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Wow, main stream society doesn't want to associate with a company that harbors extremists. I'm shocked. So many commenters on this are jumping to a slippery sl

by chomp 8y ago

Wow, main stream society doesn't want to associate with a company that harbors extremists. I'm shocked. So many commenters on this are jumping to a slippery slope fallacy as if Stripe has any moral imperative to uphold free speech. They are a private company and have their own reasons to disassociate from any client they wish. That is their prerogative, and as long as they are not discriminating against anything that is a federally protected class (and last I checked, hosting porn is not federally protected) they can cut off services to anyone.

pranks 8y ago
Except that stripe is citing that Gab is hosting pornography as their reason.... which doesn’t make sense. OnlyFans (dot) com is a website that allows porn stars to sell their own membership based porn service... OnlyFans uses Stripe as their payment processor. That is hypocritical that Stripe processes one of the biggest porn websites yet
- kevinr 8y ago
  > If you are looking to subscribe to other profiles you will need to add a payment card. When adding a payment card, your card information is stored by a payment processor, which is called Stripe; or if you are subscribing to a profile containing sexually explicit content, your card information is stored by a different payment processor, Securion Pay. https://onlyfans.com/terms/ https://onlyfans.com/terms/
willpiers 8y ago
there are extremists and pornographers all over other sites that use stripe. the "private company" argument doesn't apply super well when there are only a handful of options and they all have the same political ideology.
- creaghpatr 8y ago
  Does Stripe know that one of their flagship clients listed on their site (Pinterest) hosts NSFW content? https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/course-theres-porn-pinterest/329954/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/cours...
  - kevinr 8y ago
    Try following any of those links now, you fucking tease
    - pranks 8y ago
      Yeah I’m sure there is no porn whatsoever on Pinterest now right ? You’re naive if you believe that.
      - kevinr 8y ago
        Start a nudes pinterest. Lmk how it goes
  - chomp 8y ago
    Literally from Pinterest's Community Guidelines: "We always remove images of explicit sexual activity or fetishes, and nude or partially nude people in sexually suggestive poses." Does GabTV have anything like this in their terms of service? Answer: No. They signed up with Stripe, agreed to the ToS, and now are generating moral outrage when Stripe comes knocking.
    - thrower123 8y ago
      Then Pinterest is doing an absolute shit job of enforcing their own rules, I suppose.
stale2002 8y ago
> They are a private company and have their own reasons to disassociate from any client they wish. This is a true fact. But it is completely unrelated to your previous point, about slippery slopes. This very much does seem to be a slope that is quite slippery. Yes, a couple psuedo oligopoly payments processors could indeed collude together, and ban whatever the controversial thing of the day is. This would be perfectly legal and the fact that it is perfectly legal and easy says something about our society. It says that the metaphor of a slippery slope where more and more people get censored, because they were on the wrong side of a corporation, is an accurate analogy.
- chomp 8y ago
  Okay I think we all agree that a dystopian future where a cabal of payment processors squelches any dissenting opinions is bad in many ways. But that's not what's happening here. Stripe has a very specific rule that gab.ai agreed to when they signed up. That is, no porn. Every company that uses Stripe that I've found includes some blurb in their ToS referencing "No Porn Allowed." I've also found it very difficult to find porn on these platforms using some generic search terms. Of course gab.ai wouldn't want to do include this in their ToS, since they bill themselves as "champions free speech, [and] individual liberty". So now when Stripe comes to their front door asking about that thing they agreed to, now they are whipping up everyone into a moral outrage of "we are losing our free speech!" Don't fall for it. Yes, those who control the purse strings control the speech, and yes payment processors who allow porn are very very limited and outrageously expensive. But from my experience in webhosting, this is very much tied to the fraud associated with the domain. If they don't like it, they can integrate with a payment gateway and merchant account themselves instead of using a full stack payment processor.

by chomp 8y ago

pranks 8y ago

Except that stripe is citing that Gab is hosting pornography as their reason.... which doesn’t make sense. OnlyFans (dot) com is a website that allows porn stars to sell their own membership based porn service... OnlyFans uses Stripe as their payment processor. That is hypocritical that Stripe processes one of the biggest porn websites yet

kevinr 8y ago
> If you are looking to subscribe to other profiles you will need to add a payment card. When adding a payment card, your card information is stored by a payment processor, which is called Stripe; or if you are subscribing to a profile containing sexually explicit content, your card information is stored by a different payment processor, Securion Pay. https://onlyfans.com/terms/ https://onlyfans.com/terms/

willpiers 8y ago

there are extremists and pornographers all over other sites that use stripe. the "private company" argument doesn't apply super well when there are only a handful of options and they all have the same political ideology.

creaghpatr 8y ago
Does Stripe know that one of their flagship clients listed on their site (Pinterest) hosts NSFW content? https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/course-theres-porn-pinterest/329954/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/cours...
- kevinr 8y ago
  Try following any of those links now, you fucking tease
  - pranks 8y ago
    Yeah I’m sure there is no porn whatsoever on Pinterest now right ? You’re naive if you believe that.
    - kevinr 8y ago
      Start a nudes pinterest. Lmk how it goes
- chomp 8y ago
  Literally from Pinterest's Community Guidelines: "We always remove images of explicit sexual activity or fetishes, and nude or partially nude people in sexually suggestive poses." Does GabTV have anything like this in their terms of service? Answer: No. They signed up with Stripe, agreed to the ToS, and now are generating moral outrage when Stripe comes knocking.
  - thrower123 8y ago
    Then Pinterest is doing an absolute shit job of enforcing their own rules, I suppose.

stale2002 8y ago

> They are a private company and have their own reasons to disassociate from any client they wish. This is a true fact. But it is completely unrelated to your previous point, about slippery slopes. This very much does seem to be a slope that is quite slippery. Yes, a couple psuedo oligopoly payments processors could indeed collude together, and ban whatever the controversial thing of the day is. This would be perfectly legal and the fact that it is perfectly legal and easy says something about our society. It says that the metaphor of a slippery slope where more and more people get censored, because they were on the wrong side of a corporation, is an accurate analogy.

chomp 8y ago
Okay I think we all agree that a dystopian future where a cabal of payment processors squelches any dissenting opinions is bad in many ways. But that's not what's happening here. Stripe has a very specific rule that gab.ai agreed to when they signed up. That is, no porn. Every company that uses Stripe that I've found includes some blurb in their ToS referencing "No Porn Allowed." I've also found it very difficult to find porn on these platforms using some generic search terms. Of course gab.ai wouldn't want to do include this in their ToS, since they bill themselves as "champions free speech, [and] individual liberty". So now when Stripe comes to their front door asking about that thing they agreed to, now they are whipping up everyone into a moral outrage of "we are losing our free speech!" Don't fall for it. Yes, those who control the purse strings control the speech, and yes payment processors who allow porn are very very limited and outrageously expensive. But from my experience in webhosting, this is very much tied to the fraud associated with the domain. If they don't like it, they can integrate with a payment gateway and merchant account themselves instead of using a full stack payment processor.