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Australian anti-porn group claims responsibility for Steams new censorship rules
- bmn__ 1y ago> Collective Shout is no doubt feeling emboldened by a second public success in its efforts to police content O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from these turbulent prigs?
- Razengan 1y agoLet's try a social experiment: Create an app/website called FakeMoney. Put a big ass disclaimer up front saying that it's not real money, and you can't buy anything with it, but let people buy FakeMoney with in-app purchases. Pretend it's a game. The app just shows a number and lets you send some of it to other FakeMoney accounts. That's it. If there were "endpoints", people who gave you "real" cash in exchange for FakeMoney, could something like that eventually replace "real" money?
- perihelions 1y ago> "This was first reported by Waypoint, which has since pulled its two articles on the subject without explanation. The articles' author, Ana Valens, has alleged that Vice's parent company, Savage Ventures, removed the articles due to concerns over their controversial content rather than any error in the reporting." "Vice" shut down last year[0]; its brand was recently purchased and is now run by a hedge fund based in Nashville. I think this incident very clearly sums up the difference between what's news journalism, and what's a vapid content farm operated by financebros. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39476074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39476074 ("Vice website is shutting down (writing.exchange)"—459 comments)
- mardifoufs 1y agoI mean, Vice was more or less founded by the most stereotypical "dudebros" so I'm not sure if that's actually a good example of that
- bitwize 1y agoAna Valens, also of "cis woman breeding farm" fame, is really not one who should be complaining about censorship. Far as she's concerned, when they go after her gooner games it's just a matter of the wrong people being censored. No bad tactics, only bad targets, amirite?
- reactordev 1y agoOne would argue, are there any "news" organizations left? Or are they all operating from a content farm operated by financebros position? Can you name me one news organization that isn't owned by a parent company that has vested interests in specific stories and outcomes?
- ascorbic 1y agoThe Guardian is owned by an independent trust: https://www.theguardian.com/about https://www.theguardian.com/about
- bitwize 1y agoAl Jazeera?
- drngdds 1y ago404 Media is owned by its reporters
- NietzscheanNull 1y agoChannel 5 with Andrew Callaghan. Can't recommend it enough.
- miltonlost 1y agoProPublica generally.
- i_am_proteus 1y agoChristian Science Monitor (nonprofit run, the religion really is siloed to the "Christian Science Perspective" section and the reporting is good and as independent as it comes)
- mvdtnz 1y agoThere are lots of news organisations not owned by parent companies with vested interests. RNZ in New Zealand, ABC in Australia, CBC in Canada and BBC in UK to name just a handful.
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- Insanity 1y agoMan, having “GTA 5” and “No Mercy” as targets in the same conversation is strange. GTA5 is IMO really mild for a game, while I do think No Mercy probably crossed the line. But I haven’t played a GTA game in a decade so maybe I’m misremembering..
- lupusreal 1y agoGTA was a lot more controversial in the past than it is today. It used to be the subject of moderate to heavy moral panic, since it's a game about committing crimes; stealing cars and running over cops / hookers. Hearing people whine about GTA today feels like a blast from the past.
- Insanity 1y agoTotally fair point, the first one I played was GTA III in the early 2000s, and I definitely remember some of these conversations. Similar to how DOOM and Mortal Kombat had a lot of controversy, but like you, I had assumed that this was mostly in the past.
- ted_bunny 1y ago[flagged]
- Spivak 1y agoIt is normal and okay. Every 8-14 year old boy wants to play guns even in the absence of video games. The video games we're talking about are play violence. If they upped the realism to depict actual mature themes, like the German soldier begging for his life, then we're talking about content not appropriate for kids. What's funny is that boys don't grow out of this, the entire genre of dad action movies is the same play violence. The only reason they might not be appropriate for kids is because they feature sex.
- pmarreck 1y ago
- lupusreal 1y agoPeople like to give America shit for anti-porn activism and laws but it really seems like America is just trailing behind the rest of the anglosphere. This case for instance, of Australians imposing their prudish values on American companies that were content to tolerate these naughty games. And those porn ID laws that Texas/etc get flack for are just on the path already trail blazed by the UK.
- rstuart4133 1y agoI can say as an Australia our governments have always been very enthusiastic about controlling what we can read, see, and hear. It was true 60 years ago with our movie rating scheme ("not given a rating" was the newspeak for "banned"), 30 years ago with games, and lots of books. The internet has more or less rendered these efforts moot in recent times. This was highlighted when they tried to impose a rating system on games a couple of decades ago. I asked a school kid about the effect on him. He said it didn't effect him, as he downloaded his games from the internet. It all fell apart about then. Consequently we had the opportunity to see seen the flood of porn would do to society, and noticed nothing of consequence. The flood of conspiracy theories for life hacks on the other hand was completely unanticipated and it's impact badly underestimated. Collective Shout is an excellent illustration of the effect. It's effectively a one girl band, yet her shouting on the internet about her desire to force her Baptist pro-life maternal morals down everyones throats has now been heard across the world.
- gjsman-1000 1y ago[flagged]
- ted_bunny 1y agoIt's also an ideologically motivated misframing. It ignores any arguments about the actual harms of this sort of media and pretends it's all about pearl-clutching.
- nemomarx 1y agoI don't think that's ignoring so much as most people do consider that pearl clutching censorship. You should at least cite some studies on the harms for discussion, but I've not been convinced by it in the past when I looked.
- speeder 1y agoAn interesting article I saw today in Portuguese language, is speculating that the real reason USA is threatening to tariff Brazil in 50% is because the invention of "Pix Parcelado" that is supposed to go online soon, will reduce the popularity of Mastercard and Visa, and thus remove an important tool of censorship from US government hands. Lula also himself accused the USA of putting tariffs because of credit card companies.
- miyuru 1y agoIronically, incidents like these further underscore the necessity of independence from Mastercard and Visa, as it seems anyone can influence these companies to serve their own interests.
- woodpanel 1y agogiven how the Brazilian state itself is notorious for censorship and turning into a judge-aucracy i guess not really about censorship bit rather who censors?
- YurgenJurgensen 1y agoReally, it kind-of is. Governments are supposed to answer to their electorate, while corporations answer to their shareholders. While I’d prefer no censorship, one of these is less likely to turn into a tyrant than the other.
- woodpanel 1y agoAgreed. we live in an unhealthy place in time, if everybody claims they‘re more democratic than the other side of the spectrum, yet conveniently traverses the agreed-upon boundaries of a level playing field and utilizes foreign or supra national support. The EU’s core function is essentially that. While the Brussels institutions are hated almost unanimously by all Europeans, it’s virtually impossible to get rid off the EU, because it represents the chance to circumvent the local democratic process for all domestic parties. Its institutional undermining of domestic democratic institutions. Imagine you being a pro-gay-rights activist inside the deeply catholic Poland: Would you go through the slow process of convincing the Polish citizenry or would you rather skip those decades and do it via the EU-Bureaucracy? Same is true for dissidents whether in Brazil or EU which depend upon representation via media, yet need foreign media platforms to have a say at all. Thus as much as I despise the Brazilian government and its autocratic judges, fundamentally it is morally improper to utilize foreign help.
- tmaly 1y agoIt seems like we need two things. First, some type of universal standard to id the country of legal residence of a user. Second, some type of way to know what laws a company needs to comply with to operate in a jurisdiction. There are too many laws across different jurisdictions that makes it really challenging for companies to offer goods and services.
- Spivak 1y agoAre you sure you want an internet where it's not possible to go escape legal censorship? Because that's what you're proposing with an id standard.
- nemomarx 1y agoI'm not sure if this solves it exactly? If MasterCard says they'll cut you off unless you adopt their requirements it doesn't really help to say you'll apply that policy in X country and keep selling the stuff in another country, they could still cut you off unless you do it globally.
- Sharlin 1y agoThe entire point is that this has nothing about complying with laws. It’s an entirely arbitrary, extrajudicial power.
- welshwelsh 1y agoWe need exactly the opposite: it should be impossible to determine the location of an Internet user. The fact that a user's IP address generally reveals their country is a massive flaw in the design of the Internet. The only way to circumvent jurisdiction-specific laws is to make them impossible to enforce.
- gs17 1y agoHow would that apply to this? It's not about a law. They aren't even demanding better age verification, they want to be able to force arbitrary things to be removed entirely (starting with more objectionable topics, but I'm sure it will expand).
- NewsaHackO 1y agoIs there anything that can be done with the weaponization of the payment system? Cryptocurrency as obviously failed, but is there really no possible recourse when every traditional payment method seemingly colludes to not take the business for whatever reason?
- ijk 1y agoIn the USA, some things that come to mind: * Legal changes. Web platforms have section 230 protection to host user content. For payment processing this might be something like the proposed Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA) that requires banks to offer additional (non-Visa/Mastercard) payment providers. Or a more explicit payment neutrality law the requires credit card companies to be more even-handed in non-financial issues. Or anti-debanking laws that ensure everyone has some minimal access to sending and receiving payments. * Lawsuit results. Part of the issue with Visa was that they got dragged into lawsuits against sites that were using them to process payments; the lawsuits and appeals around that are still unresolved but if Visa's lack of legal liability goes away then it will be harder for random outside groups to harass them, for good or ill. * Introducing an independent payment processor. While JCB in Japan has had some similar pressure applied to them, when there were national sovereignty concerns over Visa being able to dictate that American laws and norms should apply to their country Japan had many other payment processors to fall back on. Similarly, PIX in Brazil makes it much harder for non-government private actors to dictate what people can and cannot buy.
- miyuru 1y ago> Cryptocurrency as obviously failed I don't think cryptocurrency has failed. Yesterday I successfully payed with crypto when the payment with multiple credit cards failed.
- NewsaHackO 1y agoThe problem more so is capturing customers on the other end. Every time a site that relies on online payment tries to switch to crypto they say that the majority of potential customers are not willing to use it.
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoEarlier: Group Behind Steam Censorship Policies Have Powerful Allies https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44625681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44625681
- Acrobatic_Road 1y agoIf only we had some kind of purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash that would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.
- doctorpangloss 1y agoit really depends if you sincerely believe that some no name "anti-porn" group or payment processors have anything to do with any of this whatsoever
- Diti 1y agoHow do you get that electronic cash in the first place without going through a financial institution? Possibly by trading with someone who already has electronic cash, I guess – but how do I know I’m not laundering the other person’s money, and/or financing terrorism or CSAM with my fiat money?
- welshwelsh 1y agoIdeally your employer would support paying your salary using electronic cash. Or you can offer goods and services in exchange for electronic cash.
- ranguna 1y agoIf only there was a peer to peer electronic cash system that was instant and you didn't have to pay for fees for each transaction. Jokes and cryptocurrencies aside. The digital euro is being built and will be deployed in the coming years, enabling offline digital money transfers. I'll have to see it to belive it.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago>If only we had some kind of purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash that would allow online payments Unfortunately, all such systems are quickly co-opted for the purpose of speculative price schemery. Bitcoin will soon reach a point of no-return, when the smallest fractional has an exchange rate so high that it will be impossible to purchase small goods at all (except in bulk), though in reality that point was reached many years ago. The entire concept of cryptocurrencies might actually be irrevocably poisoned, because even a new system would have to deal with the public perception baggage of the last decade's many Ponzi-type scams and various joke/meme coins. If only Satoshi had been a social genius instead of a technical genius.
- woodpanel 1y ago> All these porn sick brain rotted pedo gamer fetishists so desperate to get their hands on rape-my-little-sister incest games they’re now exchanging clues on how to find them so that they don’t all die overnight," Collective Shout co-founder Melinda Tankard Reist tweeted on July 18th. Which begs the question: Is it true, that there are such games? And how would one defend its availability to the public? Is w#nking off to such content considered free speech?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ycombinete 1y agoYou can type “wanking” on this website. This isn’t a special space for children.
- simion314 1y ago>Which begs the question: Is it true, that there are such games? And how would one defend its availability to the public? Is w#nking off to such content considered free speech? We are discussing blocking of legal content by the payment companies. If they do not like this games or GTA or metal music they should make laws. But they are concerned by virtual incest while in USA cousin marriage is still legal in many states. If i believe in this stupidity that music and games are harmful then I would use the big money to do some studies to prove this and then make laws, not force my ideology by abusing the payment monopoly this companies have to push my stupidity to the entire fucking world.
- Sharlin 1y agoThe US is actually an outlier in how taboo it considers first-cousin sexual relations. They’re certainly eyebrow-raising these days, but not considered incestuous in most of Europe or other parts of the world (with China and parts of India being two admittedly big exceptions).
- simion314 1y ago
- whatshisface 1y agoOne of the reasons that credit card companies have an incentive to keep this stuff off people's statements is that they sell your credit card histories on the data market, and would not want you to have a strong reason to want to stop them.
- baobabKoodaa 1y ago[flagged]
- fkyoureadthedoc 1y agoThey certainly say they don't sell any PII data, but definitely do, at a minimum, sell de-identified aggregate transaction data. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some data broker that can buy and deanonymize data from them.
- freedomben 1y agoHey that's a pretty interesting thought actually. I hadn't considered that, but "follow the incentives and assume rationality" is generally (in my experience) the best way to try and understand why people do what they do. This theory definitely makes a lot of sense from that lens.
- arprocter 1y agoI just checked and my statement says 'Steam', not what specific game was purchased
- chaosbolt 1y agoAnd this is really bad, like I forgot the number of times I give in to get that pack of candy near the register at a shop then after a couple days exactly as the pack is empty I get shown a commercial of the same brand of the same pack/size etc.
- thaumasiotes 1y agoWhere are you? In the United States, there are displays of candy at every cash register, but they're individual servings that you're expected to eat in full immediately after leaving the store. A big bag with several days' worth of candy would have to come from the candy aisle. And... are you really being served internet ads for candy?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jakupovic 1y agoWithout reading anything I feel empowered to say: "If you don't want to see something don't look at it"
- kbelder 1y agoAt least you're practicing what you preach.
- jaco6 1y ago[dead]
- lenerdenator 1y ago[flagged]
- freedomben 1y ago> This is likely far from over: Collective Shout is no doubt feeling emboldened by a second public success in its efforts to police content on Steam specifically. The games I saw removed from Steam in this wave all featured risible content and suspect quality, but Collective Shout has a broader anti-pornography, even anti-expression remit that it has demonstrated in the past. Yes indeed, a huge success like this will give them a big boost in motivation and funding for many, many years to come. IMHO we need to regulate away the credit card processing companies ability to discriminate like this, and while we're at it we should stop letting them heavily tax the entire economy
- precum 1y ago[flagged]
- jact 1y agoAm I the only one who thinks this is a good thing? Pornography and obscenity should not be protected speech. It’s violence against human dignity akin to hate speech.
- const_cast 1y ago> It’s violence against human dignity You can't just call things violence. We need to stop doing this. If nobody is getting physically harmed, it's not violence. And no, your stupid bullshit about harming one's soul doesn't count. I mean leg chopped off type of thing. Then, you can call it violent. Otherwise, you're just dishonest and manipulative.
- cindyllm 1y ago[dead]
- YurgenJurgensen 1y agoYou think that a payment processor having arbitrary power to shut down any business they want anywhere in the world for any reason is a good thing because this time you agree with the reason? Book burners don’t have any morals, they just want to burn books, and they’ll come for yours sooner or later.
- jact 1y agoThey don’t have arbitrary power - power is never exercised unilaterally. I can’t imagine they would succeed for very long at say, shutting down all the grocery stores in the world. They wouldn’t even dare try from the hell they would have to pay. And the payment processors aren’t “book burners.” They’re acting to restrict an unsavory market that potentially hurts their business. They have no agenda or incentive to promote censorship as such.
- gs17 1y ago> And the payment processors aren’t “book burners.” They’re acting to restrict an unsavory market that potentially hurts their business. They're not book burners... they're just trying to eliminate certain media they find objectionable? They would consider it unacceptable for Steam to, for example, make these items only purchasable through crypto/bank transfer.
- j-bos 1y agoHow does these types of Australian anti-vice groups have so much global sway, and yet Australia leads the world in gambling addiction and accessibility? Presumably they'd be interested in both vices, but seem to only wield power over one. *edited for clarity of question
- jimbob45 1y agoThey don't. Valve got their profit from the incest/ageplay/noncon crowd and now they want to revert to their family-friendly image with that money drying up. This is just a convenient excuse to do so.
- Jensson 1y agoValve was forced by credit card processors to do this, its not Valve that is trying to keep a family friendly image here, if they could they would keep those games they said so themselves.
- js8 1y ago[flagged]