3 ms·

Reluctant? Really? Citation needed.

toyg 5y ago
My thoughts exactly. They might be reluctant to show they have so much power, but they're definitely not reluctant to wield it.
- rektide 5y ago
  They're reluctant to take on risk, but that doesn't mean they want to have to suss out what's safe for them to transact & what isn't. I'm sure they've had to grow headcount to tackle this expanding question, and they certainly don't consider it as driving up business value: it's a growing overhead to avoid risk, without cutting off too much business, and without becoming too visible/noteable for refusing service. None of these activities are in any way a win.
  - toyg 5y ago
    > that doesn't mean they want to have to suss out what's safe for them to transact There is nothing "unsafe" about handling money for journalist outfits, yet they still police the space - and very arbitrarily too.
MattGaiser 5y ago
Reluctant because they aren't taking the initiative on these things. Some lawmakers or activist groups created a lot of pressure and they bowed to it. I don't think they want to be dealing with any of this as it is costly (compliance staff and lost revenue) and fraught with political peril. But when the alternative is press releases arguing that Visa is helping aid sexual exploitation, they are going to choose to wash their hands of the market segment.
koheripbal 5y ago
Because enforcing regulations is expensive. They'd rather just take the revenues.
manquer 5y ago
Simple economics is main reason. Regulating is expensive and they are not being paid for it. It Same reason why online social media would do as little content moderation as they can get away with . Jon Oliver did a great piece yesterday on the state of non English content moderation on popular social media like YouTube and Facebook : the numbers he gave were 90% users can be non English but only 13% of the moderators deployed for other languages . The real sad part is most of the content moderators for these companies all come from developing countries like India and already know a lot of other languages better than they do English. They only care so far as to make users and regulators think they doing enough.

toyg 5y ago

My thoughts exactly. They might be reluctant to show they have so much power, but they're definitely not reluctant to wield it.

rektide 5y ago
They're reluctant to take on risk, but that doesn't mean they want to have to suss out what's safe for them to transact & what isn't. I'm sure they've had to grow headcount to tackle this expanding question, and they certainly don't consider it as driving up business value: it's a growing overhead to avoid risk, without cutting off too much business, and without becoming too visible/noteable for refusing service. None of these activities are in any way a win.
- toyg 5y ago
  > that doesn't mean they want to have to suss out what's safe for them to transact There is nothing "unsafe" about handling money for journalist outfits, yet they still police the space - and very arbitrarily too.

MattGaiser 5y ago

Reluctant because they aren't taking the initiative on these things. Some lawmakers or activist groups created a lot of pressure and they bowed to it. I don't think they want to be dealing with any of this as it is costly (compliance staff and lost revenue) and fraught with political peril. But when the alternative is press releases arguing that Visa is helping aid sexual exploitation, they are going to choose to wash their hands of the market segment.

koheripbal 5y ago

Because enforcing regulations is expensive. They'd rather just take the revenues.

manquer 5y ago

Simple economics is main reason. Regulating is expensive and they are not being paid for it. It Same reason why online social media would do as little content moderation as they can get away with . Jon Oliver did a great piece yesterday on the state of non English content moderation on popular social media like YouTube and Facebook : the numbers he gave were 90% users can be non English but only 13% of the moderators deployed for other languages . The real sad part is most of the content moderators for these companies all come from developing countries like India and already know a lot of other languages better than they do English. They only care so far as to make users and regulators think they doing enough.