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Itch.io: Update on NSFW Content
- aussieguy1234 1y agoFor those who think this is about just banning adult content, think again. What's actually happening is any content disliked by certain billionaires is being flagged by payment providers under their influence. When they see something they disagree with, they'll send an email to the CEO of Visa or MasterCard and action gets taken.
- mschuster91 1y agoThe problem is, Steam, Itch, Pornhub - they all had ample warnings and complaints about the kind of content they're hosting, but chose to forego introducing moderation in favor of continuing to make profit. Complaints about Pornhub went ignored for years, for example, until enough pressure built up. And it's a similar same case for Facebook. The EU complained for years about anything from hate speech spread by the general public to outright propaganda campaigns, Facebook did nothing - but complained when the EU finally had enough and introduced the DSA.
- itake 1y agoHow would have applying moderation years ago enabled Itch and Steam to sell porn games today?
- mschuster91 1y agoApplying moderation and reacting to legitimate complaints in time would have prevented pressure from building up so massively that payment networks or politicians even have a leg to stand on. It's one thing to have occasional issues with stuff slipping through the cracks, that happens. But it's a completely different thing to just not do anything for years. In the case of Steam, let's just take the recent Nazi scandal [1] - reports of users using blatant Nazi imagery and vocabulary date back almost a decade [2] and that's the oldest thing I could find in a minute of Googling, I 'member this being a thing even years before Trump's first presidency but honestly I can't be bothered to search for more old Nazi shit at 9 o'clock in the morning. Had Steam done something about the Nazis back in 2017, I guarantee you that 2024 Bloomberg piece wouldn't ever have come into existence. That's seven years in which Steam did nothing to combat users using swastikas - stuff that could trivially be caught using machine learning, even back in the time. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-14/white-supremacist-nazi-content-spread-on-steam-gaming-platform https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-14/white-sup... [2] https://forum.gamespodcast.de/viewtopic.php?t=2478 https://forum.gamespodcast.de/viewtopic.php?t=2478
- Numerlor 1y ago> Applying moderation and reacting to legitimate complaints in time would have prevented pressure from building up so massively that payment networks or politicians even have a leg to stand on. How would moderation help when the games that are being removed from the platforms are perfectly legal, and in compliance with the terms the platforms out on the creators? The only problem with the games is that a highly influential group of people views them as immoral, and use them as a stepping stone towards achieving their broader goal of censoring all adult content. The nazi thing may have brought a little bit more attention to Steam but I really can't imagine it was a big decisive factor instead of Steam's allowing of porn games and displaying them on the best selling lists with the adult options enabled
- Mindwipe 1y ago[flagged]
- AnthonyMouse 1y agoThat's not the reason it's nonsense. It's that "they should have done something" is an anecdote-based complaint that ignores everything they actually do. If some service takes reasonable measures and solves the large majority of the problem, there will still be some instances that they miss and then critics will point to them and claim they're not doing enough. If they take more aggressive measures that aren't worth the candle, there will still be some instances that they miss and then critics will point to them and claim they're not doing enough. It's "meet the impossible standard of having no bad things ever happen or you're not doing enough and we have to pass these bad laws".
- mschuster91 1y ago> there will still be some instances that they miss We're talking about hundreds if not thousands of complaints here for Pornhub, that went ignored for years. We're talking about highest level politicians in the EU raising serious stink first, then threatening regulation and only then following through with it in Meta's case. That's far, far beyond "some instances".
- patchymcnoodles 1y agoI agree only partially with you. Yes some problems were ignored for far too long, but these providers sometimes block stuff that is just adult content. And it is an issue, if a small amount of providers have so much power. Visa and Mastercard more or less have the entire market. Both US american as well, so not even an alternative from other countries. And with Facebook: I mean yes theoretically it is good that the EU is trying to do something, I'm all up for it. But Facebook is in my opinion worse than it ever was and gets more worse every day.
- freehorse 1y agoPornhub hosted material featuring sex trafficked women for years without taking serious action. Other porn sites were doing the same. I do not see how a game in steam or itch.io where everything is fictional is anywhere close to that or requiring such moderation. This is a totally different issue, in the same way that a game involving killing others is not the same as an actual video of somebody killing people. Shall we ban books featuring similar themes too?
- IncandescentGas 1y agoThe payment processors have been held criminally and civilly liable in court for processing payments for pornhub. I don't see how we can expect Visa/MC to not censor their customers, if we also intend to hold them criminally liable for the actions of their customers in such cases. If Visa spends years in criminal court because a book store accepted a credit card payment for an illegal book, then yes, expect Visa to start placing limits on card processing for bookstores.
- roguecoder 1y agoDo you have examples where there has been criminal or civil liability for a purely-fictional game?
- senectus1 1y agointeresting claim. I'm not saying I dont believe you, but do you have any form of evidence to back this claim?
- aussieguy1234 1y agohttps://omny.fm/shows/hot-money/episode-5-the-billionaire-who-took-down-porn https://omny.fm/shows/hot-money/episode-5-the-billionaire-wh... This particular example is also porn but you can see how the same method could be used for anything else even remotely controversial.
- bob1029 1y agoThis seems like a compelling use case for cryptocurrencies or other tokenized/indirect value exchange schemes.
- Zealotux 1y agoHopefully this can accelerate the world being free of historical payment providers.
- itake 1y agoMaybe USDC being public makes this a better time. I believe Steam tried to accept bitcoin, but the price fluctuations and slow transactions made it impossible for them to provide the level of service that set.
- herbst 1y agoBTC or any crypto lost way less value (in fact only increased) where 1 USDT/C lost 20-25% of its value for the average European since trump began crashing the US. Really no reason at all to hold or handle USD compared to nearly anything else right now :)
- _imnothere 1y agoFor your information, there's stable coin for EUR as well[1] [1]: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/euro-coin/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/euro-coin/
- efitz 1y agoAny corporation whose business is financial in nature and focused on facilitating commerce- banks, payment processors, and everything else- should be required to function as a common carrier. They should be allowed to alter prices to adjust for provable differences in risk, for example if transactions involving a particular seller or a particular class of product have a much larger than average dispute rate- but they should not be allowed to deplatform any customer for any reason not directly related to fraudulent or illegal behavior.
- zavec 1y agoIt reminds me of net neutrality.
- betaby 1y agoNet neutrality exists defacto in US and Canada.
- lioeters 1y agoOver 20K games, book, and other content have been removed with no warning to customers and creators. All because of pressure from Visa and Mastercard, a duopoly propped up by puritans and authoritarians.
- msgodel 1y agoCapital one/discover has their own network. So at least in the US it's not a duopoly. Not that it's much of a help here.
- deaddodo 1y agoMany nations have their own domestic card networks that exist from the pre-Visa/MC domination period. A few major ones that come to mind are Russia, China, and Germany.
- dlcarrier 1y agoIt's not the payment processors applying the pressure, it's coming from regulators, through a strategy called jawboning: https://knightcolumbia.org/blog/six-things-about-jawboning https://knightcolumbia.org/blog/six-things-about-jawboning
- adfasofdjo 1y agoDo you have any further reports on this ? All the news are just reporting the action by payment processor, not much on who is pressuring them to do so.
- thinkingemote 1y agoThere is a lot of paranoia and conspiracy thinking here. Itch in the article says that the main group is Collective Shout which is against violence against women and girls: https://www.collectiveshout.org/open-letter-to-payment-processors https://www.collectiveshout.org/open-letter-to-payment-proce...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- tkel 1y agoFor context, the game which led to this mass censorship is mainly about blackmailing/manipulating women into sex
- adfasofdjo 1y agoAFAIK furry games are also banned on Steam.
- yugoslavia4ever 1y agobabies and bathwater spring to mind
- 0xy 1y agoWhy does that justify censorship? The content is unquestionably legal.
- chromehearts 1y agoIt's sexual coercion - aka rape.
- sReinwald 1y agoThis is a deeply concerning development, though not an entirely surprising one. While I sympathize with itch.io's position - being caught between their creators and their payment processors - the broader implications here are alarming. Payment processors have effectively become unelected censorship boards with the power to strangle entire categories of legal content by threatening to cut off the economic infrastructure that platforms depend on. The fact that a single advocacy campaign can pressure Visa/Mastercard/PayPal into forcing platforms to remove legal adult content should concern anyone who values free expression online. The fundamental issue isn't whether you personally approve of adult games or specific content - it's that a handful of payment companies now wield veto power over what legal content can exist in the digital economy. This represents a massive concentration of censorial authority in the hands of unaccountable corporate entities that face no meaningful democratic oversight. We've seen this pattern repeatedly: PayPal blocking VPN providers over "piracy concerns," Visa suspending payments to adult sites, and now this coordinated pressure campaign. Each time, legal content gets effectively banned not through legislation or courts, but through corporate policy decisions made behind closed doors. By inserting themselves as moral arbiters for the digital economy and free expression on the internet, these processors are creating a very strong case for being designated as common carriers or being subjected to much stricter public utility regulation. When payment infrastructure becomes as essential as electricity or telephone service for participating in the digital economy, treating these companies as neutral utilities rather than editorial boards becomes not just reasonable but necessary.
- __loam 1y agoOne of the most concerning parts of this is that these are global companies. Regardless of local laws, these companies still wield enormous power. This is also a sovereignty and self determination issue.
- scirob 1y agoI hate to point out that we have completely free payment options (way too free for most) that could prevent all of this based on b***** technology. But then again maybe itch would get blackmailed even harder by the currently leading payment companies if they were to adopt b***** payments. So only with huge customer demand for free payments could they switch.
- charcircuit 1y agoWhy not allow JCB / crypto / other payment processors for such material instead of taking them down?
- TheDong 1y agoVisa does not allow that. The rules are worded as "If the merchant has _any relation to_ adult content, banned", not "if the merchant accepts visa payment for adult content".
- user857362 1y agoIs it somehow related to this ? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44668056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44668056
- falcor84 1y agoYes, they mentioned that in TFA
- orwin 1y agoThe new code Hayes is exported to the world already, games are just another medium caught. To be clear: i do think part of the complaint from the collective should be heard (CSAM have no place anywhere, and rape roleplaying should stay in bedrooms), but including incest or any non-violent fetish in the complaint seems weird and seems equating it to rape and child abuse, which it is not (it's a disturbing fetish to me, but _a lot_ of fetishes are disturbing to me, and i don't think anybody should ban them). My issue with it is that it is again a show of force by payment processors and i heavily dislike it.
- breakingcups 1y agoI'm curious, why should rape roleplay stay in the bedroom but mass-murder or burtal torture in, say, GTA V is fine?
- orwin 1y agoThinking about it you're right, it's just a kink. I still think rape or torture as a main storyline is extremely weird, but that's not a reason to ban them unless an informed majority wants to. In any case, it shouldn't be the choice of payment processors.
- pengaru 1y ago> informed majority
- roguecoder 1y agoEven if an informed majority wants to ban something, it should not be illegal without actual evidence of actual harm. And all legal enterprises should be able to access the infrastructure necessary to conduct business.
- Jigsy 1y ago> CSAM have no place anywhere The fact that a drawing can be "CSAM" is ridiculous, frankly. Why shouldn't taboo be explored in fiction? (Manga, Visual Novels, etc.)
- Krutonium 1y agoFor those of you in the US (I'm Canadian), there is a bill in congress right now that would make it illegal for any financial service provider to directly or indirectly prohibit or inhibit any legal transaction. It's called the Fair Access to Banking Act, H.R.987 in the House, S.401 in the Senate. Call your representatives. Get it passed. Edit: Oh yeah and feel free to copy, paste, share this around, make people AWARE of this, because nobody is! Of course, change if you're not Canadian, but like... Make it happen.
- some_furry 1y agoI'm seeing mixed things about HR 987 and S 401 online. There are resistbot campaigns claiming that this law will do the exact opposite of what we want. https://resist.bot/letters/eb93c1f2-0b25-4fb3-b080-5e75f9c5c154 https://resist.bot/letters/eb93c1f2-0b25-4fb3-b080-5e75f9c5c... EDIT: I decided to blog about this topic. https://soatok.blog/2025/07/24/against-the-censorship-of-adult-content-by-payment-processors/ https://soatok.blog/2025/07/24/against-the-censorship-of-adu...
- greyface- 1y agoRead the legislation for yourself. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/987/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/987/... https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/401/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/401... I don't see a basis for the assertion by the resistbot letter that it could "force banks to cut off services to" "marginalized communities". It actually appears to do the opposite - banks that cut off services to law-abiding people would lose their access to the Fed lending window.
- some_furry 1y ago> Read the legislation for yourself. I tried. My brain isn't very good at understanding the effects of law, only the literal and logical structure of its changes. > I don't see a basis for the assertion by the resistbot letter that it could "force banks to cut off services to" "marginalized communities". It actually appears to do the opposite - banks that cut off services to law-abiding people would lose their access to the Fed lending window. I'm inclined to agree, but I'm not a lawyer. I would be a rather awful one if I tried to become one.
- mkleczek 1y agoYet another case for Bitcoin: permissionless, censorship resistant, peer-to-peer payment system. I wonder if (when?) we reach a tipping point when people massively start using it. Censoring porn like this looks like a very strong incentive.
- zero0529 1y agoThis also happened to steam a few days ago. They even changed their game policy stating that their payment processors determine the content allowed on steam.
- Tiberium 1y agoThat's true, but at least Steam did not hide NSFW games from search/recommendations (if you had mature content enabled), which Itch.io did without warning. And I assume that NSFW games likely represent a far higher % of revenue/user activity compared to normal games for Itch than for Steam.
- doublerabbit 1y agoWhile this rubs one the wrong way. Steam has the power to fight if it needed to hold its ground while it adjusts its policy. With itch, I doubt so. In one swell swoop itch would be in the water; immediately action required. I am not saying it's the correct way but to save a ship from being sank, credit card stuff are normally merciless...
- Jackson__ 1y agoMind you, the exact same situation steam faces right now, itch.io had been facing ~3 months ago. If the current state of itch.io is anything to go by, things are still likely to get worse for steam.
- BlueTemplar 1y agoSteam *banned* a smaller fraction of games.
- perihelions 1y agoIt's remarkable that these censors are hiding behind "feminism", as a framing to make their censoriousness seem more palatable, or progressive, or enlightened. Anyone familiar with literature (reading–not burning) might know the OG feminists defied laws and criminal arrests to publish obscene books. Here's Margaret C. Anderson of "The Little Review", fined $100 and fingerprinted for flouting morality laws publishing Joyce's Ulysses in serialized form, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_C._Anderson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_C._Anderson (Did you know the US Post Office used to burn books?)
- baobabKoodaa 1y ago> Anyone familiar with literature (reading–not burning) nice one
- Lerc 1y agoI'm not sure of the scale of Collective Shout. It may be little more than one person with an agenda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinda_Tankard_Reist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinda_Tankard_Reist I suspect there is far more church backing behind this organisation than feminist.
- wmf 1y agoThere have been multiple waves and competing schools of feminism. OG feminism isn't relevant to what it means today.
- perihelions 1y agoThat this wave of modern feminists would arrest the 1920's feminists for moral crimes shows they are indeed very different.
- shlip 1y agoIt looks like itch.io is partly down ? Is it in relation to this announcement ?
- mrkramer 1y agoCrypto FTW.
- johndoh42 1y agoSadly that ban also hit three of our our games that help victims cope with trauma. :( Please write to your representative: Dear [Representative's Name], I am writing to formally request an investigation into the activities of Collective Shout, an organization whose censorship-driven campaigns have caused measurable harm to artists, survivors, and vulnerable communities. Under the guise of protecting women and children, they have erased trauma narratives, suppressed creative expression, and bullied platforms into enacting broad, opaque bans. Their actions disproportionately affect marginalized voices and bypass democratic discourse in favor of ideological policing. There is growing concern that their influence is rooted more in religious moralism than evidence-based advocacy. I urge your office to examine their funding, methods, and societal impact with urgency and transparency. Sincerely, [Your Full Name] [Your Address / Constituency]
- snvzz 1y agoWhile they also deserve some backlash, I would focus on bringing attention to the payment processors.
- orlp 1y agoThis is useless. You can't stop Collective Shout (their campaign almost surely falls under First Amendment rights), and even if you could, 30 minutes later a new group pops up. Plus your message would fall completely on deaf ears for anyone who agrees with Collective Shout. Bring attention to the fact that payment processors are acting as active censorship of legal content, rather than neutral infrastructure. Emphasize that if they can censor legal content, anything could be next, including but not limited to political donations of a specific party.
- roguecoder 1y agoCollective Shout is a foreign organization attacking American companies. The First Amendment does not mean you get to speak and advocate in secret, and it only applies to American residents.
- kelseyfrog 1y ago
- Funes- 1y agoIf there ever was a case to switch to crypto payments...
- roguecoder 1y agoIt really highlights how bad crypto is as a solution to what it claims that it can't be a solution here. It is impractically slow, the user experience is too high a bar, it lacks meaningful consumer protections and it would not be able to handle the transaction volume. That it hasn't been able to address those problems in the last fifteen years calls the whole enterprise into question.
- anon191928 1y agoIn early 2000s it was IMPOSIBLE for websites to handle millions of visits, except big ones like google and yahoo. UX for websites was weak, mobile barely existed, https was not used, online payments were limited to certain websites, fraud was common and anyone with CC number could steal from your card. Internet was not early and Crypto is now at that level. So think bigger and think about process.
- eska 1y agoReading the comments it seems to me that people focus on disallowing visa to censor. I think the bigger issue is that nobody can create an alternative payment processor and do business with Steam/Itch, because visa will pressure Steam/Itch. So to me it’s a problem of monopoly not censorship.
- qualeed 1y ago>it’s a problem of monopoly not censorship. It is both. The monopoly (or duopoly) is what enables the demands for censorship.
- donatj 1y agoCan we disrupt payment processors already? This is getting really old. We shouldn't be bound by the moral compass of payment processors on what we can use our own money for.
- roguecoder 1y agoPix did it in Brazil. FedNow could do it, but it would require anyone in government to know how technology works instead of how to collect campaign contributions from the companies they regulate.
- pull_my_finger 1y agoNever a bad time to plug GNU Taler[1] >>> GNU Taler is a privacy-preserving payment system. Customers can stay anonymous, but merchants can not hide their income through payments with GNU Taler. This helps to avoid tax evasion and money laundering. [1]: https://www.taler.net/en/index.html https://www.taler.net/en/index.html
- fidelramos 1y agoThat was precisely Bitcoin's goal as stated in its whitepaper [0] > A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. > Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions serving as trusted third parties to process electronic payments. While the system works well enough for most transactions, it still suffers from the inherent weaknesses of the trust based model. Completely non-reversible transactions are not really possible, since financial institutions cannot avoid mediating disputes. The cost of mediation increases transaction costs, limiting the minimum practical transaction size and cutting off the possibility for small casual transactions, and there is a broader cost in the loss of ability to make non-reversible payments for non-reversible services. With the possibility of reversal, the need for trust spreads. Merchants must be wary of their customers, hassling them for more information than they would otherwise need. A certain percentage of fraud is accepted as unavoidable. These costs and payment uncertainties can be avoided in person by using physical currency, but no mechanism exists to make payments over a communications channel without a trusted party. > What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party. Transactions that are computationally impractical to reverse would protect sellers from fraud, and routine escrow mechanisms could easily be implemented to protect buyers. In this paper, we propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer distributed timestamp server to generate computational proof of the chronological order of transactions. The system is secure as long as honest nodes collectively control more CPU power than any cooperating group of attacker nodes. [0] https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- BeFlatXIII 1y agoWhat incentives are there for payment processors to be anything other than utterly amoral money movers?
- progbits 1y agoI'm tired of few jerks trying to police everyone and this "toleration of intolerance". We can fight back. Any legal and nonviolent response against the "collective shout" people is acceptable. Share your ideas. If you run a platform and see any of them as users get rid of them. Delete their account, wipe their data, ban them. Don't deliver them pizza. Don't accept restaurant reservations in their name. They think they can police others, it goes both ways. Realistic? At this point, no. But we should normalize this sort of response. Wannabe bullies should be scared of personal consequences.
- coryfklein 1y agoWhen I was young there was a lot of fear that first-person shooter video games were leading to a rampant increase in youth violence. This concern is virtually unheard of today, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they actually had a slight effect in the opposite direction: some of those youth getting trouble outside are now indoors playing harmless video games.
- roguecoder 1y agoWhen it turned out video games measurably lower crime people suddenly got really quite about the social consequences of video games.
- mvieira38 1y agoAaaaand this is why we need crypto, and with crypto I mean Monero
- raincole 1y agoThe big irony here is that we already have a widely applied age verification mechanism, which is... credit cards. In most countries minors can't apply for credit cards. Therefore in an ideal world, Steam/itch.io/etc should allow players to buy NSFW content if only they pay via credit cards. But someone we live in an upside down reality where payment processors are the ones forcing stores to remove NSFW content.
- roguecoder 1y agoThe Australian and English TERF movements reviving the worst parts of the 1970s "radical feminist" movement has been absolutely corrosive to liberal society. The anti-abortion stance of this group gives the game away: it is about prudishness and control, not the full and equal humanity of women. We need to realize that these people are not representative: they have been radicalized on MumNet forums the same way the flat earthers got radicalized on YouTube. The problem is when we let a small groups of radicals set global public policy based on who can behave the most outrageously.
- lwidvrizokdhai 1y agoI'm so tired of seeing this exact same thing happen to platform after platform. These puritans will never be satisfied.
- snvzz 1y agoDon't get them wrong: It is about the power. They get a kick out of being able to impose upon others. Forever miserable people who wish to make everyone else miserable as well.
- AStonesThrow 1y ago[dead]
- edwardbernays 1y agoPayment processors will refuse to service payments for fictional harm, but will happily help people support a fascist[1]. If we're going to censor things, we should at least censor the actual, out-and-out, self-admitted fascists. Icky games with fictionalized harm do not seem to result in real harm, yet we have a very recent history showing the harm of real-life fascism. What a strange standard! [1] https://www.givesendgo.com/rift-connor-emergency-fund https://www.givesendgo.com/rift-connor-emergency-fund
- rat_a_tat_tat 1y ago[flagged]
- kelseyfrog 1y agoWait, what? How can someone tell another person what their gender is? Gender is a sense of internal alignment. It sounds like you're talking about sex. Maybe you're confused? If someone else can tell you what your gender is, then I could just tell you that your gender is woman and nothing you say could refute that.
- rat_a_tat_tat 1y ago[flagged]
- kelseyfrog 1y agoIt sounds like you can tell someone what their gender is? For example, "Stop pretending to be a man." See, that doesn't make a lot of sense. You're confused.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- rat_a_tat_tat 1y ago[flagged]
- tomhow 1y agoWe've banned this account. Please don't engage in gender warfare on HN. It's not what HN is for and it destroys what it is for, and is against the guidelines. Further, don't register new accounts just to break the guidelines. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44676655 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44676655 and marked it off topic.
- realaaa 1y agoso if this game is so horrible and indeed promotes rape etc - surely we (this shout collective specifically) can go after the actual creator(s), right? otherwise indeed it's a lot of extra work & red tape for everyone else because of some ultimate dickheads, better to and bash them directly I'd say of course still need to have checks and publishing rules etc
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
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