Mastercard: Clarifying recent headlines on gaming content

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do they think we're an idiot or something? the main problem is that its not illegal in the first place. Incest between 2 jpeg on fictional media is not Illegal.
Certainly not in the US, fiction is fiction there. I know places like Canada do not believe fiction is fiction and do explicitly disallow some types of fictional content
 
Depictions of what would be illegal in real life in porn are generally considered illegal and obscene in the US.

Same with even fantasy IRL porn, hence the endless use of "step-" relatives and not real relatives. Or generic "teen" instead of having an adult actress just claim they are underage.

Just because nobody is currently going out of their way to police something and arrest people doesn't mean it isn't illegal. All the more legit porn sites scrubbed a ton of their material a couple years back because US lawmakers threatened them.
Not really. For example last year in Indiana there was a case where a guy was charged for having hentai featuring underage characters, but was found not guilty as it is protected by the first amendment (https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/in-court-of-appeals/116613118.html)
I think it depends on how realistic it looks though. Kind of a grey area.
And I am pretty sure stuff like fictional incest would never be a legal issue (in the US at least). After all, the laws on incest are about having sex with your own immediate family member, not on you seeing other (fictional) family members getting it on.
The reason underage stuff gets targetted is because child pornography itself is obviously illegal, so the question is whether fictional versions of that are ok or not (and depends heavily on country). I'm pretty sure Steam already doesn't allow that stuff? Though there could be stuff that is questionable, I dunno.

From my understanding, the reason there is so much "step" stuff in porn games, is because places like Patreon specifically forbid it, not because of legal reasons.
 
First, before we continue, we just have to clear one thing up: we didn't do this.

Now that that's out of the way, side note: we did it
 
It isn't just Mastercard and Visa, Paypal, Stripe and others (including banks) did the same in a coordinated way even if they are supposed to be rivals. And isn't affecting just Steam and Itch.io, but also porn sites, crowdfunding sites and generative AI training websites.

And happened more or less at the same time the UK mandated personal verification with camera to use NSFW websites and the USA released that new law about theorically revenge porn and non-consentual AI deepfakes.

So yes, these payment management companies are part of the issue, but seems that it comes from above them. There's not a lot of people who could mandate Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and others to do so and maybe also force UK and USA goverment to do laws like that.

And isn't a random retarded feminist group like Collective Shout that nobody knew about them before this.
 
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Neither Steam nor itch.io singled out Mastercard, Visa, or anyone else. They used the term"payment processors". That usually refers to banks.

Banks/financial institutions are not payment processors. Payment processors are the ones reading and transmitting card data to the banks. When you use your debit card at a Point of Sale (say, Walmart), the payment processor owns that Point of Sale terminal that reads your card and transmits the transaction to the card networks, who then routes the transaction to the financial institution.

Payment Processor Examples
  • Fiserv/First Data
  • WorldPay
  • Adyen
  • Stripe
  • Chase Paymentech (owned by JPMorgan Chase, which is a bank)
  • Square
Card Network Examples
  • Visa
  • MasterCard
  • American Express
  • Discover
While some financial institutions, such as JPMorgan Chase, have their own payment processor, the overwhelming majority of financial institutions do not handle their own payment processing.

Either way, your point about Visa and MasterCard not being singled out was valid.
 
Coming soon, action and horror games ban. Next time pay attention when the mommies come with a complain, Gabe (?)

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Not really. For example last year in Indiana there was a case where a guy was charged for having hentai featuring underage characters, but was found not guilty as it is protected by the first amendment (https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/in-court-of-appeals/116613118.html)
I think it depends on how realistic it looks though. Kind of a grey area.
And I am pretty sure stuff like fictional incest would never be a legal issue (in the US at least). After all, the laws on incest are about having sex with your own immediate family member, not on you seeing other (fictional) family members getting it on.
The reason underage stuff gets targetted is because child pornography itself is obviously illegal, so the question is whether fictional versions of that are ok or not (and depends heavily on country). I'm pretty sure Steam already doesn't allow that stuff? Though there could be stuff that is questionable, I dunno.

From my understanding, the reason there is so much "step" stuff in porn games, is because places like Patreon specifically forbid it, not because of legal reasons.
That guy was charged by the State of Indiana though. The federal statute I linked in another post clearly calls out stuff like hentai with kids being illegal, if he had been charged by the feds he'd likely have been convicted.

And the law that I linked in that other thread very clearly describes that fictional representations of child sex are illegal.

The overall statute is incredibly vague, but the specific ruling around drawn kiddy shit is specific:


In addition, visual representations, such as drawings, cartoons, or paintings that appear to depict minors engaged in sexual activity and are obscene are also illegal under federal law.

It's all a complete legal quagmire. And again, very specifically calls out fictional representations of one specific obscene act, but if someone was called out on another act like depicting incest it could easily be ruled the same way. I think you all underestimate how much legal jeopardy is involved in distributing things that could be deemed "obscene." At any point federal law enforcement could make this a priority and things could change quickly due to the vague obscenity law legal precedent.
 
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But Valve is a US company, and therefore subject to the same laws. If it is illegal for Valve to sell it, they wouldn't sell it.
Because Gabe is a tech libertarian and the laws are vague enough to where Valve could probably get away with just removing the material if any federal law enforcement went after them. There is also a strong belief among tech companies that Section 230 generally protects them from prosecution in general, but again, doesn't mean they couldn't be told directly to remove this stuff and stop spreading it, by the US feds.

My understanding there is absolutely stuff pushing boundaries with depictions of minors on Steam for instance. Hell I imagine a lot of the incest garbage is at fault there too.

I'll say it again I think people underestimate how possible it would be for the feds to go after people or companies for this shit.

The link I posted is from the DOJ, the law of the land from a federal perspective, and what Valve does is distribute this material across the country/world. A company like Mastercard being made keenly aware of this material and it being in the news because of some protest group is absolutely going to legitimately worry about legal trouble.
 
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Either way, your point about Visa and MasterCard not being singled out was valid.

Yeah. This was the quote from the CEO of OnlyFans. From that same interview, it sounded like they were working with new banks.
Stokely named three major banks that refused service because of "reputational risk" associated with the UK-based OnlyFans' sexual material: Bank of New York Mellon, Metro Bank, and JPMorgan Chase. He said BNY Mellon specifically had "flagged and rejected" every wire transaction involving OnlyFans, threatening its ability to pay creators.

Visa and MasterCard have never been shy about saying when and why they're fucking companies over sexual content, which is why I find it odd that they're potentially lying here.
 
Relevant portion from the above Kotaku article with Valve's response:
I gotta love when these corpos make decisions to not damage they brand and in the process end damaging they brand 10x more. Fucking retards. Thats why you get for bending the knee to a group of men hatting karens.
 
Signed a few days ago.

This should help fix those Steam payment processor issues??? Who knows.


Trump signs executive order to contest payment processor censorship

by Brandon Lyttle on August 8, 2025 at 7:24 PM, EDT

United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 7 which could have an impact on the ongoing censorship implemented by payment processors.

The executive order titled: "Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans" addresses the ability of payment processors to punish individuals for "constitutionally or statutorily protected beliefs, affiliations, or political views". Additionally, the bill calls for an end to clauses regarding "reputation risk" on the part of the payment processors. Payment processors like Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and PayPal regularly claim that objectionable speech represents a "reputation risk" and attempts to financially disenfranchise content creators.

Within 180 days of the date of this order, each appropriate Federal banking regulator shall, to the greatest extent permitted by law, remove the use of reputation risk or equivalent concepts that could result in politicized or unlawful debanking, as well as any other considerations that could be used to engage in such debanking, from their guidance documents, manuals, and other materials (other than existing regulations or other materials requiring notice-and-comment rulemaking) used to regulate or examine financial institutions over which they have jurisdiction. The removal of such concepts shall be made clear by each appropriate Federal banking regulator through formal guidance to their examiners. The Federal banking regulators shall also consider rescinding or amending existing regulations, consistent with applicable law, to eliminate or amend any regulations that could result in politicized or unlawful debanking and to ensure that any regulated firm's or individual's reputation is considered for regulatory, supervisory, banking, or enforcement purposes solely to the extent necessary to reach a reasonable and apolitical risk-based assessment.

Early in the executive order, Trump gives examples of surveillance targeting potentially conservative citizens as the reason for his intervention. So it seems that the blow to adult content censorship may just be incidental.

For those who don't know, payment processors have become de facto censors of online platforms. Sites such as Pixiv, Patreon, Fansly, and more have been compelled to change their moderation practices under the threat that payment processors may scuttle their ability to do business. Most recently Steam and Itch.io were forced to make changes, directly naming Mastercard, PayPal, and Stripe as the source of the censorship.

There's an active Change.org petition to draw attention to the issue which you can check out here.
 
Signed a few days ago.

This should help fix those Steam payment processor issues??? Who knows.


Trump signs executive order to contest payment processor censorship

by Brandon Lyttle on August 8, 2025 at 7:24 PM, EDT

United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 7 which could have an impact on the ongoing censorship implemented by payment processors.

The executive order titled: "Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans" addresses the ability of payment processors to punish individuals for "constitutionally or statutorily protected beliefs, affiliations, or political views". Additionally, the bill calls for an end to clauses regarding "reputation risk" on the part of the payment processors. Payment processors like Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and PayPal regularly claim that objectionable speech represents a "reputation risk" and attempts to financially disenfranchise content creators.

Within 180 days of the date of this order, each appropriate Federal banking regulator shall, to the greatest extent permitted by law, remove the use of reputation risk or equivalent concepts that could result in politicized or unlawful debanking, as well as any other considerations that could be used to engage in such debanking, from their guidance documents, manuals, and other materials (other than existing regulations or other materials requiring notice-and-comment rulemaking) used to regulate or examine financial institutions over which they have jurisdiction. The removal of such concepts shall be made clear by each appropriate Federal banking regulator through formal guidance to their examiners. The Federal banking regulators shall also consider rescinding or amending existing regulations, consistent with applicable law, to eliminate or amend any regulations that could result in politicized or unlawful debanking and to ensure that any regulated firm's or individual's reputation is considered for regulatory, supervisory, banking, or enforcement purposes solely to the extent necessary to reach a reasonable and apolitical risk-based assessment.

Early in the executive order, Trump gives examples of surveillance targeting potentially conservative citizens as the reason for his intervention. So it seems that the blow to adult content censorship may just be incidental.

For those who don't know, payment processors have become de facto censors of online platforms. Sites such as Pixiv, Patreon, Fansly, and more have been compelled to change their moderation practices under the threat that payment processors may scuttle their ability to do business. Most recently Steam and Itch.io were forced to make changes, directly naming Mastercard, PayPal, and Stripe as the source of the censorship.

There's an active Change.org petition to draw attention to the issue which you can check out here.

Great news! What Visa and Mastercard are doing is clearly abuse of power.

They are not the system regulators.

They are only intermediaries for money transaction, and they are not to decide where the consumers money should go...

Probably one of the best decisions from the Trump's Administration.
 
Signed a few days ago.

This should help fix those Steam payment processor issues??? Who knows.


Trump signs executive order to contest payment processor censorship

by Brandon Lyttle on August 8, 2025 at 7:24 PM, EDT

United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 7 which could have an impact on the ongoing censorship implemented by payment processors.

The executive order titled: "Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans" addresses the ability of payment processors to punish individuals for "constitutionally or statutorily protected beliefs, affiliations, or political views". Additionally, the bill calls for an end to clauses regarding "reputation risk" on the part of the payment processors. Payment processors like Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and PayPal regularly claim that objectionable speech represents a "reputation risk" and attempts to financially disenfranchise content creators.

Within 180 days of the date of this order, each appropriate Federal banking regulator shall, to the greatest extent permitted by law, remove the use of reputation risk or equivalent concepts that could result in politicized or unlawful debanking, as well as any other considerations that could be used to engage in such debanking, from their guidance documents, manuals, and other materials (other than existing regulations or other materials requiring notice-and-comment rulemaking) used to regulate or examine financial institutions over which they have jurisdiction. The removal of such concepts shall be made clear by each appropriate Federal banking regulator through formal guidance to their examiners. The Federal banking regulators shall also consider rescinding or amending existing regulations, consistent with applicable law, to eliminate or amend any regulations that could result in politicized or unlawful debanking and to ensure that any regulated firm's or individual's reputation is considered for regulatory, supervisory, banking, or enforcement purposes solely to the extent necessary to reach a reasonable and apolitical risk-based assessment.

Early in the executive order, Trump gives examples of surveillance targeting potentially conservative citizens as the reason for his intervention. So it seems that the blow to adult content censorship may just be incidental.

For those who don't know, payment processors have become de facto censors of online platforms. Sites such as Pixiv, Patreon, Fansly, and more have been compelled to change their moderation practices under the threat that payment processors may scuttle their ability to do business. Most recently Steam and Itch.io were forced to make changes, directly naming Mastercard, PayPal, and Stripe as the source of the censorship.

There's an active Change.org petition to draw attention to the issue which you can check out here.
I genuinely don't see anything coming out of this, but I'd love to be proven wrong.
Besides, the Repbulicans are not anti content control, most R states have compelled a need to provide ID to view content they deem offensive, just like the EU and UK are doing elsewhere at the same time.

So it'd be a welcome, but unlikely reversal if any content censorship is now removed. But what about the EO? Will anyone enforce it is the question. Will adult games return to Steam, or other sites remove censorship similarly? I don't think so, unfortunately.
 
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