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Melinda Tankard Reist.
Michael Miebach.
Ryan McInerney.
Humans > branding and corporation names.
When CVS "used racist AI" I didn't see a single goddamn peep about the CEOs in charge while they had that policy.
We should name the board and the whole leadership system but at least mentioning CEOs would be a great start.
Yes!
This is exactly correct. Thank you.
I mean, it's a nanny organization called Collective Shout that is claiming responsibility for these recent product bans/removals. They just pressured the payment processors instead of the companies who own the stores this time. And it worked.
The nanny group sucks the most here. The payment processors suck for acquiescing to the nanny group, and everyone else sucks for acquiescing to the payment processors.
The payment processors have the final say and have done this multiple times in the past, i wouldnt be surprised of the "nanny" was secretly paid by them to find this shit for them to censor.
Nothing but hypocrisy from Visa and MasterCard - there are far more NSFW content on Xitter than in games and yet I don't see a peep of them banning payment towards that little blue checkmark.
Collective Shout seems to aim for X next, according to their site.
Well if you want to peel the onion another layer, you should really be mad at laywers and our litigious society as a whole, payment processors don't have morality, nothing in capitalism does - they are responding, just like valve, to external pressures.
It's specifically due to a moral panic group, Collective Shout, pressuring credit card companies to do this. Litigation isn't really part of it, just angry organized people on the Internet.
How do they apply pressure though? (they threaten to sue)
Do you know that or are you speculating?
Corporations do not give a single fuck about "angry, organized people", only money.
Maybe we can angrily organize against them?
Nope, there are human beings that make decisions and those human beings have beliefs.
Yes, totally agreed that the people making decisions have beliefs. Hard disagree if you think the head of Visa is consulting his/her/their 'beliefs' when voting on multi-billion dollar decisions.
What if they believe that being associated with adult games will hurt the bottom line?
They basically have mon/du/triopolies in their field. Deciding to take less money is the only thing that hurts their bottom line. What's a noisy group of a dozen assholes going to do, use a different processor? The very thing that allowed them to pressure the other companies is what makes them immune from these stupid threats
I don't buy that, why would they have to care what these people think? Credit card companies have a history of being hostile to adult content, I think it's because the people who own them have an interest in controlling others.
I don't think we should be giving corporations a pass for caving to challenges from authority whether it's hard or not.
Whether it's valve pulling NSFW content, universities expelling students, or CBS firing people over political speech it's all anti-consumer behavior driven by a financial incentive to cater to a bully with too much power. They're all just rolling over and showing their belly rather than deal with a problem in the short term.
If Valve or Itch had paired that statement with a statement about what other payment processing options they were pursuing that might someday lead them back to a pro-consumer position I'd be on board for granting them some grace on the issue, but to the best of my knowledge from the articles I've seen, their position has been "tell me what to do Daddy". If I'm wrong about that I apologize and I'll start reading different sources.
There's just too much capitulation to anti-free-speech behavior and I'm not ready to give anyone a pass at this point.
If Valve told the card companies to go fuck themselves then they would have never pulled support.
It was always a bluff, Visa and MC would never let go of that money over something so petty.
So yeah, I also blame the billion dollar corporations that rival the card companies bending to their demands.
People always say crypto has no value and is a scam but i don't see how a stablecoin like usdc isn't a much simpler solution vs trying to break the duopoly
What happens when anti-porn organisations like Collective Shout go after the currency exchanges?
You don't need exchanges.
Presumably they do what Visa/Mastercard should have done, and tell them to shove it. It’s just a bunch of uppity idiots from Australia, no one HAS to listen to them…
Crypto markets also need payment processors if people are going to buy and sell crypto.
What exactly would they demand from them? A cryptocurrency exchange is not like a credit card company which has a direct relationship with every customer and vendor and is in direct control of transactions, instead they just handle buying and selling of decentralized currencies which are transacted permissionlessly on their own networks.
It's a lot more like cash, especially the ones designed for privacy.
That said, stablecoins might also be a target, since they have freeze functions, I could see that becoming a problem.
I get your point, but the stores are still caving. They are still playing ball and banning things. That needs to be remembered too.
Unfortunately, the alternative is that they cease to exist almost instantly. This is what happens when we allow monopolies and trusts.
Payment Providers have been doing this for a longer time.
In 2010 for example they blocked donations towards WikiLeaks.