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Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

• abetancort 1y ago
  It should be unlawful in every developed country, it's an assault on the freedom of speech and freedom of information by Visa.
• timpera 1y ago
  Considering their volume, I find it hard to believe that Valve couldn't find another, more lenient payment processor with similar fees.
  • ranger_danger 1y ago
    My understanding is that it's not just the processor, but Visa/Mastercard themselves have rules against certain types of merchants/products... they really have a monopoly on credit cards in general so you have to play by their rules.
    • jajuuka 1y ago
      Yep, they are a just a modern day mafia. "Would be a real shame if you didn't take down these games. Then we couldn't do business with you anymore."
    • Ancapistani 1y ago
      You're right, but it's slightly more complicated than that. My understanding is that payment processors are obligated to follow the policies of Visa/MasterCard, AmEx, and Discover, but that those parties' policies don't explicitly ban these specific things for sale. Instead, they "strongly encourage" processors to ban them in their user agreements under the implicit threat of their risk level being increased, which in turn impacts the fees they pay to the credit card companies. I've not been deep in this world since ~2014, but at that time the only processor I could find that wasn't specific to the porn industry, offered physical terminals, had reasonable (if high) fees, and didn't ban legal transactions in their user agreement was PAI ("Payment Alliance International"). A quick look at their site today shows that they seem to have been acquired by Brinks, so that may no longer be the case.
      • Mindwipe 1y ago
        MasterCard have a specific restricted list that bans an awful lot of things in any adult context. Some of how to interpret that is left up to the processor, but it is broadly under MCs and to a lesser extent Visa's control.
  • bobsmooth 1y ago
    There are no other payment processors.
    • slaw 1y ago
      There are national issuers like JCB or UnionPay.
      • latentsea 1y ago
        I'm getting a JCB card. Screw Visa.
    • vouaobrasil 1y ago
      In some countries there are other systems. It's high time the modern world adopted something similar like Pix in Brazil.
    • raincole 1y ago
      There are no other payment processors that can replace Visa/Mastercard*. There are other payment processors in India/Japan/China/Brazil/etc. But none of them is internationally adopted like Visa/Mastercard.
      • jandrese 1y ago
        Is it the case the Mastercard/Visa will reject a site that has such content even if you can only purchase it using ValveBucks or PayPal or something? That seems plausible.
  • astura 1y ago
    Adult content has a high chargeback rate and high fraud rates so payment processing for adult content has higher fees.
    • giancarlostoro 1y ago
      Which makes less sense when you consider Steam will refund you game if you dont want it.
      • david38 1y ago
        I don’t think you understand what’s being said. He’s not talking about the ability to refund
        • jowea 1y ago
          But is there a good reason to do a chargeback if you can easily refund it? Yes if someone stole the CC and used it buy something on Steam, but is that the concern or that someone buys something with a CC on their own account, and then chargebacks instead of refunding?
    • Dylan16807 1y ago
      People say that a lot but I haven't seen actual statistics, and sites that have established low chargeback rates face the same issues. Also that's not a reason to ban certain genres/kinks, which is what's happening here.
    • AIPedant 1y ago
      The fact that these were specifically incest games makes me think a title was somehow involved in distributing CSAM, which is often why Visa/MC crack down on porn websites. But it is possible that Visa sensibly and correctly said "anyone who makes or purchases such a game is a despicable scumbag, and we shouldn't assume the financial risk of dealing with them."
      • Dylan16807 1y ago
  • gorwell 1y ago
    They could support a stablecoin like USDC and start pushing people to that. No censorship and lower fees. Valve broke ground with Steam, they could do it again.
    • edm0nd 1y ago
      nah. USDC funds can be frozen by Circle on demand/request.
      • drexlspivey 1y ago
        You wouldn’t be buying or holding any USDC in your account. It would be invisible to you
        • gs17 1y ago
          Would you care to explain the process more? I'd be glad to see a useful application of crypto.
        • wmf 1y ago
          The problem with that is that you usually end up using traditional payment rails (e.g. a Visa debit card) to "invisibly" buy the stablecoin and then you're subject to their rules and fees again.
    • mvdtnz 1y ago
      [flagged]
      • gorwell 1y ago
        They also use dollars and credit cards and gift cards.
      • Ancapistani 1y ago
        Early crypto believer here. My first purchase of Bitcoin was at $0.23. I've been through the ups and downs, used the proceeds to buy physical assets over the years (land, and one vehicle), and lost interest in the "community" shortly after Ethereum gained initial popularity. I still hold some crypto, mostly Bitcoin but also Ethereum, Monero, and a handful of altcoins that don't amount to enough to bother withdrawing. My hot take take: Crypto still fills a valuable role, and will still "take over" the global financial system both at the individual and institutional level. Whether that's Bitcoin, another coin, or something new created by the institutions themselves is yet to be seen. You're right that it's "tainted", of course. That's why I think we're in a (hopefully) long slump in adoption. I think that will rapidly change if and when the US Dollar loses its place as the world's reserve currency. At some point there will be a war or significant political disruption. A large part of the world will want to divest itself of dollars, and none of the state-backed alternatives will be stable enough for their needs. That's when we'll see a shift to crypto - first some international institutions that do business across ideological borders, then the rest of the internationals, then individuals. Unless and until that happens, things will continue to slowly grow. The boom/bust cycle will keep going, getting longer and lower magnitude over time. There's still money to be made in speculation, but that's not what interests me :)
  • wmf 1y ago
    It complicates things to have some games that can be purchased with credit cards and some games that can only be purchased with crypto.
    • Hemospectrum 1y ago
      If they continued to carry any of the games that were singled out for removal by Visa and Mastercard, they would not be able to accept credit card payments for anything else in their store. This same drama has played out the same way with countless other online services.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  • tencentshill 1y ago
    Controversial games being restricted to purchase only with Steam Points. The credit card is only ever charged to buy points, which can then be used to purchase items on the store. Similar to fortnite.
    • devnullbrain 1y ago
      Or similar to DLSite and Fantia, where it didn't work.
• ranger_danger 1y ago
  What can be done to loosen card companies' grip on this? It has been a constant problem now for decades.
  • bobsmooth 1y ago
    Bitcoin was supposed to solve this.
    • gloryjulio 1y ago
      Exactly. It's really a tragedy that crypto becomes a speculator's tool, and the real problem didn't even get solved.
    • lawn 1y ago
      And you could indeed use Bitcoin on Steam for a while! But then the blocks got full, fees and wait times skyrocketed, and in response to the customer backlash Steam removed Bitcoin. Meanwhile Bitcoiners were (and still are) only focused on number go up instead of other, more productive, use cases. Such a waste.
      • kingo55 1y ago
        There's now Ethereum, Base and Solana featuring US dollar stablecoins and significantly cheaper fees. If you want to go a step further and eliminate the stablecoin issuer's counterparty risk you could even pay in the base asset of ETH. Shopify allows payments from crypto now, so Steam should try it again. Good luck censoring purchases on ETH.
        • paulryanrogers 1y ago
          Even stablecoins aren't so great for the environment. Proof of stake isn't as bad, but also doesn't offer much beyond traditional systems once KYC is needed. Am I missing something?
          • 1y ago
• blibble 1y ago
  if I was doing a couple of billion a year in transactions then the payment processor would be told where to shove it
  • maplant 1y ago
    Okay, then you'd go from a billion a year to zero. Congratulations.
    • Der_Einzige 1y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un4p-6lzIpI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un4p-6lzIpI
  • david38 1y ago
    You clearly think in small terms then. Trillion dollar fish eat billion dollar fish
  • IshKebab 1y ago
    A couple of billion is an insignificant fraction of the $10000bn MasterCard processes every year.
    • blibble 1y ago
      which is relevant how exactly? merchants don't deal with mastercard, they deal with an acquiring bank of which there are hundreds no doubt one of which will be happy to take the business
      • IshKebab 1y ago
        Mastercard appears to be involved in the pressuring. You can't avoid them.
        • blibble 1y ago
          certainly not explicitly mentioned in the article and I very doubt it's the case, the card networks simply don't care, given you can buy adult entertainment from millions of websites the acquirer will care if it pushes up their chargeback rate, but this is normally solved by the merchant by paying a couple of bps more it's a negotiating tactic, nothing more
• kevingadd 1y ago
  It's interesting that Valve sort of put themselves in this situation by opting not to police their store anymore. I'm personally a fan of fewer restrictions on content in video games and fewer "gatekeepers" but it's kind of inevitable that people would get upset when you chose to allow people to sell games like "Sex With Hitler" and "Pimp Life: Sex Simulator". Deciding to allow that content on your store and simultaneously not going to bat for it is weird, it's like they decided to just get the porn money while they could as a short-term boost to revenue. Itch.io still has fewer restrictions but I assume they'll eventually have to clamp down too once payment processors cut them off - they don't have the financial resources to fight it like Valve or Epic do. Interestingly Nintendo has as of late relaxed their restrictions too, you can find porn-adjacent shovelware on the Switch eShop despite their history of being very censorious. I wonder if payment processors will successfully push them around too or if Nintendo is too big to get pushed around.
  • Dylan16807 1y ago
    > it's kind of inevitable that people would get upset when you chose to allow people to sell games like "Sex With Hitler" and "Pimp Life: Sex Simulator". The problem isn't some people being upset, it's that a single digit number of companies effectively control the ability for anyone else in the world to do business with them. Those companies get lobbied as much as politicians but with no accountability and any overreach being far less visible. And no freedom of speech rules.
  • nottorp 1y ago
    The question is: has "kill in the name of Hitler" also been banned, or is that okay with Visa/MC?
    • AraceliHarker 1y ago
      I don't need your 'what ifs' and 'could haves.' Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is actually available on Steam, and that's good enough.
      • nottorp 1y ago
• arprocter 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinda_Tankard_Reist#Collective_Shout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinda_Tankard_Reist#Collecti...
  • raincole 1y ago
    > a "pro-life feminist" What. Seriously what? I thought pro-choice is a core tenet of feminism?
    • Ancapistani 1y ago
      Why would it be? I live in a red state in the South. I'd say about 2/3 of the women I know well enough to be confident of their politics to that degree of detail would describe themselves as both feminists and anti-abortion/pro-life. If you want to put a name to it, they're basically second-wave feminists with a few third-wave beliefs tacked on. The real lesson here is that politics are nuanced, and the US party dichotomy doesn't come close to covering it. I consider myself an AnCap (shocking given my username, I know), but grew up here surrounded by Republicans. I fit in well enough overall because this is where I developed my "social mask" in the first place. I lived in a community with nearly directly opposite politics (Charlottesville, VA) for a few years and found that I fit in pretty well with that crowd as well. I share enough with both parties that I can have conversations on things that I agree with them on and connect to the point that they assume that I'm "one of them". Invariably, once conversation turns to other topics I'm accused of being a member of the other party. It's to the point that it amuses me when it happens, and I frankly enjoy being in a place where I can connect with most everyone and serve as a sort of translator: I've spent enough time "in enemy territory" from their perspectives that I can explain the other side's position fairly and with empathy while explicitly not holding that position. It makes for stimulating conversation with little risk of offense.
      • pazimzadeh 1y ago
        Because "anti-abortion/pro-life" removes a right from women. Trading the rights of a developed adult for the rights of a hypothetical future person. What does ancapistanism have to do with it? Is there a non-religious reason to be against the right to choose abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy?
• speeder 1y ago
  For those thinking is only related to chargebacks and fraud, it is not. VISA and Mastercard have been banning a lot of content that is not porn but has political values that are disapproved by certain billionaires and investors. There is a bunch of links I wanted to post about, such as US billionaires bragging he personally called VISA CEO to ban content on PH or japanese politicians mad at the censorship of japanese art with certain values because of these companies. But I am on phone walking home so if anyone else has such links please post.
  • raincole 1y ago
    Of course it's not. Steam already has a very generous refund policy. It's hard to imaging the chargeback rate would be that high even for nsfw games when you can simply refund. Refund takes about 3~4 clicks on steam website; Chargeback takes a phone call with your bank and can get your steam account locked. And people who laundry money out stolen cards won't do that with nsfw games. They'll do that with CSGO knifes.
  • Ancapistani 1y ago
    Yep. They've colluded with the US federal government in the past on those issues as well. "Operation Choke Point" was ostensibly about fraud, but included transactions related to firearms in its scope. As a result, several major banks and payment processors dropped legitimate firearms dealers. For a while it got to the point that I was helping a couple of local gun stores contract with "high risk" payment processors that also serve the porn industry and get set up. To this day if you're on a gun forum and mention that you use Bank of America, people will pile on to tell you horror stories of both companies and individuals having their accounts closed and funds held for weeks or months after completely legal transactions. In one case in particular, they claimed it happened after buying a backpack at a gun store. Again, these are 100% legitimate and legal businesses. Federally licensed (FFL) gun stores had trouble for years even keeping a working business account. It was clearly not about fraud, at least not in practice. Politics completely aside, the financial landscape for gun stores today looks a lot like the cannabis industry: a few institutions are quietly known in those communities to allow them to operate, but many choose to do business only in cash and most prefer it if given the option. The porn industry is similar from what I can see.
• swiftcoder 1y ago
  I guess Gabe's commitment to freedom of speech on his platform extended as far as nazis, but not as far as porn...
  • freedomben 1y ago
    well, something like this can't be fixed overnight. I think Valve have more than earned a benefit of the doubt with this kind of stuff. I don't know if they are thinking on ways around this issue or not, but I would bet highly that they are. Problem is the credit card companies have them (and everyone else) by the balls because any attempt to continue hosting those gmaes but accept alternative payments for them would be retaliated against and MC et al might cut them off entirely, which would be devastating. I'm not sure there is a good solution to this that doesn't involve change of law/regulation i.e. lobbying
    • swiftcoder 1y ago
      In the early 2000's kink.com put together a coalition and told the credit card companies to stick their censorship rules where the sun don't shine, and they are still taking credit card payments... The video game industry is plenty big enough to wield similar influence.
• neogodless 1y ago
  Simulated "immoral" activity could be considered a moral gray area. If nothing else, morality is subjective. So I think it's reasonable to argue for private, individual consumption of morally subjective material (not least of which is the logistical difficulty of preventing such things), as well as the right to create and sell such things. (You or I might approve of or oppose those things, but that's a different argument from what I make below.) Aside from that, I don't think Valve or a payment processor is obligated to be a neutral party. Whether it might come from collective consumer backlash or whoever makes decisions for an organization deciding what they will or will not allow to flow through their system, I think they too should have the right to allow or ban things. If publishers and consumers want their morally gray content, so be it, but don't feel entitled to have Steam and VISA along for the ride if they don't want to be. Hypothetically, Valve might prefer Steam be neutral, because money. But then they have the option to fight their payment processor or look for alternatives, rather than "forcing" their payment processor to be a part of something that the payment processor opposes. TL;DR when a morally subjective issue involves a lot of parties, every party should have the right to "opt out" if they are morally opposed. (in my opinion)
  • knome 1y ago
    Payment processors banning companies from using them for anything other than illegal use or fraud issues seems like pretty egregious overreach to me. They shouldn't be able to leverage their nigh monopoly on modern payment processing to choose winners and losers in the marketplace. They are using pornography as a wedge issue to establish that they get to dictate what companies are allowed to exist in the modern distributed market. It would be entirely reasonable to legally require them to act blindly towards retailers, with restrictions needing to be based on universally applied financial criteria. Card payments have become inseparable from modern life. Regulate them as a financial utility. The electric company or water company can't refuse to hook up a business just because the owner doesn't like that business.
  • Ruthalas 1y ago
    I think the trouble here stems from the lack of alternatives to the small group of payment processors. The near-monopoly allows their choices to override the choice of all the other involved groups, and almost no viable alternatives exist for Valve to move to if they disagree.
• throwaway071625 1y ago
  The article calls out “certain adult games” which is vague. It is interesting to note that most of the delisted games were themed specifically around incest. https://bsky.app/profile/steamdb.info/post/3lu32vdlsmg27 https://bsky.app/profile/steamdb.info/post/3lu32vdlsmg27 Wondering if this will be a slippery slope towards pulling more anodyne stuff.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • eddythompson80 1y ago
    Specifically incest, rape, and child abuse-themed games.
    • superkuh 1y ago
      Ah, like a video game version of "Game of Thrones"? None of the payment processors had any issues with taking money for that series. And that was live action.
      • eddythompson80 1y ago
        Yep, those games were exactly the same thing as Game of Thrones.
        • ggoo 1y ago
          I mean by the content they were yeah. Precisely the problem with rules declaring what content is and isn’t acceptable.
          • eddythompson80 1y ago
            Exactly. By content, here is a book on Amazon[1] where the author openly tells stories of rape and incest and somehow it's all Ok. Pretty much the same as Game of Thrones and those Steam games. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748 https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/01...
• bji9jhff 1y ago
  It is sad that in 2025 this needs to be repeated: fiction is not real. This statement imply that: * Simulated violence is not violence. * Simulated sex is not sex. * Simulated sorcery is not sorcery
  • nkrisc 1y ago
    And yet it is possible to make simulations extreme enough I would not opposed to banning them. There are some things that should not be normalized in society. It shouldn’t be payment processors doing it unilaterally, I’ll grant that. But I’m not (and I’m sure a great many more of a silent majority) wholly opposed to the outcome.
    • Hizonner 1y ago
      > There are some things that should not be normalized in society. That attitude has recently become normalized, and I find it Concerning(TM).
      • miningape 1y ago
        Yeah, who gets to decide whats too far? There's a similar issue with free speech - the moment you ban certain speech the door to banning your political opposition opens.
        • encom 1y ago
          From what I can tell, only one country in the world has free speech. Actual free speech. USA.
          • 1970-01-01 1y ago
            Its dying fast. The Late Show was just cancelled because it was a massive thorn to the POTUS.
            • 1y ago
• eddythompson80 1y ago
  Link for the petition and its signers. https://www.collectiveshout.org/open-letter-to-payment-processors https://www.collectiveshout.org/open-letter-to-payment-proce... https://www.heise.de/en/news/Steam-Payment-providers-force-Valve-to-kick-out-porn-games-10492840.html https://www.heise.de/en/news/Steam-Payment-providers-force-V...
  • FeepingCreature 1y ago
    Reverse petition where?
    • eddythompson80 1y ago
      All eyes on you.
      • bigyabai 1y ago
        Agree or disagree, it won't matter. When you let gamers vote with their wallets, the answer speaks for itself.
        • eddythompson80 1y ago
          I wonder what else we should just keep to voting on with our wallets?
          • bigyabai 1y ago
            Probably most matters of free speech, here in America.
    • maxlin 1y ago
      Seconded. Regards: Game dev who cares about conservation and doesn't like chilling effects.
    • Jolter 1y ago
      Go ahead! I dare you. In your own real name.
• egypturnash 1y ago
  Okay so is Steam enough of a money printer for Valve to say "well fuck you guys, we'll make our own credit card with hookers and bingo"? And hold out Half-Life 3 (only purchasable with the ValveCard) as a carrot?
  • 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
    I am genuinely curious who can actually threaten Visa (I do not think it is Valve). Amazon, Walmart, Target and then increasingly unsure.
    • rib3ye 1y ago
      Likely Apple currently has the deepest finance industry roots.
      • xyst 1y ago
        If you consider the minutiae of percentage apple shaves off transactions with Apple Pay. Sure. But they have partnered with GS and MC. Far from any sort of "finance industry roots". They essentially offer a fancy UI on top of GS products and other traditional banks. Apple Cash -> Green Dot or some other no name bank Apple Card -> Goldman Sachs Apple Pay -> some very small percentage of the bank and network fees charged to merchants
      • Razengan 1y ago
        Honestly, with how prevalent iPhones and Androids are today, specially among newer humans, if Apple and Google made a payment system that just transferred money between iPhone/Android, it could practically replace cash & cards for a lot of people. In some countries the vast majority of payments are done via phone apps for national payment systems already, bypassing Visa/Mastercard etc. entirely. Even kids pay for candy by phone.
      • AdieuToLogic 1y ago
        >> I am genuinely curious who can actually threaten Visa (I do not think it is Valve). > Likely Apple currently has the deepest finance industry roots. Apple used a very large bank headquartered in the US for its credit card processing as of about ten years ago. Given that the cost of change is significant once these processes are put in place, it is likely this remains the case. Note that this is not the same as what Apple Pay supports.
• xyst 1y ago
  credit card companies (Mc?) did the same with mindgeek. No due process. Just revoked their access to CC networks. mindgeek then wiped all _unconfirmed_ content regardless of whether it was revenge porn or not.
  • o11c 1y ago
    That one must be defended, since it was abuse of real people happening at scale and with full knowledge thereof, and PornHub's status-quo response was at best "do nothing and hope it goes away". Mind, the Justice Department also went after them (and won), so we can't even resort to "CC networks shouldn't be the ones enforcing this." At what stage of a court case is it appropriate to expect third parties to start breaking their business relationships with the defendant? The weird part about the first-world sexual liberation mindset (usually said about feminism, but not limited thereto) is that it actively ignores how massively abusive sexual liberties very often and easily become.
• itsthecourier 1y ago
  Visa and Mastercard are the defacto world judges of the limits of porn. they have their own banned topics lists and if you fuck up you lose your income
  • xyst 1y ago
    yup, the traditional banking system as a whole really
• ujkhsjkdhf234 1y ago
  Avoiding this was the initial promise of crypto and crypto pundits abandoned all their principals because line goes up.
• phendrenad2 1y ago
  Related to this, here's an ACLU filing with the FTC that lays out the content that the credit card companies don't like and how they pressure companies to remove it. https://www.aclu.org/documents/federal-trade-commission-complaint-mastercard-inc https://www.aclu.org/documents/federal-trade-commission-comp...
• maxbond 1y ago
  Why do payment processors do stuff like this? Is there some regulation that requires them to? I get that they don't want to process fraudulent transactions, but I'd think the response to a higher percentage of fraud from some industry would be to charge them more. It doesn't make sense to me why they would be concerned about the content of games, as long as everything is legal and the parties concerned aren't subject to sanctions. Some of these games seem completely abhorrent, and probably illegal in more restrictive jurisdictions, but not the United States. And I've not seen any suggestion they're funding terrorism or something. So I'm perplexed.
  • ls612 1y ago
    This is one of the ways the government can censor people despite the first amendment. It’s absolutely by design. The regulators “express concern” about certain financial activity and then the companies remove it.
    • fragmede 1y ago
      this is such small potatoes compared to the results of everything going on right now though
      • sneak 1y ago
        No institutionalized censorship of harmless content is small potatoes.
        • fragmede 1y ago
          the other potatoes are really big
      • AngryData 1y ago
        I don't think so, it is death by a thousand cuts which is why we are in such a shitty place right now. Out rights have been attacked on all side for decades, little by little, but all together it is a huge loss.
• Covingtastic 1y ago
  Honestly, this whole Visa/Mastercard control thing feels a lot like realizing you’ve been following rules that don’t really fit you. It’s tough to break out of it. But FedNow is an interesting option. It lets banks move money instantly, 24/7, with no card networks involved, so less hassle with the content policing. It’s not a magic fix (still early days, only works in the US), but it shows there’s another way if you’re willing to step outside the old patterns. Sometimes that’s what you need to actually move forward. And no I'm not a Fednow shill. Has anyone tried Kagi btw? ;)
• miiiiiike 1y ago
  Look. Ignore the content. Why the fuck do we allow credit card companies have a say in how we spend our money? Fraud? Abuse? Fine, let me put cash onto a card and if that card gets stolen, oh well, my loss. Mastercard should have no say in what what speech is considered acceptable outside of their offices. We don't care what execs at a water company think? Why do we care about the people at Mastercard?
  • hungmung 1y ago
    It's because Visa got sued, lost, and it was found out they knowingly processed payments for illegal adult content, so they basically avoid the sector entirely now. Economist had an article about it maybe two years ago and came to much the same conclusion you did. IIRC, the failure in their mind was government not stepping in to make a law so things are less ambiguous in the future. Now payment processing cos get to gate keep people's speech, which means everything is basically a civil suit away from getting blacklisted.
    • braiamp 1y ago
      > It's because Visa got sued, lost, and it was found out they knowingly processed payments for illegal adult content Got any source for that? What they got sued for? Aiding human trafficking?
      • driscoll42 1y ago
        It's not quite that specific, but close enough: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/01/business/dealbook/pornhub-visa-mastercard-disney.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/01/business/dealbook/pornhub... https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/08/california-court-says-visa-may-be-partly-liable-for-child-porn-problem/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/08/california-court... >This week, US District Judge Cormac Carney of the US District Court of the Central District of California decided that there's reason to believe that Visa knowingly processed payments that allowed MindGeek to monetize "a substantial amount of child porn." To decide, the court wants to know much more about Visa's involvement, calling for more evidence of legal harms caused during a jurisdictional discovery process extended through December 30, 2022. According to Court Listener, the case is still ongoing - https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59992265/serena-fleites-v-mindgeek-sarl/?page=4 https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59992265/serena-fleites...
• smittywerben 1y ago
  Valve should also delete its chat app. You can send a game if it's that important.
• yieldcrv 1y ago
  > It's not a great precedent, that's for sure. It’s not a precedent, its been the status quo for half a century
• j_timberlake 1y ago
  They went after no-name games instead of Summer Memories or Treasure Hunter Claire? Weak. They should have at least aimed at Living With Sister: Monochrome Fantasy.
  • Jackson__ 1y ago
    Hey, Summer Memories got an official shout out on their twitter once, someone must have a real weak spot for that one at valve.
  • raincole 1y ago
    They went after incest and non-con (for now). But I don't know about the last game you mentioned... the "sister" part sounds sus.
  • optionalsquid 1y ago
    It looks like the affected games are all rated "Adult Only" on Steam. The games you mention are all sold without adult content on Steam, and the customer has to visit the publisher's website to download a patch restoring said content
• Shekelphile 1y ago
  It is a shame that it takes payment processors to get Valve to do even the bare minimum curation of their store. IMO the thousands of outright bad games and ai slop asset flips and weirdo porn that verges on outright illegal content in many countries should have never been allowed in the first place. All of this leads back to various executives at Valve essentially doing no actual work and refusing to hire anybody because a huge part of their corporate culture is to keep headcount low while chasing constant growth.
• strangescript 1y ago
  Does valve even leak the game titles you purchase to card processors? Don't they have some plausible deniability here?
  • lxgr 1y ago
    Doesn't matter if anyone actually buys content or products the networks object to per their policies. If it's being offered and payment is accepted on a checkout that shows the networks' logos, merchants and their payment service providers can get into trouble.
• willjp 1y ago
  Without a horse in this race, this precedent makes me deeply uncomfortable.
• urda 1y ago
  Honestly glad to see this has sparked larger talks about this again. Surprised to see Valve is just now getting impacted by this.
• Aeolun 1y ago
  I think it’s hilarious we allow stuff like Postal or Soldier of Fortune without a question, where the whole focus is on going crazy and murdering a whole bunch of people. But try to show a sensual human body, instead of one that’s ripped into small pieces, and oh my god, this is going too far!
  • deadbabe 1y ago
    I think this is a bit of a strawman. The market for people who get addicted to gruesome gore and are willing to pay money to see it is several orders of magnitude smaller than people willing to pay to see porn or OnlyFans. There is simply far more risk with adult content as a result and a lot more chargebacks from disatisfied customers with a post nut clarity.
    • edoceo 1y ago
      Are you saying porn buyers regret and that gore buyers do not? (As a broad generalization). Are you also asserting that's built in to risk-profole that payment gateways have?
      • johnebgd 1y ago
        I don’t have time for o look at the stats and provide quotes / cite sources but it does seem from what I’ve read on the topic that the more people play gore games the less violence there is in society. If that’s true, maybe it’s also true that the more people have access to adult content the less babies we create as a society. A society shrinking causes a number of issues.
        • achenet 1y ago
          Correlation is not causation. The US had more TVs per capita than Congo, and a higher life expectancy. Sending more TVs to Congo probably won't do much for their life expectancy though. Similarly, I suspect the increase in violent video games and reduction of actual violence is just a side effect of an increasingly technology driven society.
• jaimex2 1y ago
  Bring back crypto payments Valve. I'm not sure why the payment processors can't just be excluded for the offending games during checkout instead.
• warabe 1y ago
  Just get JCB cards. Done.
  • lxgr 1y ago
    Does Steam offer different types of content to customers depending on their payment card brand?
    • raincole 1y ago
      No.
• yunesj 1y ago
  If Valve limited credit card purchases to PG games, but let customers purchase other games via crypto, then payment processors couldn’t complain about alleged high chargeback rates or association with adult content. I imagine payment processors wouldn’t love this solution, but at that point they’re just asking for full editorial control, and we should resist.
  • maxlin 1y ago
    Not necessary. They could just keep almost everything as-is with normal credit card processors, but for adult stuff, just use the same kind of processors other adult sites use. Those have a lot worse rates from what I hear, but still way more accessible than crypto
• AraceliHarker 1y ago
  The games that got banned this time, even before considering their depiction of incest, are often of such poor quality that it's difficult to even call them 'games.' Valve itself should have removed them from Steam long before payment processors had to step in. Defending these kinds of games is like equating Blue is the Warmest Color with a random PornHub video, simply because they both contain sexual acts. If Baldur's Gate 3 ever gets banned, then you can truly make a fuss.
  • maxlin 1y ago
    Removing and having something exist with the whatever amount of visibility it is able to earn with its quality are entirely different.
  • jncfhnb 1y ago
    I can’t tell what your argument is here. BG3 does feature an incest sex scene. You can fuck the drow twins. Are you saying that BG3 should be ok because it’s a good game? Or BG3 is only ok because it doesn’t show much of the incest sex?
    • mango7283 1y ago
      They're saying that if things have come to the point that activists can successfully pressure a AAA title like BG3 to be delisted from steam, then they'll worry. What do BG3 and the title in question have in common? "incest" (though, not non-con, I don't think BG3 has such) What does BG3 have that the other title doesn't? Critical acclaim and the support of the mainstream. THis is the same issue with GOT. Why does BH3 have critical acclaim and mainstream support and the other title doesn't? Is this a difficult topic to grasp?
      • jncfhnb 1y ago
        The argument seems centered on content though. BG3 is fairly tame. Outlast trials has you mutilate genitals and has people threatening to rape you frequently.
• kwar13 1y ago
  The good old USA, when you can show someone bashing someone else's head with brain spilling out and it might get an R rating. But show a nipple and holy shit we have crossed the line.
• marsven_422 1y ago
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• Abishek_Muthian 1y ago
  Payment processors(Visa, Master) , payment gateways(Stripe, Paypal...) and payment hosts (Patreon, Gumroad...) are a huge pain to deal with even when you're selling something which is legal and risk free just because their algorithm or employees are often overcautious, anything out of mundane they'll ban first and then ask questions(if you're lucky). I have a FOSS project called Open Payment Host[1] which removes the payment hosts from the equation and removes the technical hassle of integrating multiple payment gateways but it does not solve the pain of having to deal with the payment gateways and by extension payment processors and banks. My long term plan is to integrate direct banking API where ever it's available. Is there any bank from any country which provides direct banking API to end customers for plain savings bank account (I've seen some provide for current accounts). [1] https://github.com/abishekmuthian/open-payment-host https://github.com/abishekmuthian/open-payment-host
  • flimflamm 1y ago
    Have you looked in to "PSD2 and Open Banking regulation in Europe" ?
    • Abishek_Muthian 1y ago
      I haven't, I will definitely explore it. Quick read on it seems very promising. Have you or anyone here any API in EU for getting payments directly to your bank account? I have started a discussion on this on OPH[1], I welcome any information on direct banking API in Europe in that discussion. [1] https://github.com/abishekmuthian/open-payment-host/discussions/4 https://github.com/abishekmuthian/open-payment-host/discussi...
      • Msurrow 1y ago
        Lunar Bank. I don’t have any experience integrating to their API myself but Lunar is a relatively new Danish (so EU) 100% digital bank. See https://www.lunar.app/en/personal/what-is-lunar https://www.lunar.app/en/personal/what-is-lunar They have an Open API: https://developer.openbanking.prod.lunar.app/home https://developer.openbanking.prod.lunar.app/home Edit: “new” in finance terms - started 2015.
• johnb231 1y ago
  They blacklisted games that feature incest. Good riddance. This trash should never have been allowed on Steam.
  • man4 1y ago
    [dead]
  • bigyabai 1y ago
    Clearly Steam disagreed. I don't see any publishers who were angry.
    • johnb231 1y ago
      [flagged]
• ETH_start 1y ago
  The monetary layer is not the one where bad behavior should be policed. Being able to send and receive money is a basic utility that no government or bank should be able to deprive someone of. That's why I support cryptocurrency.
• nibman 1y ago
  [dead]
• throw7 1y ago
  If I'm going to be gracious to payment processors, what they need to do is lobby congress for a "DMCA-like safe harbor" for themselves.
• phyphy 1y ago
  Does anyone know if UPI solves this problem?
• lrvick 1y ago
  If there was ever an argument for the need of cryptocurrency, it is this. Dethrone the payment processors or they get to decide what is and is not allowed to be sold.
  • Hamuko 1y ago
    Seems like this could be easily solved with legislation without having to invent new currencies. Just make it a law that payment processors are not allowed to discriminate between legitimate goods and services. If the government thinks that sugary water or porn magazines are fine to buy and sell, why should MasterCard have anything to say about it? Payment processors are basically natural monopolies, so they should be able to be regulated.
    • donatj 1y ago
      If the last decade is proof of anything, legislation is far too fluid to be a reliable source of any sort of protection for anything. We need real protections, that don't and can't change with the winds of political power.
• tiku 1y ago
  So why don't they make a second company, SteamyAdult? There is a market for it, so it seems.
• sammy2255 1y ago
  This is why crypto needs to rule the world
• Culonavirus 1y ago
  Over 15 years from the Bitcoin Pizza Day, yet we're still dealing with this shit. What was the point.
• dostick 1y ago
  Is it really a fact that porn transactions attract higher amount of fraud?
• graceevans 1y ago
  [flagged]
• graceevans 1y ago
  [flagged]
• WhereIsTheTruth 1y ago
  you can start to gamble NFTs on Steam starting from age 13 but they'll tell you that they got pressured to ban "adult content" from steam HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA Who's kid is obsessed with microtransactions and cs:go cases gamba on steam? Psyop and propaganda, calling them out gets you a ban
• irusensei 1y ago
  You can track the list of banned games here: https://bannedgames.netlify.app https://bannedgames.netlify.app
• ninalanyon 1y ago
  It's about time that credit cards were treated like money and this kind of behaviour forbidden. When you pay with cash the notes and coins don't refuse to be handed over because the issuing bank has an opinion about what you are buying, it should be the same for all payment methods.
• Affric 1y ago
  Payments companies successfully got valve to stop purveying weapons grade incest/child-porn/rape themed smut that is barely a game? Nabokov was a great author and Lolita was the work of a great author who turned his pen/typewriter to a detestable subject leading to innumerable questions about art. These guys are just z-graders who get off on non-consensual sexual interactions involving children. Valve absolutely should not be publishing this stuff.
  • 9dev 1y ago
    Even if I agree that this stuff shouldn’t be sold, it’s wrong that Visa has the power to force Valve to. The end does never justify the means.
    • Affric 1y ago
      Agree that Visa shouldn't have the power but the fact is,this isn't it. The civil liberties guys always jump in one too early to defend the guys who want to fuck kids. Slippery slope arguments are fallacious. I am ready to destroy Visa/Mastercard as soon as it's not child abuse or erotic depictions of child abuse they are censoring.
  • bluescrn 1y ago
    I don't know how bad these specific games were, but meanwhile, OnlyFans pornographers continue to use sites like Twitch to advertise their work to teens, and Pornhub continues to operate, despite claims that they profit from sex trafficking amongst other things (https://traffickinghubpetition.com/ https://traffickinghubpetition.com/) Seems strange to go after obscure videogames (which presumably don't feature real human beings) in this way. Unless they really are unusually extreme?
    • Affric 1y ago
      Most of your comment I agree with, if Visa has this power they should be using it against people involved in human trafficking. But: > which presumably don't feature real human beings I don't really care. As soon as you've created something people will pleasure themselves to you've created the negative feedback loop on the pleasure but the positive feedback loop on the real thing IMO.
• BiteCode_dev 1y ago
  Tangent, but each of those events should be a reminder of why we must fight to never, ever live in a cashless society. Because once big entities control the pipeline of what you can buy and you have no alternative, they basically can dictate what you can and can't do. We saw that during the wikileak story when visa prevented Europeans to give to the org despite the fact it was perfectly legal to do so on their soil. Just like data handled by an Apple device is not really your data since they can prevent you from doing what you want with it, money handled by Visa is only your money until they don't like what you do with it.
• gethly 1y ago
  This is not an issue oof payment processors. It is an issue of Visa and Mastercard duopoly, whom use payment processors as middlemen in order to be able to push their own "rules" onto businesses and get away clean.
• Neil44 1y ago
  The discussion seems to be mostly about the moral issues, but it seems likely that the titles being a 'magnet for scams and chargebacks' is more likely the cause.
  • Am4TIfIsER0ppos 1y ago
    Nice excuse but we can see who censors behind this are and how they are gloating. https://xcancel.com/CollectiveShout https://xcancel.com/CollectiveShout
  • ACCount36 1y ago
    No. That's an often-repeated bullshit excuse. Payment processors have ways of passing some of the chargeback risks onto the stores, and it's not like Steam itself is chargeback central. If you just want free games, pirating them is extremely easy, and trying to abuse chargebacks gets you banned.
    • Neil44 1y ago
      It's not as straightforward as that. It's more like scammers getting other people to buy gift cards which are redeemed in steam and other games then the value getting moved around as in-game currency between game accounts (game-bucks, special items) before being cashed out again to make tracing very hard. Essentially laundering. I assume certain titles attract scammers because people will not want to pursue the claims due to embarrassment. Why would Mastercard give a hoot that a game has boobs in it? They care about loosing money.
      • raincole 1y ago
        The obscure porn games Valve delisted have no in-game items or currencies, and have zero second market value. People launder money in the way you describe do that via extremely popular titles (so they can sell the whole account later) or rare items in online games like CSGO or Dota. Not "Incest Simulator 2023".
• mrkramer 1y ago
  Maybe now is the time to rethink accepting crypto again? But this time stablecoins not volatile coins like BTC and ETH.
• greatgib 1y ago
  Just a reminder that when still using cash, you are allowed to buy whatever you want that is legal without asshole bankers or institutions deciding for you!
• pmarreck 1y ago
  So, just to review the hypocrisy here: Full-on murder simulators: OK. Exchanging consensual pleasure with the wrong person: NOT OK.
• globalnode 1y ago
  the global game industry is mostly corrupt, they could close valve down and we'd likely be better off.
• gverrilla 1y ago
  Sorry but ancaps are not allowed to complain - it's a 'free market' and the credit card companies are bigger than gabe newell - end of story, cry is free. In ancap logic I think the fault here is all on gabe for not lobbying the government enough and/or for not having been able to gather enough force to fight against those companies somehow.
• can16358p 1y ago
  I'll never understand what is these payment processors' problem with adult content. If someone wants to sell something and someone else wants to buy something, it should be nobody else's business to police it as long as two parties are settled. That's why I want to see crypto take over and get rid of the middleman and regulators.
  • harrison_clarke 1y ago
    i think it's a mix of conservative/religious lobbying (getting them ire from the government), and chargebacks by embarrassed customers with post-nut clarity being common
  • nicce 1y ago
    The only viable end-game in scale for crypto is what happens in China. I am not sure if I want that.
• SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
  Part of the coalition directing ESG which direct BlackRock and Vanguard which then threaten Visa/Mastercard… has been extremely successful in making people believe this is a crusade only by Visa/Mastercard. It’s the S. And so very few people have any idea. Visa/MC doesn’t actually hate money. They have better argument fiduciary defense accept porn money than deny it - unless they don’t and no one asks or thinks about it.
• gmd63 1y ago
  If you don't like it, start another payment processor that doesn't cave to pressure. Where are all the free market proselytizers at? I expect all of you complaining about this to never once complain on legal grounds about Apple's 30% tax in the app store or when a bakery refuses to sell a cake to a gay person. This is what unrestricted freedom for every entity looks like. And this is why we need laws and regulations that are actually enforced. Because companies and larger organisms do not necessarily operate on timescales that are able to be reasonably responded to within a human lifespan.
  • gjsman-1000 1y ago
    Okay. I walk into a Jewish bakery and want a red cake with a Nazi flag on it.
    • motorest 1y ago
      > Okay. I walk into a Jewish bakery and want a red cake with a Nazi flag on it. This isn't a very good comparison, as this involves a payment processing company. An apt comparison would be the payment processor company demanding that you stop doing business with a Jewish store because that goes against their Nazi values.
      • gjsman-1000 1y ago
        It’s a perfectly good comparison. Nazi wants cake. Store owner is refusing to transact based on his own personal moral code. Just like any other business. Contrary wise, consider a Jewish payment processor who wants to knock off a Nazi store. You can’t have it both ways.
        • aranelsurion 1y ago
          Payment processor is the infrastructure, not the merchant itself. They neither make cakes nor eat them. Bigger problem is that for most real world problems who is Nazi and who is Jewish depends on who you ask. Sucks to be Jewish in a Nazi world where even payment processors hate you.
• ErigmolCt 1y ago
  Valve clearly doesn't want to play content cop, but when the payment processors start squeezing, they have no real choice. What's wild is how much unaccountable power Visa and Mastercard wield over digital expression
• rabid-zubat 1y ago
  The day I will be informed that Valve delisted anything after being pressured by a credit card company is the last day I buy a game on it. Personally I pay with my own country's payment system that's unrelated to these companies.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • yapyap 1y ago
    so.. today?
  • raincole 1y ago
    You mean yesterday? Valve already did that.
• zanfr 1y ago
  well well well there are 2 solutions to this: 1. steam accepts eth and other cryptos; most people associate btc with crypto because it is the original but it is now technically vastly inferior. 2. the seven seas (nobody ever turns your free transaction down and you get to keep whatever it is forever with no fancy license/tos/eulas attached)
• j_m_b 1y ago
  So funny how people think this is a moral crusade. You should read articles around the tech stack for payment processing at any adult site. People try to do chargebacks all of the time on these kind of services. "Hunny what is this transaction on our account for BigBussomsCom?" .. "Oh must be some kind of fraud" "then let's call the bank and straighten it out". It's variations of this, over and over that lead to the high chargeback rates. I seem to recall that chargebacks are an order of magnitude higher for adult-oriented transactions. Unless you have a system of countering this with a team devoted to it, you will have a lot of successful chargebacks. I doubt Valve has the specialized team needed to deal with the amount of chargebacks, this the CC companies trying to avoid the headache.
  • welloktheb 1y ago
    [dead]
  • raincole 1y ago
    It's so funny that people think it's about chargeback. If you buy smut game on Steam, your bank statement won't show the name of the game. It looks exactly like any other transaction you make on Steam. > "Hunny what is this transaction on our account for BigBussomsCom?" .. "Oh must be some kind of fraud" "then let's call the bank and straighten it out" This is a scenario that literally can't happen in the Steam case. It could happen with Pornhub but not with Steam. And Steam has a very generous refund policy. If your playtime is less than 2hr you can ask for a refund with a few mouse clicks. No phone call or email needed. Actually in my experience if your playtime is just over 2hr for a bit they'll still refund you. If you chargeback you can get your whole steam account suspended.
    • Arch485 1y ago
      To add: AFAIK most adult content websites bill under a different, innocuous name as well. You don't get a charge on your credit card from BigBussomsCom, you get a charge from SuperCard or something like that. (uh... I know because of a friend...)
      • 1y ago
• peju112 1y ago
  [dead]
• jncfhnb 1y ago
  So the outlast trials latest villain is a pair of incestuous elderly conjoined twins. The game features intense violence, lots of genitals, kills via explicit mutilation of those genitals, lots of rape threats. One guy in particular gets turned into a human sex toy via mutilation and wax. Why is that above the bar then?
• gitt67887yt7bg 1y ago
  The ISPs, web services, payment services, and advertisers are all in a Mexican standoff right now - with every small move for domination throwing a volley of bullets at the customer from all sides. The card companies are cutting off all the low hanging fruit to establish precedence (steam is not the only one affected). One it's established that they can ban certain things, then they've established they get to control the purchase of literally any idea, cause, or product they want. The card companies want to control and starve anything or anybody they don't like - especially their competition and regulators. They'll control the spice. Net neutrality regulation would have prevented this and forced them to play nice with each other, with the side effect of a net benefit to society instead of tearing it apart. We all warned you the free and open Internet, and by extension irl, as we knew it would unravel. Fundamental property rights are now dead; we just watched it happen. You gave up the fight. You voted for it. Twice.
• Nifty3929 1y ago
  Let's just remember that this is a ballot-box issue, not a payment-type issue. A lot of folks I'm sure will say this is what crypto is for, but if that ever gained enough traction then (the US) congress would clamp down on it. They'd probably call it "money laundering" or something like that. Remember the guy that went to jail for exchanging crypto for fiat? Are you mad at Visa/Mastercard? They don't care about porn, they care about not having congress smash them. You want regulations that would prevent MC/Visa from doing this? You've got it backwards. Regulation is on the side of surveillance and morality police.
  • phendrenad2 1y ago
    I just can't see it. Do I vote for right-winger puritans who ban games because they show trans characters? Or do I vote for left-winger perception-is-realityists who ban games because they show guns?
    • Nifty3929 1y ago
      No.
• pipes 1y ago
  Given the pc gamer article mentions "keep it in the family", I think they mean incest. Why on earth did valve have this on their platform on in the first place?
  • Andrew_nenakhov 1y ago
    > I think they mean incest. Oh god they delisted Crusader Kings???!
• entropyneur 1y ago
  Can someone please explain why we still have chargebacks in 2025? Don't accept cards without 3DS, problem solved. If not, why not? Are some important consumer segments still stuck with cards that don't have it?
  • TheDong 1y ago
    Chargebacks aren't just for stolen credit cards, but also fraudulent merchants. If I buy a physical good with a credit card, and the merchant either never sends me anything, or sends me an empty box and ignores my emails, well, that's a use-case for chargebacks. 3DS doesn't help with that.
    • eurleif 1y ago
      Also for merchants that are just too dysfunctional to do the right thing. A while back, I ordered a phone online from Best Buy, and they shipped me a different model from what I ordered. I contacted their customer service, who told me to mail the phone back for a refund. I did so, and then they mailed it right back to me with a note saying they couldn't accept the return because I'd sent them a different item from the one I ordered. (No shit: that's why I needed to return it!) They didn't have fraudulent intent, I'm sure; one hand just didn't know what the other was doing. A chargeback resolved that situation, and I'm very glad I had the option.
  • HeavenFox 1y ago
    Chargeback is not just for when your card is stolen. It’s also for e.g. when you never received your order, or your order is substantially different from what’s promised. It’s basically a last resort customer service option.
• johndhi 1y ago
  Similar pressures are placed on: porn, cannabis, and gun industries. Not only by payment processors but also, for example, by text message carriers.
• gigatexal 1y ago
  This is the kind of thing that crypto gets around. Surely the CC companies will allow folks to use their cards to buy crypto then in the same 1 minute that newly bought crypto could be used to buy the game and valve if they converted the btc to usd at the same day or very quick could mitigate the volatility of the asset
• chmod775 1y ago
  Why not just make it not purchasable with that payment option/store credit? In many countries Steam supports plenty of alternative payment options that do not use VISA or mastercard. Thinking about it, if a platform as enormous as Steam just completely stopped accepting VISA and mastercard, they'd a) probably still be fine b) VISA and mastercard would probably cave - few companies will prioritize outworn politics over literally billions of revenue. In fact I'd expect these two to be the last to do that. Valve would be more the type to put principles first. Too bad they didn't this time.
• namuol 1y ago
  The puritanical elites in America have been ruining everyone’s fun for decades. So tired of their double standards and overreach.
• rockskon 1y ago
  To all the people saying "fraud" is the reason - think that through. Do you really, really think fraud and chargebacks for games covering specific fetishes on Steam have even the tiniest iota of relevance here? Steam readily offers refunds for a multitude of scenarios! Valve is also large enough to make itself known to payment processors to not be erroneously lumped in with seedy merchants. From my understanding, VISA and Mastercard have relatively vague rules that payment processors must follow and payment processors must interpret that based on their own risk tolerance of adverse action being undertaken against them by VISA and/or Mastercard for not following the vague rules in the manner VISA/Mastercard interpret them as at a given point in time. This is how you end up with situations where both payment processors and the big credit card networks point at each other when politicians ask "why are you withholding financial services from (insert company here)?" and, technically, both entities are correct at pointing the fingers at each other. There's other factors with respect to contract law in a global economy spanning varied jurisdictions that add additional wrinkles, but I'm skeptical they're the culprit in this specific case
• casey2 1y ago
  They did the same to Dlsite, a while ago, made them rename all the tags and then delist lolige, but more notably alot of games with sailor uniforms and/or high school character/settings. If you think it's illegal under PROTECT then you should enforce the law, not use credit card companies to force people to use a VPN. And if it's illegal it should be illegal everywhere, not just where people are paying rather than sharing. Clearly if many people are paying for a work it's less likely to be obscene
• peju112 1y ago
  [dead]
• bicepjai 1y ago
  The whole history of how credit card companies came about being the controller of adult content is very well laid out in podcast hot money season 2. It’s a fascinating story https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hot-money-agent-of-chaos/id1621757273 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hot-money-agent-of-cha...