800-666-0171
Aruba 800-1518
Australia 1-800-125-440
Austria 0 800-200-288Δ800-892-8134
Bahamas 1-800-847-2911
Bahrain 800-006
Barbados 1-800-847-2911
Belgium 0800-1-8397
Belize 811 or 555Δ800-847-2911
Bermuda 1-800-847-2911
Bolivia 800-10-0188
Bonaire* 001-800-847-2911
Brazil 0800-891-3680
British Virgin Islands 1-800-847-2911
Bulgaria 00-800-0010Δ888-557-4446
Cambodia 1-800-881-001Δ888-710-7783
Canada 1-800-847-2911
Cayman Islands 1-800-847-2911
Chile 1230-020-2136
Mainland China (South) 10-800-110-2911
Mainland China (North) 10-800-711-2911
Colombia 01-800-912-5713
Costa Rica 0-800-011-0030
Croatia 0-800-220-111Δ866-654-0125
Curacao* 001-800-847-2911
Czech Republic 800-142-121
Denmark 80-010277
Dominica 1-800-847-2911
Dominican Republic 1-800-847-2911
Ecuador 1-999-119 or 1-800-225-528Δ800-847-2911
Egypt (Cairo only) 2510-0200Δ866-654-0128
Egypt (outside Cairo) 02-2510-0200Δ866-654-0128
El Salvador 800-6921
Estonia 800-12001Δ800-406-9982
Finland 0800-11-0057
France 0800-90-1179
Germany 0800-000-6510
Gibraltar 8800-877-3745966
Greece 00-800-11-638-0304
Grenada 1-800-847-2911
Guam 1-800-847-2911
Guatemala 1-800-999-0115
Guyana 159Δ1-855-477-1390
Honduras 800-0123Δ800-847-2911
Hong Kong 800-96-7025
Hungary 06-800-17682
India 000-800-100-1219
Indonesia 001-803-1-933-6294
Ireland, Republic of 1-800-55-8002
Israel 1-80-941-1605
Italy 800-819-014
Jamaica 0-800-847-2911
Japan 00531-11-1555
Jordan 1-880-0000Δ888-557-4442
Kazakhstan 8 800-121-4321Δ888-557-4447
Kenya 866-654-0162
Latvia 8000-02288
Lebanon 01-426-801Δ866-654-0130
Liechtenstein 0800-89-4732
Luxembourg 0800-2012
Macedonia 0800-94288Δ888-557-4458
Malaysia 1800-80-0159
Mauritius 01-120Δ866-654-0165
Mexico 001-800-847-2911
Monaco 0800-90-1179
Montserrat 1-800-847-2911
Morocco 002-11-0011Δ866-654-0163
Netherlands 0800-022-3110
Nevis 1-800-847-2911
New Zealand 0800-44-3019
Norway 800-12052
Panama 001-800-111-0016
Paraguay 008-11-800Δ800-599-1137
Perú 001-800-890-0623
Philippines 1-800-1-111-9015
Poland 0-0-800-111-1569
Portugal 800-8-11-824
Puerto Rico 1-800-847-2911
Romania 0 808-03-4288Δ888-557-4416
Saba* 1-800-847-2911
Saint Eustatius* 1-800-847-2911
Saint Kitts 1-800-847-2911
Saint Lucia 800-238-5517
Saint Maarten* 1-800-847-2911
San Marino 800-819-014
Saudi Arabia 1-800-10Δ866-654-0129
Senegal 800-103-072Δ888-557-4451
Singapore 800-110-0344
Slovakia 0 800-000-101Δ800-406-9970
South Africa 0800-990-475
South Korea 00798-11-00-908-12
Spain 900-99-1124
Sweden 020 160 4293
Switzerland 0800-89-4732
Taiwan 00801-10-3008
Thailand 001-800-11-535-0660
Trinidad and Tobago 1-800-847-2911
Turkey 00-800-13-535-0900
Turks and Caicos 0-1-800-847-2911
Ukraine 800-502-886Δ888-557-4445
United Arab Emirates 8000-021Δ866-654-0112
United Kingdom 0800-89-1725
United States 1-800-847-2911
Uruguay 00-0411-940-7915
U.S. Virgin Islands 1-800-847-2911
Venezuela 0800-1-002167
Vietnam 1 201-0288Δ888-710-7781
Updated 1/10/2023
- Here's a listing of all of the visa corporate critters
  If you can get ahold of their contact info via LinkedIn or business listings, maybe try calling them directly for answers since their service desk can't seem to give us any.

is there any EU law that prohibits this itch/steam situation and the mastercard email contact information?
- No
- Would this not fall under collision?
  I guess in the UK, Competitive Markets Authority may be interested if all companies in a space are colluding preventing effective competition.
  Not sure if they have teeth though.

I just called visa and got the send an email spiel. I didn't have time to do more time wasting, but it's clear from the person I talked to they are getting lots of calls.
The person in the screenshots getting the supervisor and escalating is a top tier time waster, great work!

Now bombard senators and reps about Palestine, the global South, Africa, Asia, and domestically, rent caps, grocery caps, single payer, comprehensive health, living wages, safe working and living conditions, fossil fuels, climate extinction, taxing TF out of the ultrawealthy and mega corps, chemicals out of food, water, air...
- "What about" is a fantastic way to breed apathy when people are protesting something. You're doing nothing for any of those causes with this comment. You're making things worse for all of those causes, plus the one this post is about. And your comment only tangentially relates to the Community this post is in...
  
  But how can I be expected to sign the SKG petition, while people in West Sahara live under Morocco’s unjust occupation?
- Everyone has their path into activism and politicization. Last time this happened was when wikileaks got blocked by visa/mastercard, next time, with this experience it may be one of those causes.
  
  Yeah they're starting with something that hit close to home without feeling like they'll get disappeared or ignored.
  
  There's always a gap between "Someone should do something about this" and "I should do something about this".
  Once that line gets crossed, plans like OP's post start.
  
  Comparing blocking payment to wikileaks and blocking payment for porn video games is absurd. Is nuance dead?
- honestly there needs to be a git project that I can clone that uses a local LLM to auto call all of the senators, congressmen, reps, whoever. Also call all of the visa/mastercard callcenters non stop. And I mean non stop. Bonus points to use public figure voices. As in use AI to do our bidding.
  
  https://github.com/vndee/local-talking-llm
  Seems like it would be a good place to start. You'd need to write the bit in order to send the output to a voip service and receive the input from the same service.
  If you could get that going in a container you could spawn a bunch of them on VPSs (finding ones that have the hardware to run local AI would probably be expensive, probably better to use a hosting service if you're going to scale this).
  I'm sure there are more conversation agent frameworks that people have built (it's a pretty simple loop to create), but if you wanted to get started this isn't bad.
  
  It's already here, so...
- World peace, end hunger are not entertaining as "How to get an A from your professor - sorority/fraternity party edition" (coming to iOS and Android).
  You have underestimated the power of porn games.
  
  That's also why in the middle of the previous century propaganda was mostly aimed at women. That's killing two birds with one stone.
- Chemicals in food and water? You think you can live without chemicals?
  
  Mate, some of my relatives are made of chemicals
  
  Please. You should know what I mean.
- What do those have to do with my video games?? I just wanna ~~grill~~ game!
  
  Nice empathy.
- PS also Epstein files
  
  Definitely
- The person who made the image had a cause they cared about and did something about it. If you care about those causes you should absolutely do the same.
  Otherwise you just sound like you're lashing out at people who are doing something about something, while you are doing nothing about anything.
  By the way, how many of those causes have you called your representative about?
  
  I'm active in my community and I'm sure my congressional representatives wish I'd move, as the ones I had prior.
  It's odd how so many are quick to add their personal interpretations.
- Getting downvoted for wanting people to advocate for better living conditions, way to go .world!
  
  It's amazing that you posted this after having a fairly good explanation as to why it's not a good idea to conflate too many things together.
  If you string too many things to a cause you dilute all of them. Especially because MasterCard and Visa have nothing to do with what's happening in Palestine so linking the two causes together just weakens both of them.
  
  .world is full of children who dont understand time yet. They think everything is final, and you just need to judge a thing once. They compile lists of who is out and who is in, and make memes appropriately. They kick out anyone who doesnt fit their group.
  If someone can point out the difference between middle school and .world, I'd love to hear it because I can't think of one.
  
  Our priorities are showing.

Great

Time to cancel some cards

There has to be an option where digital payment is concerned that allows an intermediate step that anonymizes transactions so one hand doesn't know what the other is doing.
This bullshit really makes me not want to see digital currency at all now, of any kind.
- I just learned about one, because of all this. A newer one. Gnu Taler
  https://www.taler.net/en/index.html
  Also, crypto, technically. Its got a lot of baggage though, and hoops and all that.

Why are we not calling the CEOs and other MBA/c-suite goblins directly?

Maybe you should call and stop pay with their services
- And what do you recommend paying with instead?
  
  For EU Wero

Wow. Imagine being able to buy a video game online with a credit card, without having to drive to the department store to buy it! You don't even have to move from your seat! How draconian THAT would be!
- Who has complained about that?

Couldn't you just buy it on GOG or something? Steam sucks anyway why expend the effort
- Talk about completely missing the point. Money processors have no business telling us what we can buy or where.
  
  Pretty wild how they can literally gatekeep a digital entity.
  Maybe they'll demonetize Amazon next..
- You've missed the point entirely.
  
  Please enlighten me.
- They will go to gog next, genius, they also sell adult games since last year.
- Hey now, why stop these people FROM CHANGING THE WORLD?! The stakes are too high gramps!
  
  You are right, let's all do absolutely nothing when corporations inch themselves into controlling every aspect of our lives.
  
  Nothing like a gaming platform that won't let you refund your purchases after 2 hours of playtime.

It’s impressive how much people get riled up about not getting porn. I don’t blame them but I also don’t see this as activism, I doubt anyone really spending the time on this cares about possible future censorship that others who are not them may face, they just want to buy their porn.
- This is not about the porn. If you think about it for more than 3 seconds it becomes obvious how this is about the power finance institutions have over morals and society and how religious groups leverage moral panics as a way to weasel in harm and destroy minorities by associating immorality with marginalized groups. Just like pro-life anti choice has nothing to do with saving children, but is about hurting women and controlling their uteruses. Terfism has nothing to do with feminism but is about hurting trans people. Drug wars weren't about protecting the youth but about destroying the rights of Hispanic and black communities. And a long list of etcéteras.
  This is about defending fundamental rights that will get trampled under the guise of moral and religious righteousness. It's about power and control. Porn is just the scapegoat. Several LGBTQ+ games were also hit, many which didn't even have anything to do with sex, just because of this incident. That's how it begins and it was completely intentional, the cruelty is the point.
  
  I just sum it up to a failure of capitalism . The fact that two companies have so much power over this without having to pass any laws or legislation is really the worrying part. I just hope people continue to fight even after this one thing is resolved. Otherwise it will happen again because that’s how capitalism works
  
  If these games are so important the devs can release them free somewhere else. Steam and itch aren't the only place to find games, and sounds like there's room for a new market just for these games if they are as popular as it seems.
- I don't want Christians dictating what I can and cannot do.
- UK would like to disagree.
  France would like to disagree.
- they will go for games that have violence, horror and dark humor next.
- This isn't about porn games. They removed Detroit: Become Human.
  If you think this will stop at porn games, then you're a fool.
  
  On steam? https://store.steampowered.com/app/1222140/Detroit_Become_Human/
- oh I see so you've decided what's going on and are now angry about that.
  I'm sorry that your story version of me is letting you down. I'm not really sure what I can do about it though.
- First they came for the porn...
  
  Ya I feel really conflicted about it but I do think the outcome in the long run is good.
- How about reading a bit instead of thinking you have it all figured out?
- ~~I've never bought a porn game nor ever played one, but I just think it's stupid that such large companies fold to a lobby organization and start moderating the sale of products.~~ Christian fundamentalist activists are persistent and organized, and it's effective. I think it's bad how a small minority is able to dictate the lives of other people and I like how people get riled up because I hope it will remind the people in charge of those large corporations that catering to extremists is a bad decision.
  ~~TLDR: Idgaf about the games, I just hate it when religious zealots dictate the lives of others.~~
  EDIT: I might have been wrong about "Collective Shout" and didn't look into it enough before forming an opinion.
  EDIT 2: Yeah, I don't think "Incest Daughters BDSM" deserves saving. They seem to be primarily targeting rape and incest games, and I can definitely understand that you want to see rape games gone from if you're an organisation like this. Article However, I still don't know how accurate their own article is, I might check out more sources/perspectives when I have time.
  EDIT 3: My initial assessment seems to be correct, a large amount of games are affected and the “policies” seem to be enforced with a disregard for accuracy. The organization also seems to be more extreme.
  
  How about Detroit: Become Human? Because they removed that as well.
  
  There's a solid argument that most of the porn games are some form of sexual abuse. You could argue that adults should be allowed to commit fake sexual abuse but its still likely not a positive for those who consume it.
  Its interesting noone here has argued for porn games, just against censorship.

Imagine if they cared this much about the Epstein files…
- Protesting against christofascists in the government isn't mutually exclusive with protesting a christofascist censorship organization. You can protest two things at once, you know.
- Because Visa and MasterCard might actually change their minds. They are a business and they don't want this shit if it becomes more annoying to deal with gamers than it is to deal with random whiny Australians they'll reverse their decision.
  Trump on the other hand is made of his mind and that's the end of it. Obviously you should still continue to complain because it's hilarious how upset he gets about it, but that list is never seeing the light of day until he's out of office, one way or another.
  
  I'd just like to point out that you seem opposed to activists bombarding a company to change its policy, but are fighting this by gathering activists to bombard a company to change its policy.
  What's changing here?
- Well considering GOP reps are getting 500:1 call ratio on the Epstein files people DO care this much.
  It’s possible to care about multiple things at once.
  
  People care far more about the epstein files, its absurd to compare the two.