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> Payment processors as gatekeepers is absurd, even worse the entire system is completely opaque. Yes... but if payment processors are going to be charged in c

• the8472 1y ago
  Well, then stop doing those transactions in <country>, not globally. Why am I not allowed to buy something just because some organization in <country> threatens lawsuits there or whatever? In other cases multi-nationals (e.g. AWS) are perfectly willing to claim that they're operating a local company under local laws and you can totally trust them to protect local customers from extraterritorial government reach. Additionally, if this were only about legal risk to the payment processors themselves there would be no reason for them to demand that those games are delisted. They'd only have to refuse supporting the transaction. The game stores could continue to list them and require different payment methods.
• qualeed 1y ago
  >if payment processors are going to be charged in criminal cases that involve the use of their systems for purchasing things that are illegal >sued each time someone uses them to purchase something that may be illegal The removed content was gross, but it was legal content. That's the heart of the issue.
  • bluGill 1y ago
    Are you 100% sure it is legal? No possibility that something is illegal.
    • bluefirebrand 1y ago
      That's not how courts work You assume it is legal until shown to be illegal
      • shagie 1y ago
        From https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/01/business/dealbook/pornhub-visa-mastercard-disney.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Z08.WqCJ.DUPIdlK6vtry&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/01/business/dealbook/pornhub... (unlocked article) > “If Visa was aware that there was a substantial amount of child porn on MindGeek’s sites, which the Court must accept as true at this stage of the proceedings, then it was aware that it was processing the monetization of child porn, moving money from advertisers to MindGeek for advertisements playing alongside child porn like Plaintiff’s videos,” Judge Carney wrote. > Judge Carney: “When the Court couples MindGeek’s expansive content removal with allegations that former MindGeek employees have reported a general anxiety at the company that Visa might pull the plug, it does not strike the Court as fatally speculative to say that Visa — with knowledge of what was being monetized and authority to withhold the means of monetization — bears direct responsibility (along with MindGeek) for MindGeek’s monetization of child porn, and in turn the monetization of Plaintiff’s videos.”
        • bluefirebrand 1y ago
          How is this even a counter argument? Was anyone ever arguing that child porn is not illegal? And from the Judge's statement, Visa and Mastercard were aware it was there and also aware it was illegal So.. what are you even trying to say here? Make an argument, don't just blindly post paragraphs like that is supposed to discredit what I'm saying And just to clarify for certain: what I am saying is that when Visa and MasterCard became aware of the child porn they should have taken action at that time This is clearly about them failing to do so
• ragebol 1y ago
  But why should the payment processors be in court? They are just a 'road for money'. Normal roads nor toll road operators aren't going to be charged with a felony if a criminal uses their roads, why should that be different for payments processors?
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • ragebol 1y ago
    Reply to self: One reason is of course they get paid per transaction, so if a criminal transaction takes place on their service, they make money off criminal activity.
• pembrook 1y ago
  The fundamental issue is the existence of an iron clad monopoly of 2 payment providers. It’s a choke point on the entire economy for any sufficiently motivated interest group that wants to ban something that would otherwise be legal…lobbying a few executives at Visa/Mastercard to shut off the taps is much easier than lobbying government to pass a law. With no mandated open protocol for (legal) payments or legal protections like the internet has, this will continue to be a problem and will only get worse. Ultimately I think digital payments should be facilitated on government rails just like cash is. Where any decision to block a payment should be determined by law, and require actual skin in the game from elected representatives who are fireable by their constituents.
  • mistercheph 1y ago
    Bitcoin
    • shrell 1y ago
      This would end up with the exact same problem when people found the processing time unreasonable.
      • mistercheph 1y ago
        Lightning
        • koakuma-chan 1y ago
          Why downvoted?
        • shrell 1y ago
          For the average person wont this just change to the leading custodians having the near monopoly similar to the exchanges or how credit card providers were before becoming what we have today?
  • Workaccount2 1y ago
    I have had running ideas for creating a credit card company for about a year now. It's an idea my head keeps wandering back into. The system is so ripe for disruption. But the start-up costs are mind-bogglingly insane, and the organizations best equipped to help you with capital and/or navigation are the very organizations you would be rug pulling in some way or another.
• garyfirestorm 1y ago
  Why should they be responsible for what is hosted on OF? It’s like blaming an ISP for letting you use internet because you accessed illegal stuff.
  • matwood 1y ago
    Funny you mention ISPs... https://www.crowell.com/en/insights/client-alerts/when-does-a-service-provider-become-liable-for-its-users-piracy-the-supreme-court-grants-cert-in-cox-v-sony-to-address-issues-of-contributory-infringement-and-willful-infringement https://www.crowell.com/en/insights/client-alerts/when-does-...
• TheRealPomax 1y ago
  A payment processor, by definition, does not know what is being bought, it merely mediates payment, And as such is not a party in crime.
  • TheRealPomax 1y ago
    (note, that changes when the payment process has been legally made aware, with acknowledgement, of a specific seller being in violation of the law, and the payment processor continues to facilitate sales for that seller. But that's not the case. The products sold are "morally reprehensible" but not explicitly legal)
    • shagie 1y ago
      They are illegal in Australia - where Collective Shout is based. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_in_Australia#Illegal_pornography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_in_Australia#Illeg...
      • TheRealPomax 1y ago
        Yeah but here's the thing though: if the "games" in question are considered illegal in Australia, then if Steam was already trivially demonstrably breaking Australian law by selling them in the Australian market and could have been taken to court. That is not what happened here. Instead an Australian group demanded Australian law be applied globally, and now you can fuck right off and maybe learn about the fact that an entire planet exists outside of where you live, with not just wildly different laws, but also wildly different attitudes towards what is considered real or not.
        • shagie 1y ago
          Yes, Steam should have followed Australian law (it was even part of their pre-existing rules that were being poorly enforced). The Australian group said to Visa and Mastercard "people have taken your merchants to court before, and you weren't able to get out of those cases. We're going to take Visa and Mastercard to court for Australian law infractions, and you're going to be part of the defendants, again." Visa and Mastercard then put pressure on Steam and Itch to remove anything that might bring Visa or Mastercard into court too, and if Steam and Itch didn't, they would drop them as merchants. From the article: > “We raised our objection to rape and incest games on Steam for months, and they ignored us for months,” reads a blog post from Collective Shout. “We approached payment processors because Steam did not respond to us.” Payment processors do not want a repeat of what happened before... > On Friday, July 29, a federal court issued a decision in ongoing litigation involving MindGeek, the owner of Pornhub and other websites. In this pre-trial decision, the court denied Visa’s motion to be removed from the case on a theory that Visa was complicit in MindGeek’s actions because Visa payment cards were used to pay for advertising on MindGeek sites, among other claims. We strongly disagree with this decision and are confident in our position.