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Relatedly, CivitAI has recently had issues with their credit card processors for the reasons you suspect, and today they lost the ability to process credit card

• beeflet 1y ago
  I think this is a pretty acceptable use-case for cryptocurrency/micropayments. Credit card companies are notoriously restrictive.
  • OsrsNeedsf2P 1y ago
    > acceptable use-case for cryptocurrency Once in a while I think this, and then I remember what a disaster cryptocurrency became
    • protocolture 1y ago
      Crypto is fine its the users that are the problem.
      • okayishdefaults 1y ago
        Is it at this point? When used earnestly, it's regulated, traceable, and slower than other methods of transacting money. History can and has been rewritten, but not when someone is scammed. Seems like bad currency, but maybe you're aware of something meaningful that crypto contributes.
        • protocolture 1y ago
          >Regulated Well humans are regulated so I dont know what you are driving at here. >Traceable The core concept was built on traceability. Privacy coins are the aberration. Like crypto was developed by people who want provable auditing of banks online. Actually if you compare Bitcoin to later standards, Bitcoins biggest weakness is that it wants to track coins individually instead of just balances. Literally invented by goldbugs. >Slower Depends on both parties. I can go Crypto -> Crypto -> Fiat in like 15 minutes. Osko can be faster. >History can and has been rewritten Thats a fail state but its done rather less than traditional currency >Seems like bad currency, but maybe you're aware of something meaningful that crypto contributes. My fondest memory was watching a whole bunch of libertarian crypto guys using it to donate to Venezuelans who would pop up in crypto spaces to talk about how hard their lives were and how bad government had screwed up their lives. I liked to think the libertarians were getting scammed but it didnt really matter, because there werent many other onramps into VZ at the time. Really its best feature is that its largely unpreventable. Sure you can police the on and off ramps to an extent. But if I need to evade financial censorship, I can. Mostly I see people against crypto throw up a big smokescreen but at the end of the day they tend to be in favor of the financial censorship that crypto is avoiding at the moment. Be that donations to wikileaks, purchasing services without a credit card or what have you.
        • BoorishBears 1y ago
          I mean we're in the comment section of a provider removing models primarily used to make non-consensual porn of celebrities (https://arxiv.org/html/2407.12876v1 https://arxiv.org/html/2407.12876v1), then talking about how crypto is the answer. Visa and co are a cartel, a lot of the pressure Civitai is facing is unreasonable, but even a broken clock is right twice a day: and they had a lot of problematic content. Even if they turn to crypto, this is a change they shouldn't walk back, or other providers are probably going to turn on them too.
          • protocolture 1y ago
            >Even if they turn to crypto, this is a change they shouldn't walk back, or other providers are probably going to turn on them too. Yep
          • pseudo0 1y ago
            This paper is trash. They preemptively define any models they don't like as "abusive models". This includes any model that can generate real people (including for transformative, fair use purposes like parody) and separately any NSFW model, including stuff like cartoons. Also they are using a ridiculous definition of "NSFW" to achieve the correlation they want to find. They are putting the prompt (not the image) into ChatGPT and applying an arbitrary metric of NSFW-ness sentiment analysis that returns false positives. Actually NSFW content of real people was always banned on CivitAI.
            • BoorishBears 1y ago
              I'm not sure how anyone's really going act like the vast majority of the deepfakes generated with celebrity LORAs isn't porn when the term itself has become synonymous with non-consensual porn. And it was just in April (less than a month ago) that they stepped up moderation of celebrity NSFW content: the study is from June of 2024. The study was an attempt to avoid someone immediately trying to argue about a really obvious truth, but some people will still try to argue about the study about the really obvious truth.
              • 1y ago
    • jeffhuys 1y ago
      Bitcoin at its highest point in history right now but whatever
      • conception 1y ago
        That’s not good if you want to use it as, you know, a currency.
      • BoorishBears 1y ago
        Yeah, such a mark of success for a currency to appreciate 24,000% in under a decade. When buying a pizza today can cost you a house in 10 years, you have a failed currency.
      • vachina 1y ago
        Highest point in what? Filthy fiat?
        • saurik 1y ago
          In anything? Measure it in hamburgers or fancy chairs, if you'd like.
      • djur 1y ago
        People making money off of something doesn't make it not a disaster, obviously. Within the past month crypto's biggest headline has been its use in bribing the US president.
      • mvdtnz 1y ago
        Are people using it as a currency? At scale?
    • beeflet 1y ago
      A lot of cryptocurrency's problems are fundamentally social and unsolvable. But there has also been significant technological improvements since 2014 including payment channels and zero-knowledge proofs that could patch some of crypto's gaping flaws.
  • Animats 1y ago
    They already have their own currency, called "Buzz". Maybe that's why they're in trouble with credit card processors. Using credit cards to buy money equivalents is considered high-risk.
  • tommica 1y ago
    Its scary how much power they have - get blacklisted by them and you are out of business. For a system that is so critical to everyday life, almost like electricity, it's insane how much control they exert over it.
    • benterix 1y ago
      I agree with you in general - it seems supereasy to pressure them into blocking CC payments via (potential) lawsuits etc. However, as for crypto and banks, I don't really blame them they don't want to have anything to do with these. Its really easy to scam people, lose money and so on. Who is to blame then? With crypto, you have nobody to blame. Except if there is a terminal, in this case a bank. They become a scapegoat for everyone, including lawmakers. So they decided not to play the game. Want to cash out crypto? Deal with the ones that are willing to accept the risk.
  • throwanem 1y ago
    Yeah, they tend to frown on violations of property rights. So do most segments of society. Cryptocurrency advocates?
  • vachina 1y ago
    In most countries there are usually multiple (viable) alternative payment methods to credit cards.
    • beeflet 1y ago
      for micropayments? like what?
      • makingstuffs 1y ago
        Can’t speak for other countries but India has PayTM, UPI, BHIM and others
  • quotemstr 1y ago
    If there's ever been an industry that needs to be subject to common carrier regulations, it's the payments industry. MasterCard and Visa have no business unilaterally, secretly, and unaccountably policing their idiosyncratic idea of moral righteousness. They need to move money and shut up.
    • ygjb 1y ago
      Nah. I don't mind businesses that take a moral stance that is intended to de-risk finances. We (well, decent people at least, IMO) need mechanisms to prevent human trafficking, illicit or illegal transactions, etc. That said, the rules should be completely transparent. When a transaction is blocked for a reason, or an account is suspended or terminated, there should be a clear audit trail of the reason why, which rules were broken, and what the steps to remediate are, if possible. There should be an appeals process that is equally as transparent, and countries should impose ombudspersons to oversea the enforcement with significant financial penalties for payment companies that fail to uphold these rules. Some part of this may already exist, I have been out of finance and payments for almost 20 years at this point, but there was and remains a lot of shady stuff going on in the industry :/
      • elaus 1y ago
        > We (well, decent people at least, IMO) need mechanisms to prevent human trafficking, illicit or illegal transactions, etc. There are already laws (from actual governments) against human trafficking and illegal transactions. The issue is not about credit card companies obeying the law.
    • objclxt 1y ago
      > MasterCard and Visa have no business unilaterally, secretly, and unaccountably policing their idiosyncratic idea of moral righteousness. They need to move money and shut up. Mastercard and Visa don't block companies from processing because of morals, they block them because they lose them money. They will happily process your payments for all kinds of shady schemes that are - to them - low risk.
    • jallmann 1y ago
• speedgoose 1y ago
  Are the reasons a dislike for porn, pornographic deep fakes of real people, or pedophilia?
  • rnd0 1y ago
    Litigation in some form or another. This is undoubtably related to the take it down legislation recently passed. Porn isn't the only worry; there's also getting sued by the estates of dead celebrities, being misused for misinformation purposes. Things are going to become increasingly restrictive until it is not worth using unless you're a corporation or a state actor. But for hobbiests? Resources are going to become thin on the ground and no, that is not a good thing.
  • Jubijub 1y ago
    I have no beef against porn, but what makes you think the other two use cases at acceptable ???
    • speedgoose 1y ago
      I don’t think deep fakes of real people and pedophilia are acceptable.
• aussieguy1234 1y ago
  I'm against misuse of real life likeness AI content, but also against credit card companies deciding what we get to see and hear based on the whims of the backwards ultra hard right conservative leadership at the credit card companies. I'm aware of a site that was blocked by credit card companies due to some controversial content, but survived and kept growing with a high rate of paying members. The payments space is now a bit more compilcated than just credit cards. There's alot of country/region specific methods i.e. SEPA in Europe, PayID in Australia, QR payments in Thailand and of course crypto. Many of these options are just as easy or easier to use than credit cards. Basically, the site started accepting lots of these different payment methods, you see different options depending on your country. Free members kept upgrading to paid members using these new options. This was more than 6 years ago and they still are blocked from taking credit cards.
  • nullc 1y ago
    > whims of the backwards ultra hard right conservative leadership at the credit card companies the credit card companies executives like money, this isn't originating with them. It originated in the US federal government. (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point ) It works quite similar to the great firewall in China. ISPs are not so much told what they are to block, they're told Do Not Embarrass the Party or Else. So even as the pressure has come off in this administration, the memory of the or Else remains, and processors will continue to swat random shit in the hopes of appeasing an uncommunicative but clearly spiteful god.