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[Loomy]

Regarding the ongoing saga of content removal/censorship on Steam/Itch.io.

It Turns Out, Steam’s Adult Content Ban Has Been Plotted For A Year And Is Spearheaded By One Of Project 2025’s Leading Voices

Plans to abolish Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act could have dire consequences for games.

www.thegamer.com

Article:

So how does this tie into what's happening now? Part of Vought and Project 2025's plans are to remove Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). This law currently protects platform holders, providing immunity for any content uploaded to said platform that third-party users created.

By removing Section 230, platform holders, like Steam, would be liable for any "illegal" content uploaded to the platform, as opposed to those creating and uploading said content. If Steam were found guilty of hosting this content, the company could be hit with huge fines. Therefore, Steam, Itch, and many other platforms would likely place a blanket ban on any adult content, mitigating any risk of fines or other legal action. This, as pointed out on Reddit, would affect all forms of user-generated content, including fan art, mods, and videos, not just games themselves.

Source: https://www.thegamer.com/steams-adult-content-ban-has-been-plotted-for-a-year/

 

[StereoVsn]

Damn, if Republicans push this shit through Congress, welcome to CCP lite internet.

 

[Draugoth]

First shared on Reddit, an undercover video from The Intercept released on August 16, 2024, sees Vought outlining his plans for an outright ban on adult material. "What's the immediate fight leverage point that we can win, that allows the next fight to get more of a win than we could have," Vought says.


Although Collective Shout is seen as the torchbearer of this campaign, it seems like the root of this censorship goes further back, with a video from almost exactly a year ago resurfacing featuring US government official Russel Vought expressing his plans to implement a "national ban on p*rnography".

"We came up with an idea on p*rnography, to make it so that p*rn companies bear the liability for underage use, as opposed to the person who visits the website. We've got a number of states that are passing this, and the p*rn company then says 'you know what, I'm not doing business in state', which, of course, is entirely what we want," he continues. "We would have a national ban on p*rnography if we could."

Article:

Steam's Content Removal Could Be A Wider Consequence Of Project 2025

Source: https://www.thegamer.com/steams-adult-content-ban-has-been-plotted-for-a-year/

 

[Lionel Richie]

Religious zealots will ALWAYS lose this fight. Human beings are horny as fuck.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

Cringe stuff here

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Are outlets in shock when they have been pushing this kind of stuff for years?.... Now, who is fighting this fight?

Gamers Are Terrible People And We Should Stop Being Okay With It

Gamers Are Terrible People And We Should Stop Being Okay With It

Gamers have stepped up their usual brand of toxic harassment recently, and we need to admit they are real fans causing real problems

www.thegamer.com

 

[Rush2112]

You look into any of these people's private lives they're into all kinds of sick shit. But out in public they're holy saints.

 

[Generic]

Wtf

He also, no joke, wants everyone who has porn of any kind labeled a child predator, speech of any kind labeled a child predator oh and the law for being a child predator would be mandatory death penalty.

 

[Durin]

Have doubts this is any actual root of the problem, because I think various groups around the world want to exert influence to sanitize or Karen-ify the internet in general.

There is no one man with a big plan, it's various people that want to limit access to content they personally dislike, companies that want sanitized content that will generate less controversy that hurts their bottom line, and governments that will use protection as the excuse to be able to track more of what the populace does/says.

At least journalists have less to no power/influence anymore, so this article will do nothing, and I have no reason to believe it when the person writing it conveniently gets to blame it all on the political faction they hate.

 

[Nvzman]

Damn, if Republicans push this shit through Congress, welcome to CCP lite internet.

I can't believe people are still stupid enough to genuinely believe the Project 2025 shit.

Half of it is sensible normal conservative shit, half of it is far-right nutjob fanfiction shit that Trump will never do because he's not as radical as the people who blindly listen to crap media sources say he is.

It's never going to happen and this article is garbage. It's as speculatory as it gets. You can quote me on this in 4 years.

 

[Bry0]

I can't believe people are still stupid enough to genuinely believe the Project 2025 shit.

Half of it is sensible normal conservative shit, half of it is far-right nutjob fanfiction shit that Trump will never do because he's not as radical as the people who blindly listen to crap media sources say he is.

It's never going to happen and this article is garbage. It's as speculatory as it gets. You can quote me on this in 4 years.

What's never going to happen? 17 states already banned porn without age verification and the games were already taken down. Things are happening.

 

[R3TRO]

What a timeline.

 

[SomeNorseGuy]

Ahh, the life of a gamer. Always some fuckers trying to mess with our hobby. But if we can take on the purple-haired septum demons we sure as hell can take on the pearl-clutching moral zealots.

 

[GHound]

I don't give a shit what political affiliation anyone has, they all deserve to get their shit kicked in for pushing censorship and the enshittification of media for the purposes of propaganda. Fuck 'em all to death.

 

[kevboard]

I can't believe people are still stupid enough to genuinely believe the Project 2025 shit.

Half of it is sensible normal conservative shit, half of it is far-right nutjob fanfiction shit that Trump will never do because he's not as radical as the people who blindly listen to crap media sources say he is.

It's never going to happen and this article is garbage. It's as speculatory as it gets. You can quote me on this in 4 years.

 

[reinking]

It's time for print to make a comeback....

 

[diffusionx]

Isn't there an activist group that is taking credit for this? It has nothing to do with the CDA and activists (mostly on the left) have been trying to use payment processors and banks to go after things they don't like for years.

 

[Nvzman]

What's never going to happen? 17 states already banned porn without age verification and the games were already taken down. Things are happening.

So then what does this have to do with Project 2025?

Those Steam games were taken down because of Visa/PayPal bullshit caused by a feminist Australian Collective Shout group. Things are happening but pointing fingers at Trump/politicizing it is a hysterically inaccurate.

 

[Kacho]

Will wait for more credible sources

 

[TheAtomicPile]

So then what does this have to do with Project 2025?

Those Steam games were taken down because of Visa/PayPal bullshit caused by a feminist Australian Collective Shout group. Things are happening but pointing fingers at Trump/politicizing it is a hysterically inaccurate.

Friend, it was a Texas law that brought age verification to the Supreme Court, where it was decided 6-3 in Texas's favor right along ideological lines.

This is the map of states that have passed or are aiming to pass age verification. Notice anything?

Age verification isn't a direct Project 2025 issue (it wanted to use other methods to attack speech), but it is clearly a partisan political issue that Donald's governor / justice friends are acting on.

 

[ReasonBeing]

This topic is going to get some people in trouble for sure. Only thing I'll say is I went ahead and bookmarked N Nvzman 's post, and if I'm still allowed to speak ill of the administration in 4 years, I'll check in.

 

[ReBurn]

Politics in my gaming?

 

[Ashamam]

Just direct all queries off site imo.

https://www.project2025.observer/en

Everything you need to know right there.

 

[ByWatterson]

 

[Nvzman]

Friend, it was a Texas law that brought age verification to the Supreme Court, where it was decided 6-3 in Texas's favor right along ideological lines.

This is the map of states that have passed or are aiming to pass age verification. Notice anything?

Age verification isn't a direct Project 2025 issue (it wanted to use other methods to attack speech), but it is clearly a partisan political issue that Donald's governor / justice friends are acting on.

Age verification is an entirely separate argument from straight up removing video games off the market, its completely irrelevant given Steam already asks for age verification, it would just be more robust than "put your date in here". I highly doubt it would lead to the REMOVAL of adult content.

 

[ZehDon]

I can't believe people are still stupid enough to genuinely believe the Project 2025 shit.

Half of it is sensible normal conservative shit, half of it is far-right nutjob fanfiction shit that Trump will never do because he's not as radical as the people who blindly listen to crap media sources say he is.

It's never going to happen and this article is garbage. It's as speculatory as it gets. You can quote me on this in 4 years.

How about we quote you now: if it's "never going to happen", why is 50% of the plan actioned already?

This is how these kinds of snowballs get started. They start with the edge cases, the stuff no one cares about, to establish the precedent they need to go after the stuff they really want. Franly, I couldn't give two shits about people's hentai games and the like because it's garbage to me - but in a free and open society, I don't get to chose what other people enjoy. Don't sit on your hands with a "it's never gonna happen" t-shirt and a stupid look on your face - don't give 'em one fucking inch. There's no reason at all to go after adult games and adult content in general other than "I don't like it".

 

[Lionel Richie]

I don't give a shit what political affiliation anyone has, they all deserve to get their shit kicked in for pushing censorship and the enshittification of media for the purposes of propaganda. Fuck 'em all to death.

If God wanted for PUSSY to be a sin he would have made sex unpleasurable like it is for cats or some shit. These creepy FUCKS always hide behind the flag and the bible. They have nothing to offer to mankind but a distorted view of how medieval people were controlled by religion. They are the enemy and yeah fuck moralfags so fucking much.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Have doubts this is any actual root of the problem, because I think various groups around the world want to exert influence to sanitize or Karen-ify the internet in general.

There is no one man with a big plan, it's various people that want to limit access to content they personally dislike, companies that want sanitized content that will generate less controversy that hurts their bottom line, and governments that will use protection as the excuse to be able to track more of what the populace does/says.

At least journalists have less to no power/influence anymore, so this article will do nothing, and I have no reason to believe it when the person writing it conveniently gets to blame it all on the political faction they hate.

You are talking about a country that brought the idea of nation-wide prohibition on alcohol for a few decades. Yes, it's perfectly understandable this might be the end goal of some religious nut jobs.

 

[TheAtomicPile]

Age verification is an entirely separate argument from straight up removing video games off the market, its completely irrelevant given Steam already asks for age verification, it would just be more robust than "put your date in here". I highly doubt it would lead to the REMOVAL of adult content.

Your initial argument in this thread was that the changes to section 230 would "never happen." However,

- It could, especially since similar attack on speech is already happening via age verification.
- It is, contrary to your claim, a highly partisan issue with a direct line to Donald and his pals.
- Modifications to section 230 are explicitly called for in Project 2025.

Do section 230 changes automatically mean they'll go after games on Steam? No, but it certainly opens the door. I guess it just depends how much we trust the nanny state now and in the future to not walk through that door.

 

[bighugeguns]

If God wanted for PUSSY to be a sin he would have made sex unpleasurable like it is for cats or some shit. These creepy FUCKS always hide behind the flag and the bible. They have nothing to offer to mankind but a distorted view of how medieval people were controlled by religion. They are the enemy and yeah fuck moralfags so fucking much.

If there's even a slight chance these games can cause adolescent adult media addiction, which in turn could spiral further into even worse things, like eventually causing men to wear dresses, then you can just fuck right off with that train of thought. Ban this shit. There's no way to protest against this without coming off as a complete creep.

None of this would have happened if very smart professional people haven't analysed societal patterns and have concluded it's urgent and necessary. Think, man.

The onus should 1000% be on stores to manage what they sell and to who they sell, you can't just sit on your ass and collect revenue, that's not how this works, fuck that.

 

[March Climber]

So then what does this have to do with Project 2025?

Those Steam games were taken down because of Visa/PayPal bullshit caused by a feminist Australian Collective Shout group. Things are happening but pointing fingers at Trump/politicizing it is a hysterically inaccurate.

Look up who actually runs collective shout. The results may surprise you.

 

[GHound]

If there's even a slight chance these games can cause adolescent adult media addiction, which in turn could spiral further into even worse things, like eventually causing men to wear dresses, then you can just fuck right off with that train of thought. Ban this shit. There's no way to protest against this without coming off as a complete creep.

None of this would have happened if very smart professional people haven't analysed societal patterns and have concluded it's urgent and necessary. Think, man.

Don't smoke crack.

 

[nightfly]

Crazy Karen's always causing chaos wherever they may be.

 

[Zathalus]

Anyone who thinks the current Republican party won't fall over themselves to ban content they have a problem with is deluding themselves.

 

[ReasonBeing]

Ban this shit.


The onus should 1000% be on stores to manage what they sell and to who they sell,

These are contradictory statements.

 

[bighugeguns]

These are contradictory statements.

Well, the onus should be on digital stores to ban this crap pre-emptively, they can't be a passive bystander in this.

 

[ReasonBeing]

If there's even a slight chance these fast food burgers can cause adolescent adult food addiction, which in turn could spiral further into even worse things, like eventually causing men to be fat as fuck and unhealthy, then you can just fuck right off with that train of thought. Ban this shit. There's no way to protest against this without coming off as a complete creep.

None of this would have happened if very smart professional people haven't analysed societal patterns and have concluded it's urgent and necessary. Think, man.

The onus should 1000% be on stores to manage what they sell and to who they sell, you can't just sit on your ass and collect revenue, that's not how this works, fuck that.

 

[bighugeguns]

If there's even a slight chance these fast food burgers can cause adolescent adult food addiction, which in turn could spiral further into even worse things, like eventually causing men to be fat as fuck and unhealthy, then you can just fuck right off with that train of thought. Ban this shit. There's no way to protest against this without coming off as a complete creep.

None of this would have happened if very smart professional people haven't analysed societal patterns and have concluded it's urgent and necessary. Think, man.

The onus should 1000% be on stores to manage what they sell and to who they sell, you can't just sit on your ass and collect revenue, that's not how this works, fuck that.

Food addicts don't end up climbing clock towers with automatic rifles.

 

[ReasonBeing]

Food addicts don't end up climbing clock towers with automatic rifles.

Is your premise that adult games do this? Are you ok bro?

Edit: someone is for sure triggered

 

[bighugeguns]

Is your premise that adult games do this? Are you ok bro?

Are you?

 

[ReasonBeing]

Are you?

Yeah man, just having a grand time watching people equate porn to people climbing clock towers and shooting people. Definitely didn't have that on my Wednesday bingo card.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

I highly doubt it would lead to the REMOVAL of adult content.

Exactly. I'm in favor of holding platforms accountable for the shit they effectively publish as well. It wouldn't lead to censorship by definition, it would instead make sure that content on there is legal at all times. Which is what everyone of us wants, right? Adult content will continue to be there and be popular, it's just all legal this time and it'll be locked behind some form of mechanism that makes sure children aren't seeing it. People are confusing things all the time, most of which I can't even tell anymore if by accident or because they want to misunderstand.

 

[bighugeguns]

Yeah man, just having a grand time watching people equate porn to people climbing clock towers and shooting people. Definitely didn't have that on my Wednesday bingo card.

Look, we're just in the peanut gallery making our dumb little internet comments, I'm sure an assessment on all of this by an actual board of psychiatrists would be interesting. There's obviously more to all of this; it wouldn't move so fast if it wasn't ultimately related to security.

 

[Zathalus]

Exactly. I'm in favor of holding platforms accountable for the shit they effectively publish as well. It wouldn't lead to censorship by definition, it would instead make sure that content on there is legal at all times. Which is what everyone of us wants, right? Adult content will continue to be there and be popular, it's just all legal this time and it'll be locked behind some form of mechanism that makes sure children aren't seeing it. People are confusing things all the time, most of which I can't even tell anymore if by accident or because they want to misunderstand.

The content on Steam is already legal. If somebody uploads something illegal it gets removed by Steam. By removing Section 230 this would make Steam liable for anything illegal uploaded to the platform, even if they remove it. So Steam would obviously then ban anything remotely adult, or anything that could potentially trigger them being liable. This would not just be restricted to games that have sex in them, games with a lot of violence might be targeted as well. Something as tame as GTA5 might be considered too risky. This applies to basically any platform with user shared content as well. It would be the greatest act of censorship in America in recent history, perhaps ever. Protecting children is just a convenient excuse that is used whenever people try to justify massive government oversight or censorship.

 

[Last Hearth]

This article is very disingenuous. What project 2025 says about section 230 is not that at all. Here is what chatgpt said about it: what project 2025 says about section 230.


In the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, Brendan Carr—the author of the FCC chapter—calls for a reinterpretation of Section 230 to narrow its scope, reducing the legal immunity that tech platforms currently enjoy for user-generated content.

Specifically, Carr suggests that the FCC should issue an order to interpret Section 230 in a way that eliminates the "expansive, non‑textual immunities" courts have extended beyond the statute's language.

Carr's plan centers on curbing platforms' ability to censor protected speech while still maintaining certain Section 230 protections. He explicitly calls for restrictions on tech companies' ability to remove or demote content—particularly when such actions suppress protected speech.

Another key recommendation: platforms should be more transparent about how they prioritize, block, or demonetize content. This includes disclosures about algorithm changes and content moderation decisions.


Basically they are calling for the platforms who are already censoring speech to stop doing it for ideological reasons (remember before Elon took over, you can be banned on twitter for using she to refer to Ellen Page, but not for calling for murder of certain politicians who angered the radical left), they would deny they were doing it but won't share their algorithms so you can't prove what they are doing is systemic and not anecdotal.

Their objection to section 230 isn't about adult content, but the arbitrary suppression of protected speech and then hiding behind 230 when people sued them for doing it.

 

[bighugeguns]

The content on Steam is already legal. If somebody uploads something illegal it gets removed by Steam. By removing Section 230 this would make Steam liable for anything illegal uploaded to the platform, even if they remove it. So Steam would obviously then ban anything remotely adult, or anything that could potentially trigger them being liable. This would not just be restricted to games that have sex in them, games with a lot of violence might be targeted as well. Something as tame as GTA5 might be considered too risky. This applies to basically any platform with user shared content as well. It would be the greatest act of censorship in America in recent history, perhaps ever. Protecting children is just a convenient excuse that is used whenever people try to justify massive government oversight or censorship.

This will likely apply to discussion sections as well, where people interact digitally? Kids grow into adults eventually; last thing you want is raising them on out-of-control psyop battlespaces like Steam and Discord, Twitch etc. (Throw in AI in the mix, too!!!). Formally requiring these multi-Billion Dollar companies to practice some bitch-basic vigilance isn't crazy at all. Can you imagine how potentially fucked and dangerous things are now with AI? The adult media is probably only a part of the attack package. This kind of stuff is serious.

A truly smart person would have taken exactly one look at AI and realized immediately that everything had to be hardened against it immediately.

The threat is real, it's not just a West vs East thing either, the problem with AI is it allows for any bad actor / digital combatant to apply force projection that was never a thing when all these platforms started out, things changed a lot.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

The content on Steam is already legal. If somebody uploads something illegal it gets removed by Steam. By removing Section 230 this would make Steam liable for anything illegal uploaded to the platform, even if they remove it. So Steam would obviously then ban anything remotely adult, or anything that could potentially trigger them being liable. This would not just be restricted to games that have sex in them, games with a lot of violence might be targeted as well. Something as tame as GTA5 might be considered too risky. This applies to basically any platform with user shared content as well. It would be the greatest act of censorship in America in recent history, perhaps ever. Protecting children is just a convenient excuse that is used whenever people try to justify massive government oversight or censorship.

Steam would be liable only if illegal content gets published, not uploaded, right? They'd have to implement a verification process for uploaded content, and if nothing illegal slips through their net, they're golden - right? It'd be nonsensical to make a company responsible for the shit people upload. This is an important distinction. If you don't have this, any kind of website form would make running the site legally impossible.

The law is very precise and clear (for the most part) when it comes to what's allowed in terms of adult content, and what not. It'd pose no problems for say Rockstar to continue making adult themed games. Just like it already is in film, literature and other forms of art right now. I don't see a problem here.

These initiatives are probably meant to put pressure on companies like MindGeek, which have proven to not care about the legality of the content they're hosting. This is not about censorship but about straight up crimes on video being published by these people. I can't see why anyone wouldn't want this practice to stop, because obviously what we're doing now isn't working, and it's causing real harm to human beings all around the world.

I don't like censorship and moral policing just as much as the next guy, but when bad actors can hide behind the constant cries for "censorship" and the like so easily, there's clearly something wrong. I swear some people in the gaming community are protecting real criminals with their hysterical behaviour. And yes I do understand that for historical reasons, you Americans are very sensitive to that topic, and that's not a bad thing. But let me tell you here in Europe we don't use funny names like Karen for this, because here actual, real state censorship was a thing, and in the collective memory of Europeans it is linked to totalitarian regimes that caused the death of millions of people.

 

[Madonis]

This article is very disingenuous. What project 2025 says about section 230 is not that at all. Here is what chatgpt said about it: what project 2025 says about section 230.

You shouldn't consider only the parts where they talk about Section 230. They're also against pornography in general, which is highly relevant to the topic.

Age verification sounds fine, on paper, until you realize how intrusive it is and how various websites prefer to block entire countries or states rather than pay to set it up. The idea is to make complex and aggressive systems that, while technically allowing adults to access content, will make it increasingly difficult to comply with the requirements.

That also directly ties into what Vought said on tape in a private setting. Besides, weakening Section 230 would also be used against platforms that host sexual content.

 

[bighugeguns]

Personally think the issue is way above any of our paygrades.

 

[calico]

It's a tricky balance to get right, but I don't think online entities should be able to behave like a publisher -censoring legal speech they don't like- while also receiving the legal immunity of a platform. They should have the option of going one way or the other. If they are choosing to exercise control as a publisher then they are forfeiting the 'it's not my fault, we're just a platform' defence.

There would probably have to be exceptions based on user numbers or some such to exempt smaller operations. The problem is not with small to mid size platforms -which do not have the ability to significantly hinder speech on a societal scale- but with the major platforms (really publishers) acting in lock-step (and in many cases even at the government's behest) to censor legal speech they don't like and cancel people they don't like. Their ability to do so while enjoying immunity has had very real and damaging consequences for public discourse and society.