'A threat to Democracy' says NieR creator on payment processors censoring adult games

Draugoth

Draugoth

Gold Member
Drakengard and NieR: Automata creator Yoko Taro recently joined in on the discourse surrounding Western credit card payment processors and the pressure they have been exerting on Japanese adult content platforms in the past year.


In a follow-up tweet, Yoko Taro goes on to say that "I feel like it's not just a matter of censoring adult content or jeopardizing freedom of expression, but rather a security hole that endangers democracy itself."

Nier Automata


The game director's statement was most likely triggered by the news that Manga Library Z is shutting down. The platform, which has preserved digital editions of out-of-print manga for the past 14 years, was initially pressured by international credit card companies to remove manga that contained certain words, and then abruptly forced to terminate all of its payment contracts, leaving it with no way to secure revenue for its authors. The cause cited for this was transactions involving adult content.

Article:
"It's a security hole that endangers democracy itself." NieR creator speaks out against payment processors pressuring Japanese adult content platforms
 
it is absolutely insane that this is legal. this could literally be used to directly manipulate the market by limiting payments for certain companies and thereby devaluing them while boosting others.
 
Interesting, from the article :
Manga Library Z (previously J-Comi) was launched in 2011 by Love Hina manga artist and politician Ken Akamatsu with the goal of preserving old and out-of-print manga titles in digital form. The comics are hosted with permission from the artists and publishers for free, with a premium subscription available.


But after 14 years of service, the platform will be shutting down.
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That's too bad, I believe J-comi was the one service offering DRM-free manga.
 
Walliwallipaloo said:
Too much power. They need to be slapped down, and hard.
But since the banks basically run America...
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Banks suck! What could a person possibly get in return to make it worth your while to become an unsecured creditor with a bank? A small amount of interest? Pffft. Banks don't take deposits; you are lending them the money to do as they please. Holders of cash in banks are considered unsecured creditors with no enforceable claim to their loaned money and are last to be paid in a financial failure. They legally can do a bail-in during default and all the major US banks are sitting on unrealized losses right now, which is not reassuring.

Many people also have this idea that banks create loans out of reserves they have from checking and/or savings accounts, but this simply is not true. When you take out a loan from the bank, the banks are not lending you money; they are purchasing a security off you with money they create out of nothing. This is the loan agreement and is a fraudulent form of consideration.

The bank's ability to create currency has always been the problem. This is where it all goes wrong. They put the Glass-Steagall act in place to separate the money creation side of banking from the investment side of banking and stop the money creation side of banking from trading in securities. Glass-Steagall was removed in 1999 which fast tracked the crash in 2008 of which nothing that caused that has ever been fixed. It was simply papered over with lots of newly created currency to keep the Frankenstein alive. In summary: Banking should be perceived as an investment. Only deposit(loan) as much as you're willing to lose.
 
kevboard said:
it is absolutely insane that this is legal. this could literally be used to directly manipulate the market by limiting payments for certain companies and thereby devaluing them while boosting others.
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While they may be able to influence/manipulate markets especially somebody as big as Mastercard or Visa (they already do), people are always free to choose other payment processors based on their terms of service.
 
Three said:
While they may be able to influence/manipulate markets especially somebody as big as Mastercard or Visa (they already do), people are always free to choose other payment processors based on their terms of service.
Click to expand...

that means very little when they control such a massive chunk of the market that they can influence what companies are allowed to sell or not due to their sheer size.
there's no such thing as an unregulated free market. the moment massive conglomerates can act without boundaries, they'll make sure it's no longer a free market.
 
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I remember when Pornhub nuked a huge chunk of of their content to appease credit card companies.

Onlyfans just a few years ago decided to ban all adult content on the site to appease the banks they were dealing with (fucking lmao)

kevboard said:
that means very little when they control such a massive chunk of the market that they can influence what companies are allowed to sell or not due to their sheer size
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Steam processes over $10b a year. That's a lot of power. They decided that they do not want to leverage that here.

Based on this, and other actions Steam has taken over the last few years, my guess is Steam is trying to find a way to ban those types of games from their platforms altogether without explicitly doing it themselves.

Gameplay Gods Bless said:
Good news:

https://www.courthousenews.com/judg...s-visa-from-pornhub-sex-trafficking-lawsuits/
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But wait, there's more
Article:
Jan 24 (Reuters) - Mastercard and Visa failed to stop their payment networks from laundering proceeds from child sexual abuse material and sex trafficking on the popular website OnlyFans, according to allegations in a previously undisclosed whistleblower complaint filed with the U.S. Treasury's financial crimes unit. The whistleblower, a senior compliance expert in the credit card and banking industries, said the two giant card companies knew their networks were being used to pay for illegal content on the porn-driven site since at least 2021, and accused them of "turning a blind eye to flows of illicit revenue."
 
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I swear if this payment fuckers get Goddess of Victory Nikke banned on mobile platform…I'll i'll …come here and bitch about it really excessively.
 
kevboard said:
that means very little when they control such a massive chunk of the market that they can influence what companies are allowed to sell or not due to their sheer size.
there's no such thing as an unregulated free market. the moment massive conglomerates can act without boundaries, they'll make sure it's no longer a free market.
Click to expand...
Yeah Mastercard and Visa have huge influence but keep in mind they have a terms of service like most of the big duopolies of the world and that's as far as their influence can go, your agreement to it.

It's a boundary they are made to set because they must abide by laws and their company shouldn't process payments for things that might be considered illegal in some jurisdictions. Not even crypto is safe from this as some exchanges block or freeze accounts if they believe there are any illegal activities associated with them, e.g. laundering, terrorism, prostitution, drug trafficking, child porn, etc. Steam was likely under scrutiny for distributing what may be considered illegal content in some countries and that was against the ToS. If there was a niche that some other company could fill they would. Their market manipulation is limited (in terms of controlling what companies people buy from at least)
 
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kevboard said:
that means very little when they control such a massive chunk of the market that they can influence what companies are allowed to sell or not due to their sheer size.
there's no such thing as an unregulated free market. the moment massive conglomerates can act without boundaries, they'll make sure it's no longer a free market.
Click to expand...
If these businesses didn't already go to the government to give them an unfair advantage, they wouldn't be so massive in the first place.
 
Deft Beck said:
Something crypto could fix, but if only all of the techbro baggage didn't exist.
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Valve could fix this. Just convert every unit of currency into Value tokens as part of the purchase process...but they don't want to do that.

It would still be up to Valve to regulate the purcahse at a territory level, they should do that anyway (and I am fairly sure they do) since they are selling the content.
 
Three said:
While they may be able to influence/manipulate markets especially somebody as big as Mastercard or Visa (they already do), people are always free to choose other payment processors based on their terms of service.
Click to expand...
Lol who are they gonna choose? The vast majority of people only have visa and Mastercard. I have 8 cards in my wallet and they're all either visa or Mastercard except 1 that is American Express.
 
Miyazaki's Slave said:
Valve could fix this. Just convert every unit of currency into Value tokens as part of the purchase process...but they don't want to do that.

It would still be up to Valve to regulate the purcahse at a territory level, they should do that anyway (and I am fairly sure they do) since they are selling the content.
Click to expand...
That won't work Japanese companies tried this and they still got nuked by visa and Mastercard, Visa and mastercard don't care.
 
Loomy said:
I remember when Pornhub nuked a huge chunk of of their content to appease credit card companies.

Onlyfans just a few years ago decided to ban all adult content on the site to appease the banks they were dealing with (fucking lmao)


Steam processes over $10b a year. That's a lot of power. They decided that they do not want to leverage that here.

Based on this, and other actions Steam has taken over the last few years, my guess is Steam is trying to find a way to ban those types of games from their platforms altogether without explicitly doing it themselves.


But wait, there's more
Article:
Jan 24 (Reuters) - Mastercard and Visa failed to stop their payment networks from laundering proceeds from child sexual abuse material and sex trafficking on the popular website OnlyFans, according to allegations in a previously undisclosed whistleblower complaint filed with the U.S. Treasury's financial crimes unit. The whistleblower, a senior compliance expert in the credit card and banking industries, said the two giant card companies knew their networks were being used to pay for illegal content on the porn-driven site since at least 2021, and accused them of "turning a blind eye to flows of illicit revenue."
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That's earlier than my article tho, the judicial branch here is saying visa and co aren't liable. Your article is about the executive branch, not sure 100% sure how trump will deal with it but Trump is the kind of person to take the judges side here. He does not give AF about all this virtue signaling.
 
That statement is a little cringe and over the top, BUT yeah these payment processors have way too much influence in changing behavior at businesses. Like shut up and take our money lol.
 
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