4 ms·

The US has some clear laws against government controlling speech and, in the abstract, that makes it pretty much impossible to censor games. Various factions -

by roenxi 1y ago

The US has some clear laws against government controlling speech and, in the abstract, that makes it pretty much impossible to censor games. Various factions - exactly who it is difficult to pin down - have been working hard to set up a system where they can shut things down without ever explicitly instructing anyone to do anything. This appears to be the system engaging by accident because some crazy from Australia accidentally said the right thing to the right people. So I do actually believe Mastercard when they say this, but holding them accountable anyway is probably for the best. They're likely the single group with the most influence over the regulators.

KingOfCoders 1y ago
Say fuck on TV.
- rs186 1y ago
  Apparently you can do that between 10pm and 6pm on broadcast TV, or on cable TV. Which is a pretty messed up situation.
- chrisrhoden 1y ago
  In addition to the sibling comment about safe harbor hours, the FCC regulates not speech but the shared airwaves. Print is irrelevant, and that’s why you can do whatever you want on cable. Also, the FCC does not directly set standards and instead responds to complaints from the communities in which the broadcast is available. So it’s conceivable that in an environment where nobody cared, you could do this at any time of day.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - KingOfCoders 1y ago
    Didn't know the FCC regulates Youtube. Nevertheless, in a country with no regulations about saying "fuck" on TV, I get beeps on Youtube.
- terinjokes 1y ago
  Many stations affiliated with the ABC network did, from 2001 to 2004, in primetime by airing "Saving Private Ryan" unedited for Veterans Day.
man4 1y ago
[dead]
perihelions 1y ago
> "The US has some clear laws against government controlling speech and, in the abstract, that makes it pretty much impossible to censor games." For background, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Entertainment_Merchants_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Entertainment_Merchan... ("Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association" (2011) ("ruling that video games were protected speech under the First Amendment as other forms of media"))
- p_ing 1y ago
  First Amendment applies to the _government_, not private entities.
  - CoastalCoder 1y ago
    I think the larger point here is that the government is suppressing protected speech by using private sector actors as intermediaries.
    - roblabla 1y ago
      Is there proof the government actually uses this apparatus? I don't think there's any government involvement necessary here - Mastercard has some censorship apparatus (which they claim to be necessary for their brand's reputation), and they used it (apparently through pressure from an Australian group) towards video games. This is really bad but I don't think it makes sense to believe a government was ever involved here. Of course, there should be laws put in place to regulate mastercard into a common infrastructure. They should not be able to deny processing a legal payment because of nebulous "brand reputation" reason.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - dlgeek 1y ago
        In this case? Not that I know of, but I'm not following closely. In general? Absolutely - search 'Operation Chokepoint'. There's a great summary in the middle of this (very long) article under that header: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunking/ https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunki...
infecto 1y ago
I am quite surprised how wrong opinions like yours are. There is no argument of free speech here, they are a private business and as such can decide what they allow and don’t allow on their network. It’s no different than if cloudflare had a click through that said no adult material. You can hand wave around well they are a monopoly or some related argument but the government does not see it that way. Visa and Mastercard for decades have censored adult sites on their network. At the end of the day I suspect they would be happy to take the fees but they are the ones underwriting the risk and there have been cases over the year in the US at least that challenge how extreme you can go with Adult material. Even today there are certain categories that are much harder to get setup for processing. Edit: to be ultra clear, I would love more competition in this space but at the same time there is no argument around free speech here.
- Kinrany 1y ago
  The argument from free speech is that government should not be allowed to censor, regardless of the mechanism. Payment processors currently offer that mechanism.
  - infecto 1y ago
    If the government were coercing Mastercard into censorship, that would be a free speech issue. But absent state pressure, a private company choosing not to do business with certain content isn’t censorship in the constitutional sense. That’s just market behavior. If you want to challenge the influence of financial infrastructure on speech, that’s a separate (and valid) policy debate but it’s not a First Amendment violation.
    - lo_zamoyski 1y ago
      Your distinction is correct as far as it goes, but there is a third observation that must also be taken into account, which is that the tidy division of economic, social, and political matters into private and public domains is uninteresting from the perspective of power. An example of this is how gov'ts, constrained by law, cannot legally engage in widespread surveillance, have found what is morally a loophole by involving private companies who are able to do so more freely. Or, for example, the policing of certain ideas on privately-owned social media which have become de facto public forums. It is completely uninteresting to claim that you aren't forced to use these forums or that you can start your own as jejune free market extremists like to claim. A little intellectual maturity will make plainly obvious why that is the case. Now, I happen to think that, pace Dershowitz, adult content does not fall within the scope of free speech. The entire purpose of free speech is to allow the truth to be to expressed. Free speech takes an attitude of pragmatic permissiveness toward certain varieties of what are objectively bad speech as the price for that to happen. It's a choice that was made in American political history, but even here, the bounds of what is legally permitted under free speech have not remained fixed for various reasons. Adult content is nowhere in the vicinity of this notion of free speech, and certainly not its moral purposes. There is no right to produce or to view adult content. There is no right to anything that is objectively unethical, and both the production and consumption of such content is unethical. Gov'ts can choose to take a permissive stance toward such activity for prudential reasons (for example, historically, while prostitution was categorically condemned on moral grounds, gov'ts took a permissive attitude in some respects, because they felt that banning it would cause still greater problems), but they have the authority to criminalize it. So, given that it isn't a free speech issue, I have no problem, in a free speech context, with private companies banning such content from their platforms or from being the subject of transactions passing through their systems.
armada651 1y ago
> This appears to be the system engaging by accident because some crazy from Australia accidentally said the right thing to the right people. This has been happening for years already, this is not an accident caused by a crazy lady from Australia complaining to the right people. She simply took advantage of Mastercard already engaging in censorship and challenged them and their payment processors to take on an even broader interpretation of Mastercard's obscenity rules.
AngryData 1y ago
Ehh, mastercard and visa have been playing these kind of games for years. For example hypnosis is a censored term on most porn sites, and most try to take down videos using or referencing marijuana in videos. Not because either of those things are against the law to have in a video, but because payment processors like Visa and Mastercard will blacklist sites that don't of their own volition. Go ahead and go type hypnosis in any major porn site and you will see you get zero results.

by roenxi 1y ago

KingOfCoders 1y ago

Say fuck on TV.

rs186 1y ago
Apparently you can do that between 10pm and 6pm on broadcast TV, or on cable TV. Which is a pretty messed up situation.
chrisrhoden 1y ago
In addition to the sibling comment about safe harbor hours, the FCC regulates not speech but the shared airwaves. Print is irrelevant, and that’s why you can do whatever you want on cable. Also, the FCC does not directly set standards and instead responds to complaints from the communities in which the broadcast is available. So it’s conceivable that in an environment where nobody cared, you could do this at any time of day.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- KingOfCoders 1y ago
  Didn't know the FCC regulates Youtube. Nevertheless, in a country with no regulations about saying "fuck" on TV, I get beeps on Youtube.
terinjokes 1y ago
Many stations affiliated with the ABC network did, from 2001 to 2004, in primetime by airing "Saving Private Ryan" unedited for Veterans Day.

man4 1y ago

[dead]

perihelions 1y ago

> "The US has some clear laws against government controlling speech and, in the abstract, that makes it pretty much impossible to censor games." For background, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Entertainment_Merchants_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Entertainment_Merchan... ("Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association" (2011) ("ruling that video games were protected speech under the First Amendment as other forms of media"))

p_ing 1y ago
First Amendment applies to the _government_, not private entities.
- CoastalCoder 1y ago
  I think the larger point here is that the government is suppressing protected speech by using private sector actors as intermediaries.
  - roblabla 1y ago
    Is there proof the government actually uses this apparatus? I don't think there's any government involvement necessary here - Mastercard has some censorship apparatus (which they claim to be necessary for their brand's reputation), and they used it (apparently through pressure from an Australian group) towards video games. This is really bad but I don't think it makes sense to believe a government was ever involved here. Of course, there should be laws put in place to regulate mastercard into a common infrastructure. They should not be able to deny processing a legal payment because of nebulous "brand reputation" reason.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - dlgeek 1y ago
      In this case? Not that I know of, but I'm not following closely. In general? Absolutely - search 'Operation Chokepoint'. There's a great summary in the middle of this (very long) article under that header: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunking/ https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunki...

infecto 1y ago

I am quite surprised how wrong opinions like yours are. There is no argument of free speech here, they are a private business and as such can decide what they allow and don’t allow on their network. It’s no different than if cloudflare had a click through that said no adult material. You can hand wave around well they are a monopoly or some related argument but the government does not see it that way. Visa and Mastercard for decades have censored adult sites on their network. At the end of the day I suspect they would be happy to take the fees but they are the ones underwriting the risk and there have been cases over the year in the US at least that challenge how extreme you can go with Adult material. Even today there are certain categories that are much harder to get setup for processing. Edit: to be ultra clear, I would love more competition in this space but at the same time there is no argument around free speech here.

Kinrany 1y ago
The argument from free speech is that government should not be allowed to censor, regardless of the mechanism. Payment processors currently offer that mechanism.
- infecto 1y ago
  If the government were coercing Mastercard into censorship, that would be a free speech issue. But absent state pressure, a private company choosing not to do business with certain content isn’t censorship in the constitutional sense. That’s just market behavior. If you want to challenge the influence of financial infrastructure on speech, that’s a separate (and valid) policy debate but it’s not a First Amendment violation.
  - lo_zamoyski 1y ago
    Your distinction is correct as far as it goes, but there is a third observation that must also be taken into account, which is that the tidy division of economic, social, and political matters into private and public domains is uninteresting from the perspective of power. An example of this is how gov'ts, constrained by law, cannot legally engage in widespread surveillance, have found what is morally a loophole by involving private companies who are able to do so more freely. Or, for example, the policing of certain ideas on privately-owned social media which have become de facto public forums. It is completely uninteresting to claim that you aren't forced to use these forums or that you can start your own as jejune free market extremists like to claim. A little intellectual maturity will make plainly obvious why that is the case. Now, I happen to think that, pace Dershowitz, adult content does not fall within the scope of free speech. The entire purpose of free speech is to allow the truth to be to expressed. Free speech takes an attitude of pragmatic permissiveness toward certain varieties of what are objectively bad speech as the price for that to happen. It's a choice that was made in American political history, but even here, the bounds of what is legally permitted under free speech have not remained fixed for various reasons. Adult content is nowhere in the vicinity of this notion of free speech, and certainly not its moral purposes. There is no right to produce or to view adult content. There is no right to anything that is objectively unethical, and both the production and consumption of such content is unethical. Gov'ts can choose to take a permissive stance toward such activity for prudential reasons (for example, historically, while prostitution was categorically condemned on moral grounds, gov'ts took a permissive attitude in some respects, because they felt that banning it would cause still greater problems), but they have the authority to criminalize it. So, given that it isn't a free speech issue, I have no problem, in a free speech context, with private companies banning such content from their platforms or from being the subject of transactions passing through their systems.

armada651 1y ago

> This appears to be the system engaging by accident because some crazy from Australia accidentally said the right thing to the right people. This has been happening for years already, this is not an accident caused by a crazy lady from Australia complaining to the right people. She simply took advantage of Mastercard already engaging in censorship and challenged them and their payment processors to take on an even broader interpretation of Mastercard's obscenity rules.

AngryData 1y ago

Ehh, mastercard and visa have been playing these kind of games for years. For example hypnosis is a censored term on most porn sites, and most try to take down videos using or referencing marijuana in videos. Not because either of those things are against the law to have in a video, but because payment processors like Visa and Mastercard will blacklist sites that don't of their own volition. Go ahead and go type hypnosis in any major porn site and you will see you get zero results.