this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2025
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Ruling classes purposefully starting a new culture war before our eyes? (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by Xiisadaddy@lemmygrad.ml to c/comradeship@lemmygrad.ml
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I have seen a lot of stuff about how payment processors have been going after any mature content in video games. It seems to me like the ruling classes are doing this on purpose to get the "anti-woke" gamer crowd, and the TERF crowd to go to war against eachother. Which will inevitably pull more people into these groups, and radicalize both even more. While allowing them to silently censor other things, like leftist, and queer content, at the same time without most people noticing.

I'm already seeing the "gamer" types online throwing fits because "The feminists are trying to take titas out of my video game"

Because yes somehow some random non-profit that complained can force payment processors to stop processing certain payments. Like how do they not realize theyre being played.

Along with the piracy crackdowns, and crackdowns on VPN use in some countries this seems like an effort to start reigning in the internet in general, and using this culture war as a cover for doing so. If your not already on Linux, and running DNScrypt/DNS-over-HTTPS through a DNS provider that's less likely to go along with censorship you should consider doing so. And have the TOR browser downloaded pre-emptively just in case.

I'm going to add some links to news articles i think are all connected to this effort to control online traffic.

Italy poisoning DNS https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/italian-court-orders-google-to-block-iptv-pirate-sites-at-dns-level/

Youtube requiring ID https://leveluptalk.com/news/youtube-id-verification-us-2025/

Spotify requiring ID https://www.the-independent.com/tech/spotify-age-checks-verification-b2798937.html

UK Online "Safety" act https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2025/07/29/the-uks-new-tech-law-triggers-upheaval-00481803

US Online "Safety" act https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-slams-senate-passage-of-kids-online-safety-act-urges-house-to-protect-free-speech

Payment processors flexing their muscles https://www.theverge.com/games/715299/itchio-games-delisting-payment-processor-paypal

Italian Youtuber facing criminal charges for reviewing retro game console that had ROMs on it https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/handheld-gaming/retro-reviewer-could-face-up-to-three-years-in-jail-over-copyright-italian-authorities-investigate-creator-for-advertising-anbernic-handheld-game-consoles

To me all of these point to a concerted effort to control the internet, and what content is available on it. They'll start out on the easy PR ones like Piracy, and "Kids Safety", and then move on to political speech pretty quickly.

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[–] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 38 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

That is an incidental and not unwelcome side effect as far as the ruling class is concerned but i don't think it's the main reason. The main reason is control, specifically the total control over payment systems which will allow them to monitor and shut down financial transactions at will for anyone who is deemed a threat to the ruling class and its narrative control. They are going after entertainment now because it offers a convenient pretext for normalizing and perfecting their methods of control but the real targets are going to be anti-imperialists, anti-capitalists, labor activists, (real) alternative media, anti-genocide protesters, etc.

[–] Xiisadaddy@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I think its far deeper than just payments. They already can control payments theyre using it now as a lever to censor content indirectly. But theyre also doing things like in Italy blocking sites at the DNS level that are used for piracy and anything else they deem bad. And rolling out things like ID verification on online services. They want to track, and have full control over, all online traffic.

[–] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

They want to track, and have full control over, all online traffic.

Yep. That is where this is all heading. With piracy and other such things as a pretext.

[–] Xiisadaddy@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

It's had me thinking about what i would do if suddenly all my online resources for getting actual news were to go dark, and i was just left with the mainstream sources. At that point they could start doing door to door round ups and you wouldnt know until it hit your town/city.

I've considered settings up a like underground network of local MLs before using something like Briar which can send messages over Tor. This makes me think it might be a good idea, and not just a fun thing to do.

[–] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I fear that sooner or later that is what we will be forced to do. For now communists and anti-imperialists can still operate semi-openly, but the more the contradictions heighten the more desperate the ruling class will become and the heavier the repressions. It is only a matter of time until communists and anti-imperialists are outlawed and driven underground. That's what always happened historically the closer a country got to a real revolutionary situation.

It is a good idea to be mentally prepared and to at least start to think about how we would go about setting up the necessary infrastructure to continue to operate. This goes double for actual orgs and political parties, especially those that are still deluding themselves into thinking they will be able to operate within the bounds of the law and the electoral system indefinitely.

[–] SinoSoviet_Drip@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 3 weeks ago

Now is as good a time as any to start making friends with comrades outside your country and setting up server hosting and encrypted tunneling.

[–] SinoSoviet_Drip@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 3 weeks ago

I think its far deeper than just payments.

Payments covers basically anything of material impact. Information spread is pretty useless if you do not have the means of acting on it.

They want to track, and have full control over, all online traffic.

Track, yes. But I really doubt that they have any intent on implementing draconian control over information flow.

Letting people believe they have free choice goes so far to strengthen the system (see voting in bourgeois democracy), and OSINT sources are too valuable for taking out those who do actually make an impact.

The gameplan IMO is to:

  1. Flood the space with LLM bullshit.
  2. Track everyone producing or consuming content outside the sphere of bullshit.
  3. Use that information to make targeted arrests, deportations, or assassinations of high impact figures.
[–] Xiisadaddy@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 3 weeks ago

I edited in some articles to my main post outlining some of the other news stories i think are connected to this.

[–] MasterDeeLuke@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 3 weeks ago

Luckily I've haven't been seeing that many pinning the blame of this censorship push on wokeism, just a metric ton of "We are becoming like China/North Korea".

[–] big_spoon@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 3 weeks ago

it's pretty funny. the rightoids everywhere always throw the "china firewall is censorship" or "1984 big brother social credit!!" spooks, but at the same time, they tell everyone that we should be doing those things bc reasons

[–] pyromaiden@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

When are the bourgeoisie not inventing new culture wars to keep proles fighting each other instead of them?

[–] Xiisadaddy@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 3 weeks ago

I think this one is interesting because its not your typical FOX news whining about something that eventually spread culture war. This is them purposefully going after something that will make certain people mad, and letting it happen organically. You can literally watch it happen in real time. It's weird.

[–] SinoSoviet_Drip@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 3 weeks ago

To me all of these point to a concerted effort to control the internet, and what content is available on it. They’ll start out on the easy PR ones like Piracy, and “Kids Safety”, and then move on to political speech pretty quickly.

Nah, they will allow piracy and porn and whatnot because it allows them to maintain the illusion that Westerners are free. What will happen is an absolute crackdown on browsing social media & and posting on one of the major networks without giving up your identity.

The entire purpose is to preempt political thought. Commie YouTube video = "sorry not verified, please confirm your identity" Now to read posts by comrades, you will be forced to have your name register on an NSA server.

Corporations will love this because it gives them another reason to roadblock their content behind a spyware auth paywall to prevent LLM scrapers from proxying their content.