tldr: Australian pressure group Collective Shout has claimed responsibility for the recent Itch.io and Steam developments that have seen the platforms change how they deal with - and in some cases remove - NSFW games and content from their respective platforms.
The group had already been closely linked with the situation, which has seen Itch.io and Steam scramble to appease payment providers like Visa as they suddenly took an interest in the kind of games available on the platforms, especially those which contravened rules and “standards” the payment providers apparently had. It led to Itch.io deindexing all NSFW content from its browse and search pages, and Steam introducing vague new rules about adult content, while removing a slew of games.
“In response to false claims and misinformation about our campaign, we’re setting the record straight,” wrote Collective Shout in a Facebook update. "Some have asked why we involved payment processors, and others have claimed we are responsible for Itch.io removing all NSFW content.
"We raised our objection to r*pe and incest games on Steam for months, and they ignored us for months. We approached payment processors because Steam did not respond to us.
“We called on Itch.io to remove rpe and incest games that we argued normalised violence and abuse of women. Itch.io made the decision to remove all NSFW content. Our objections were to content that involved sxualised violence and torture of women.”
Collective Shout shared a timeline of the campaign on its website, noting how it began with No Mercy, a game which involves extreme sexual violence, being brought to its in March. The group’s actions - a mixture of petitioning, emailing, and lobbying - began in early April and led to the game being removed from sale later that month.
We need to ignore them, they’re obfuscating from the real issue. Payment processors should not have the ability to police content, full stop, end of discussion.
The person who tattled is absolutely irrelevant and a distraction
Steam ignored them, presumably, because they sell their products in accordance with the law, and that’s all that ought to matter.
hot take: people ought to start forming morals outside of legal morality. a Lotta freaks are gonna end up illegal otherwise and the freak factor certainly includes some thing you do that your prudish neighbor doesn’t like
In this context it’s definitely a hot take considering the prudish neighbor was able to make freaky shit “illegal” anyway, and in far greater capacity than any single government could. Rape and incest games ain’t for me but when they get banned because a handful of people decide for the rest of us how the world is supposed to look like without anyone else getting a say in the matter I take serious offense. At least if they went the legal route the process would’ve a) been transparent and given an opportunity for others to make a case and b) not instantly affect the entire world.
This “scary government is going to take away your rights” just leads to private enterprises taking away your rights without any oversight. This entire thing is a case in point. The government can take away your rights but at least you have a way to fight for your rights, what are you going to do against oligopolistic payment processors taking away your rights?
Rape and incest ain’t for me but I take serious offense when they get banned
phrasing
i hate to inform you that these lobbying groups are acting exactly like a state would, actually. maybe don’t lecture to trans people and tell us how the state works, we interact with the state way more than you will ever have to 💋
what are you going to do against oligopolistic payment processors taking away your rights?
idk, what are YOU gonna do? are cis people gonna finally fight for trans autonomy or are they gonna act like us having autonomy is too insane?
are you gonna finally listen to us like when trans sex workers told you a decade ago that banks, the police and payment processors are policing our money or are you gonna let the issue fester because you don’t want your family to know you stand with trannies and whores?
Okay, the smug “you’re not one of us so don’t speak” argument… Alright, then we’re just not going to have a discussion. Just don’t forget that if one of these groups ever use payment providers to suppress trans rights you supported this.
not surprising at all that you chose to go the blue MAGA “enjoy your camps, then” route instead of taking a step back. the only smug person here was you not realizing you’re way out of your depth
Sorry, excuse me for making this comment, but I kinda think that the user Goodeye8 was agreeing with you since the start.
Anyways I wish you well.
Do you know that you can edit your comment before you post? Because if you post and then edit the rest of comment in later others might miss that when replying? Anyway, not that you’ve actually addressed something in your previous comment I’m going to respond to that. I’m going to ignore what you’ve said right now because that shit is just too dumb to respond to.
idk, what are YOU gonna do?
I already complained to my government.
are cis people gonna finally fight for trans autonomy or are they gonna act like us having autonomy is too insane?
The fuck are you on about? I’m not against trans people. We should all have humane levels of rights.
are you gonna finally listen to us like when trans sex workers told you a decade ago that banks, the police and payment processors are policing our money or are you gonna let the issue fester because you don’t want your family to know you stand with trannies and whores?
Again, the fuck? I’m also pro sex work because sex workers regularly get exploited and I think legalizing and regulation sex work would make their lives safer.
Also do you see how insane you act? I disagree with you on one thing and then you automatically assume I also disagree with you on (probably) all the other things. You’re turning me into a villain in your own mind, and for what purpose? So you could dehumanize me? You’re acting exactly like the conservatives who hate your guts.
‘Blue MAGA’? Oh shit, please don’t tell me you voted for trump!
yeah, you got me. not liking liberals makes me a trump supporter. the overton window always ends at being a “progressive” slightly to the left of Ronald Reagan and anything beyond that is just the ice wall keeping us from finding out that the earth is flat
Berating people online who already agree with you is not how you get allies, dumbass.
Next they are banning sex toy purchases, r rated movies, tabacco, vape and alcohol.
next they’ll probably want to ban LGBT content since it’s “clearly pornographic”
Clearly you didn’t read the article
or i share similar concerns with the person from the quote in the final part of the article…
i’m not sure how bringing up something in the article makes it “clear” that i didn’t read said article
Someone down under needs to send some complaints about them in. There is no way anyone who projects that much isn’t guilty of something.
There are lots of people poking at them with sticks. Every time someone does it they post who’s doing it and show it as proof that they’re being oppressed.
The only thing dumber than your comment is the amount of up votes you have.
Our objections were to content that involved sexualised violence and torture of women.
Okay so why did m/m smut games get delisted? Get fucked, puritans.
because MC and Visa are morons. According to them in porn 4 fingers and a thumb in a vagina is fine. as soon as you take said fingers and thumb, ball them into a fist, and then stick it in a vagina then they got problems with THAT and it’s a no go.
They have more stupid rules. If you piss on a woman in Europe and film it then it’s fine. If you piss on a woman in the US and film it then it’s not fine. IF you take the footage of someone pissing on a woman IN Europe and SELL it in the US then that’s fine. But Americans are not allowed to pee on Americans on US soil according to Visa and Mastercard.
here’s another one: Incest Porn is not fine according to Visa and MC. “but I see that stuff all the time!” I hear you say dear reader. Yes, because according to MC/Visa you MUST establish that this is a step family relationship in the beginning BUT further into said video you can drop the “step-” moniker and start throwing around regular dads and moms and brothers and sisters all you like.
But Americans are not allowed to pee on Americans on US soil according to Visa and Mastercard.
So much for ‘land of the free’.
As they should have. Why should Steam or Itch.Io have to respond to every tiny cult of religious nutjibs making ridiculous requests?
They didn’t respond to religious nutjobs, maybe read the article
I’m not sure what you are saying here?
Are you saying that Valve and Itch did not respond to Collective Shout? Well, so did I… My comment was saying they were justified in doing so.
Are you saying Collective Shout are not religious nutjobs? That’s an easy mistake to make because their website and branding does a really good job of trying to hide it from a casual researcher, but the founder Melissa Reist is pretty obviously a devout Catholic- she gives interviews with Catholic organizations, appears at Catholic youth camps, and describes herself as a “pro-life feminist”, which is of course an oxymoron. She’s definitely a religious nutjob.
They are ok with murder and war simulation then? ROFL Smells like another religious pressure group tbh, haven’t looked into them yet.
They should go after all violence in games and media then; we’ll see how well they can fend of the pressure… Not sure if they have the ressources to survive that, so I would LOVE to see them try.
Oh it goes deeper than that.
Check out their FAQ. They’re cool with the dehumanization of males too. They’re only advocating for “dehumanization” against females.
A game about torturing women? Unacceptable.
A game about torturing men? Acceptable 👍
They mention some bullshit about how one happens more often and the other doesn’t so that justifies being hypocrites.
By all accounts they aren’t religious, we don’t have *gestures broadly to American Evangelicalism* going on here in Aus. They just seem to be TERFs and SWERFs.
we don’t have gestures broadly to American Evangelicalism going on here in Aus.
Hillsong says hi.
The religion of pure bigotry seems to be the most popular one these days, especially online
Hey Australia, we’ve got enough stupid moral crusader nut jobs here in America; please stop making yours our problem too.
Don’t forget Ruport Murdoch who’s been pushing the right wing agenda across the country is an Australian export. This is not unusual from that country honestly.
He is from Australia originally, but he’s been a US naturalised citizen and lived there full-time since 1985, he gave up Australian citizenship 40 years ago.
No backsies.
How about we just send him half way back?
Deal if you send just half of him back.
Which half is dealers choice, and no need for a contiguous half. It can be half by volume.
sounds like it’s time to bring the 90s back. rotten.com here we go.
they want to stop the sale and purchase of adult content, so just give it away for free. shareware that shit and spread it like VD.
Unironically it will bring more people to dark corners of the net, foul content was always free. Now i’m not going for these games, but also comparing the entire nsfw genre to specific games is disingenuous. At the same time violence and shocking real life images are fine, right?
Nsfw involves adult themes that aren’t sexual.
That means censoring the self expression of consenting adults.
This creates a huge bottleneck that eventually just leads to this growing in the back of the visible. Porn addiction is a problem, sure. How did pre-teens gain access to this content? Didn’t parents give them a fully capable computer at all times?
Back when i used a computer, I only had access to research and office, also flash games. Other than that I had other devices and offline games, on cd.
Modern devices have better parental controls but nobody uses them, old computers had virtually none. Turns out you can do your parenting.
The dangers of this privacy invasive solution is the exposure of personal ID to questionable places, while bringing people towards bad places, that don’t ask for things.
Kinda like pirating a game as a kid, because you couldn’t buy it, but you only got viruses afterwards. Same deal.
Why is their logo a pink asshole?
Now I want to make a slaanesh space marine with this on its pauldron.
Because they’re a bunch of fake feminist arseholes?
You know if we’re doing a numbers game Australia really exports a lot of shitty stuff. I mean the trade imbalance of fucking garbage Australian bullshit it’s pretty severe.
The trade imbalance? With the US?
Take back your war on drugs, the war on terror, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, your insane tech broligarchy, rhe 2008 global financial crisis, your Evangelical hate brigades (actually you know what take back Mormons and Scientologists and 7th day adventists while youre at it), the GLOBAL trade disasters & inflation caused by Trump and his pissy tarrif wars, the global derailing of climate agreements again by Trump and his idiot Republican allies.
I’ll stop now because I could literally type all day the shit coming out of the US that has been causing immense damage to the rest of us.
What’s Australia’s shit?
Murdoch? He gave up Aussie citizenship and moved to the US in 1985, he’s spent the majority of his working career as an American living in America - we can at best take half ownership of him.
This handful of censorship wowsers taking down some rapey video games?
Mel Gibson?Enlighten me because I think the numbers of your “trade imbalance” don’t even come close to adding up.
I don’t think any country in the anglosphere has a monopoly on exporting shitty people, but I’m hardly going to throw stones what with this glass house I live in.
…whut? Are you American? Because if so that’s bloody rich. I’ll cop to Murdoch, that’s on us, I’m sorry for that. But what the hell else do we export that’s “fucking garbage”?
The biggest TERFs in the planet seem to be either Australian or British, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Also, Murdoch has caused untold damage to America that is gonna take decades or even a century to fix.
The biggest TERFs in the planet seem to be either Australian
What?? As a trans Australian that’s just completely rubbish. We aren’t having the same anti-trans rhetoric issue here that the US and UK are. In fact the biggest issue we had with TERFs was when Posie Parker came and did a speaking tour.
Seems like while Australia doesn’t export that much bad stuff, the stuff that does get exported somehow manages to be even worse than other places, for some reason. Collective Shout is a group of TERFs, and Murdoch… well we don’t need to talk about him. And also another bad thing Australia exported was videogame censorship, like the time they banned Hotline Miami 2.
Sure, Collective Shout is a TERF group but you tried to make the claim that Australia is one of the biggest sources of TERFs on the planet and that’s just rubbish. I’m going to assume you’re American as well.
I’m Brazilian actually, but I don’t appreciate organizations from ANYWHERE in the world interfering with legal purchases.
That doesn’t mean you get to try and say Australia is one of the biggest exporters of TERFs because of this one incident mate. It’s not like we don’t have 'em, but they aren’t destructive to the level of the Yanks & Brits.
Multiple times now you’ve accused people of being American for saying that Australia outputs some garbage right wing stuff. Aside from the vampire fuck Rupert Murdoch himself, here is a list:
- Sky News Australia (especially through YT and social media)
- GB News (based on Australian right-wing media)
- News Corp Australia
- The Daily Telegraph
- The Australian
- Andrew Hastie
- 7News (this is arguably one of the worst as they sprinkle facts into their narrative to cloudy the waters)
- Herald Sun
- The Spectator Australia
- Quadrant Magazine
All of these media sources and publications output to the rest of the world. It doesn’t matter about “well the UK has more. well the US has more”. Australia is exporting fucking garbage. This isn’t a race to bottom.
More than half of that is just Murdoch, which we covered already?
Whatever you need to tell yourself. ✌️
Oh, and the Murdoch Family Trust owns 40% of the Fox Corporation (which owns the US based Fox News). So really your argument is the same that a heroin addict might have: “If you discount my heroin addiction, I’m doing great!”
That’s nice sweetie.
Australia has been definitively proven to be the biggest TERF exporter now and you can’t even contest it. You should do something about that, geez.
I’ll add as well, the only reason any of this was possible is FOSTA/SESTA and that’s entirely on the US.
So I appreciate the pushback, but for those of us with the option, what should we choose? Amex? Discover? Bitcoin is non-viable.
I just want a solution, not another problem. I live in America, and we have WAY too many problems already.
Discover seems to be the best bet to me so far.
Discover is on the JCB, UnionPay, Troy and RuPay. (japan, China, turkey, and India respectively). Probably many more.
Similarly, a JCB card should work wherever Discover is. It’s a billateral alliance.
Oh, and all Discover cards work on Diners Club International because those two networks completely merged.
Alliance members are not 100% acceptance. It seems like 95%+ acceptance though (most JCB will accept most Discover cards and vice versa, though you will get confused looks from the locals). It sounds like there’s a lot of old equipment around the countries that break compatibility but cities and other urban areas with new equipment shouldn’t have any problems.
I’ll probably get a Discover card and start testing this out. I already have Visa and Mastercard but this new censorship issue seems serious enough to make me start supporting a 3rd place competitor.
Between Discover vs AmEx, it seems like AmEx is about elite club / customer service / returns etc. etc. nice features but I’m not sure if it’s worth the price.
Discover is free of annual fees, reasonable cash back, mediocre costs for the merchants (better than AmEx anyway and comparable vs Visa) and a surprisingly huge offering of international compatibility (RuPay, JCB, UnionPay, etc Etc). It seems like the winner to me as a 3rd card to experiment with.
People outside of USA don’t even have Amex or Discover as options.
It’s either Visa, MC, or Bitcoin.
it’s really wild that payment processors have decided to be the arbiter of content on the Internet.
they’ve been doing it since the late 90s/early 00s. Visa and MC have a list of “rules” for porn companies and have had them for decades. Why the vast majority of adult entertainment companies use third party processors like CCBill to specifically deal with that shit.
These dumb fucks in Australia think they’re ahead of the curve or doing “something that has never been done before” but nah man they probably did talk to Visa and MC but highly doubt they pushed them to anything. it was more like Visa/MC said “oh yeah we did this before…yeah we should probably apply what we did to Porn to the gaming industry.”
Australia is pretty weird about porn too. For years their rules basically ensured all female porn actors get boob jobs and took scissors to their labia.
Why are you censoring words?
+1
Self-censoring words like “sexualize” is part of the culture responsible for this.
Kind of inevitable when automated moderation becomes the norm
I was gonna say that’s not necessary here, but actually many Lemmy servers do have a completely asinine word filter, and the devs have never heard of the Scunthorpe Problem.
Went to Google scunthorpe problem…figured it out as I typed it.
it’s a quote
I’m expecting many services to accept alternative payment methods soon, just to beon the safe side from meddling ex-monopolies.
Stable coins on the rise, buy while they are cheap!
