Not exactly. Visa was named as a counterparty in a class action against Mindgeek for monetizing child porn on their website. They lost, and there have been subsequent class actions.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/19/onlyfans-to-...
Ultimately the ban was undone in exchange for onlyfans limiting the type of content available on the platform. So effectively, payment processors dictate which type of sexual activities, performed by consenting adults, are OK to depict and sell. Why? Why do they have that power?
If it was indeed Collective Shout's pressure campaign that led to Valve and itch.io being told by their payment processors to remove games, then this is how it went:
Collective Shout -> Mastercard -> Mastercard's head of brand risk (or equivalent role) -> Mastercard's business partners -> Valve and itch.io
Mob bosses order hits, wise guys carry them out. The mob boss has clean hands.
Keep the pressure on Mastercard.
We need to stop these side-channel attacks on democracy. If a government deems some media lawful, you shouldn't get to de-facto ban it by going after publicity-averse private companies that provide hosting, payment processing, etc. https://protectthestack.org/
So when some country decides something isn't appropriate for their culture, that's being backward, look at American exceptionalism and free speech..... unless its payment gateways enforcing their thumb down any free speech throats.
This doesn't even make sense. If a corporation is a person, then 1A Freedom of Speech means that the government cannot restrict the corporations political speech.
The corporation is absolutely allowed to restrict their users free speech, including political speech, because A) the bill of rights only binds the government, not corporations and B) it would actually be against free speech to compell a private corporation to engage in speech it does not agree with.
Should you be forced to post political or sexual content that you disagree with on your accounts or on a wall at your house? Of course not. Similarly, if you start a business, you cannot be forced to post political or sexual content you disagree with. Your freedom of speech as a business is what matters here.
The idea that we have "speech anarchy" where all people can say anything they want and punish anyone who doesn't reproduce their speech is insanity.
In the US, payment processors are not common carriers and operate on a contractual regime that allows them to refuse or terminate service for non-compliance, risk management, or policy reasons.
Mobile companies here are common carriers and are much more strictly regulated.
1. Free speech as in the US first amendment. This indeed is limited to the government.
2. Free speech as in the enlightenment ideal upon which western liberal societies are built.
It is usually obvious that people mean the second because it is the only one that is even relevant outside the US. Somehow the narrow-minded people who can not conceptualize that free speech is broader than the first definition think it is a big gotcha' to jump into conversations with this kind of "um achtually".
This is becoming tiresome.
This makes a strong case for Bitcoin - no matter if you consider it a ponzi scheme, or the BTC price to be overinflated, you will not be able to deny it is truly censorship free.
1. Specifically a stablecoin running on the network
https://www.bitcoinsensus.com/news/altcoins/eu-to-restrict-m...
So I do actually believe Mastercard when they say this, but holding them accountable anyway is probably for the best. They're likely the single group with the most influence over the regulators.
Which is a pretty messed up situation.
Also, the FCC does not directly set standards and instead responds to complaints from the communities in which the broadcast is available. So it’s conceivable that in an environment where nobody cared, you could do this at any time of day.
For background,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Entertainment_Merchan... ("Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association" (2011) ("ruling that video games were protected speech under the First Amendment as other forms of media"))
I don't think there's any government involvement necessary here - Mastercard has some censorship apparatus (which they claim to be necessary for their brand's reputation), and they used it (apparently through pressure from an Australian group) towards video games.
This is really bad but I don't think it makes sense to believe a government was ever involved here. Of course, there should be laws put in place to regulate mastercard into a common infrastructure. They should not be able to deny processing a legal payment because of nebulous "brand reputation" reason.
You can hand wave around well they are a monopoly or some related argument but the government does not see it that way. Visa and Mastercard for decades have censored adult sites on their network. At the end of the day I suspect they would be happy to take the fees but they are the ones underwriting the risk and there have been cases over the year in the US at least that challenge how extreme you can go with Adult material. Even today there are certain categories that are much harder to get setup for processing.
Edit: to be ultra clear, I would love more competition in this space but at the same time there is no argument around free speech here.
Constitutional rights are also civil rights - businesses may not violate them nilly-willy in this specific manner which causes damages to people.
It's like if a tier 1 ISP only peered with networks that peer with networks that censor XYZ. Allowing for these kind of agreements leads to censorship and is why net neutrality is important from the government.
"Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down, but Valve says payment processors 'specifically cited' a Mastercard rule about damaging the brand"
(For the people who don't click the link to read the article.)
But it's hard to say. Mastercard is now saying that they never said or did anything. So where did the outrage come from? Someone must have done something.
It sure is tragic that benevolent and majestic Mastercard is having their name thrown into the mud over this. Coincidentally, it sure is convenient that they have a number of middleman scapegoats who can take the blame on their behalf.
There's even a (non-public) list of keyword banned terms.
Even the (rare) categories of content that have been legally determined to be non-obscene (e.g., werewolf erotica [1]) can fall under banned keywords (in this case, “bestiality”).
It’s a stupid extralegal system and ought to be destroyed.
[1] https://time.com/archive/7118599/california-prisoner-fights-...
>Each of these companies maintains its own terms of service and each of them can block a transaction by themselves. Additionally, intermediary companies that handle card transactions are mutually and individually bound to the terms of every Card Network, so even if you never do business with Discover or American Express, you must still obey their rules if you want to accept Visa or Mastercard. For online businesses, there are no alternatives: you will do exactly what they want, or you will not do business at all.
>If you are banned from processing payments, you will not be informed why or by which point of failure. "Risk management" is considered a trade secret in the industry. You have no right to know, you cannot sue to discover what has happened, and you also have no right to appeal.
Did Mastercard threaten Valve? Or did Valve precomply?
a) they are worried Mastercard might randomly decide it does and punish them
b) it's convenient to be able to blame someone else
c) someone somewhere said something and the rest of the orgs isn't aware or over-interpreted a statement
Vague rules like this are great to dilute responsibility. It can both be true that Mastercard didn't tell the payment processors to force the issue and that the payment processors strongly thought they had to.
The payment processors did not cite any law; Valve selling those games was not illegal. Instead they cited Mastercard's rules, which say that they cannot submit transactions that Mastercard believe might damage Mastercard's goodwill or reflect negatively on its brand. Those rules also say Mastercard has sole discretion as to what it considers breach these rules, and Mastercard gives a list of what it deems unacceptable:
https://www.mastercard.us/content/dam/public/mastercardcom/n...
> 5.12.7 Illegal or Brand-damaging Transactions
> A Merchant must not submit to its Acquirer, and a Customer must not submit to the Interchange System, any Transaction that is illegal, or in the sole discretion of the Corporation, may damage the goodwill of the Corporation or reflect negatively on the Marks.
> The Corporation considers any of the following activities to be in violation of this Rule:
> 2. The sale of a product or service, including an image, which is patently offensive and lacks serious artistic value (such as, by way of example and not limitation, images of nonconsensual sexual behavior, sexual exploitation of a minor, nonconsensual mutilation of a person or body part, and bestiality), or any other material that the Corporation deems unacceptable to sell in connection with a Mark.
The payment processors threatened Valve first. Mastercard doesn't need to threaten Valve or even contact them at all to force its will on them: it just needs to threaten its payment processors, the same outcome is achieved. Valve did not remove games from sale until threatened. If they did not do that, and instead initiated some kind of fightback, they would most likely find themselves completely removed from all payment processors, with no recourse. If you want to call that "precompliance", so be it.
Do we have a statement from Valve saying as much?
> In a statement provided to PC Gamer, Valve said that it had tried to work things out with Mastercard directly prior to removing the games, and suggested that Mastercard did have at least an indirect influence on the outcome.
> "Mastercard did not communicate with Valve directly, despite our request to do so," a Valve representative said. "Mastercard communicated with payment processors and their acquiring banks. Payment processors communicated this with Valve, and we replied by outlining Steam’s policy since 2018 of attempting to distribute games that are legal for distribution.
> "Payment processors rejected this, and specifically cited Mastercard’s Rule 5.12.7 and risk to the Mastercard brand."
Like yes, there is a problem with Mastercard. But I want to know this isn’t Valve having complied with some activists trying to cover their tracks.
So everyone would have to be pretty invested in this show for it to have originated from Valve?
Which is more likely:
1. Porn-hating, sex-hating, LGBT-hating activist group from Australia bombards Mastercard with complaints that Valve and Itch are selling adult games. Mastercard reminds its payment processors not to bring shame on The Mark. Valve's and Itch's payment processors tell them not to sell adult games.
2. Porn-hating, sex-hating, LGBT-hating activist group from Australia bombards Mastercard with complaints that Valve and Itch are selling adult games. Valve and Itch agree with these harpies and remove their revenue streams and support for developers (because they hate revenue and hate supporting their developers; they'd much rather align with moral prudes from Australia in order to lose money and abandon the people who make them that money), then they sneakily pin the blame on Mastercard. Valve and Itch also use telepathy to know Collective Shout's desires, which they agree with, to ban games precisely at the time Collective Shout are calling up Mastercard, in order for it to be Collective Shout -> Valve/Itch rather than Collective Shout -> Mastercard -> Payment processors -> Valve/Itch
Could also hit the iOS-Android bird with the same stone!
Mastercard don't care you want porn, or games, or whatever. Neither does VISA. They like money. They want money and want people to move their money so they can siphon off some of it for their own pockets. Almost nobody is going to avoid using a bank because their card provider let some other people buy rude games on steam.
The payment processors don't care. They want you to send money through them so they can take their cut.
Steam doesn't care. The people making the games don't care. They all just want to sell stuff.
The only thing that impacts this really is chargebacks, which iiuc are much more common with adult stuff.
But payment processors can't guarantee what mastercard or visa will do, and players like steam (and they're huge, this is not about tiny store issues) can't guarantee what payment processors will do and given the potential downside - blocking all sales - people need to be careful.
While I can see how these situations come up, it's also absolutely insane as an end result because I just want to give *my money* to someone else. I've ended up using crypto before for buying things, not for ideological reasons, but purely because I could buy them and then give them to someone else for the "flagged as risky" goods/services because I couldn't pay for things using my money and my card.
I think this makes no sense, like "we makes less profits from adult stuff because of charge back, so let\s give up on this profits". Anyway this companies did not use this excuse so why do this old excuse is resufecing now if they did not use it.
I have sold a few items on Steam because I don't care about cosmetics in games. I'm also lazy and because of that "sat" on items for a while that appreciated. I mention this because Steam credit is very fungible: it can be easily converted.
Steam also makes it very easy to redeem credit, gift, etc.
I believe you can buy Steam cards at most places Xbox cards and similar are sold as well.
Also in the early days of Bitcoin buying and selling of digital Steam assets was one of the most popular things.
You'd have to onboard hundreds/thousands of banks and terminal providers so they accept/give out your card.
I excpect the underlying technical stuff isn't that hard compared to getting people and companies to actually use it.
Gaming is the business bigger than movies, music and books combined and Valve is Google of games.
Valve is not Google of games, the app stores Google and Apple has dwarfs steam sales and the individual game consoles are similar size as the steam store.
> I'm paying with my phone anyways
Right, since the phone ecosystem is large enough to be its own payment processor, unlike steam.
Also Google Play store might have more consumers and or sales but they are of worse quality. It's scummy, it's exploitative. The whole system is propped up by whales decieved by gambling mechanics and deceptive ads. It's nowhere close to real world economy. Valve is much closer. Despite using Play Store since it came to existance I never paid for anything on Google Play because I don't trust it enough to add a single payment method there.
And what in your mind is the thing banks will be begging Steam to be let in on? This reads like payment processing fan fiction.
I don't trust Paypal, at all, because its brand is damaged beyond repair, but I would put enough money on Valve account to do all of my online shopping with it if Valve did even just what Paypal does (even without connecting Visa or Mastercard directly).
I don't pay with credit or debit card for steam, I can use Blik, which is paying with my phone or one other payment processor, but I'm not in USA. This is USA problem.
(Visa employee count: 30,000+)
In the US that means either dealing with ACH at scale, which is a challenge, building a new card networks (which is hard) or only using alternative payment methods such as bnpl or crypto.
Each of those will limit your buyers, which as a merchant is a tough business decision.
Which is why someone has big interest in keeping it this way as in Europe practically every country solved this issue a long time ago and people do daily shopping completely omitting Visa/Mastercard. They try to fight back without much success.
Steam games' availability is per-country. They could've removed games for Australian users only. NSFW games are not shown to Chinese and German players on Steam since forever.
Do I mind that MDMA Date With Hitler was taken down ? No, I don't believe it's a massive loss. However, the way it was done, through payment providers threatening to shut off access to the entire payment system because of their rules, is incredibly dangerous to the whole world.
The legal situation with VPNs and traveling between regions is the same as with any internet service.
[1] https://steamcommunity.com/groups/foruncut/discussions/17/41... [2] https://steamcommunity.com/groups/foruncut/discussions/17/39...
Were Steam selling it to kids?
Besides, it's not like you can boycott Mastercard or VISA.
In many countries, if you pay locally, you absolutely can. China's UnionPay, India's UPI, PayNow in Singapore, PromptPay in Thailand, PayPal, Cash App, and more.
15. Content that may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors and related card networks and banks, or internet network providers. In particular, certain kinds of adult only content.
See discussion here for example: https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/6019100814124...
We've had that in EU/eurozone for years, SEPA.
EU will even arrange a special new bank account for ya outside of Visa Mastercard called CBDC.
No problem. EU is here for ya! /s
The other two superpowers are Eurasia (which as the name suggests is Europe less the UK and Ireland but with Asia) and Eastasia, which is South-East Asia more or less
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_geography_of_Ninetee...
Honestly, I'm really critical towards EU, but this is one of the few things that EU does well. When the market is stagnating, it's better than nothing to propose an alternative or some kind of benefits in order to change the market a bit. Like the Roaming in EU.
Regarding the rest, the EU is mining competition with the obsession of regulating everything.
This is just Visa+Mastercard abusing their market position and the EU should come down on them like a ton of bricks. Incur heavy fines or break them up if necessary.
Regulations are empirical decisions, based on a very limited amount of data, whose implications can be endless. Regulations are a shortcut capable of poisoning the market and competition. Just look at what's been done with energy, automobiles, AI, GDPR, etc. Bureaucrats are not gods; they often make mistakes and don't predict the future. Regulations should be the last resort.
Furthermore, we're talking about a US monopoly here. The goal would be to grab a share of the pie through honest competition, not to enstablish golden collars.
Regulation should facilitate competition, not legitimize the status quo.
Like with DMA/DSA that force gatekeepers to open up? SEPA that mandates free immediate bank transfers? Caps on credit/debit card transaction fees? The million infrastructure projects? Ensuring that AI can't be used to make life or death decisions if it's decision making can't be explained (which the AI act boils down to)? Ensuring there is competition on e.g. railway operations?
It's such a common refrain that EU is just stifling competition with "regulating everything", but quite oftne EU regulations are actually forcing competition where none was possible before.
A tangential nitpick: it's fizzle out, from a Middle English etymology meaning "to fart"; not to fission (fissile being an adjectival form), from Latin "to split".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fizzle#Etymology ("Attested in English since 1525-35. From earlier fysel (“to fart”). Related to fīsa (“to fart”). Compare with Swedish fisa (“to fart (silently)”). See also feist.")
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/feist#Etymology
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fissile#Etymology ("From Latin fissilis.")
Like after lighting a firework that didn't actually go off.
"It's fizzled out!"
Does this mean "Missile" means "to miss"? 'Cause boy have we been using those things wrong :-)
Most countries have some kinds of domestic transaction systems, or at least a more local credit card brand. They're also usually instant. It's more or less an US-only situation that people use Visa/Mastercard even for intranational stuff.
China is kind of an outlier with Union Pay, and while a large number of countries offer their own alternatives, I'd say most are Visa-first. Apparently about 37% of cards around the world are Visa, so that's a huge chunk. JCB is the biggest non-Chinese non-American provider by revenue, and even they're a minor player in their home country.
Also there are a few QR networks, some made by the banks like "Modo" and other no-a-bank ones like "MercadoPago" and a few minor ones. Even the guy/gal that sells hot bread on the street accept most of them.
Somehow I'm able to use a JCB card though. As far as I'm aware, JCB cards aren't even available here.
To this point, it was even a punchline in The Hitchhokers Guide To The Galaxy.
Girocard charges a 0,3% fee vs visa/mastercard 3%
Why did we make all those monopoly laws only to completely forget they exist or why we ever made them?
American Express' card started in 1958, as a pivot of their then already 100-year-old business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Express#1920s%E2%80%9...
Visa also in 1958 as a Bank of America (and friends) card, which quietly expanded into the mid-60s: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Inc.#History
Mastercard in the mid-60s from banks who BoA wouldn't invite into the Visa clubhouse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastercard#History
And Discover in the mid-80s because Sears was big enough to be its own financial services firm: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discover_Card#History
i dont have access to the joke, or inside club, or inner sanctum, and maybe theres other people like me that want to know more and if the mystery is self-imposed then i might respectfully push back that we cant talk about it
these are basic things we need to exist in society, we should not be at the whims of private organizations.
I don't think Valve could feasibly implement this at their scale - especially if this method was the _only_ way to acquire the games in question.
How it works is you purchase a product online and it gives you a barcode that can be scanned at any major convenience store. You go to the store, scan the code, hand over cash, and the content you bought is instantly unlocked once the payment is confirmed.
I believe Steam did support bitcoin at one point but decided to end usage over because the price fluctuations made it to unpredictable on their end. Maybe the landscape has changed though.
Whether or not Valve would want to encourage people to pay with crypto and expose their customer base to its volatility is another matter.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail...
So either those poor games need to be kicked out, or everyone has to switch to cash/app overnight. The transition process has to be easy enough that the dumbest addict you have seen in worst fast food restaurant place can complete in few clicks. That has proven difficult for many, and sadly the former options are usually taken.
Unfortunately, laws like EU AML law go the opposite direction, where banks are allowed to close accounts only if they deem them "too risky".. this is not good.
They’re payment processors, for crying out loud. Their entire grift is taking a slice of every transaction processed, ergo, the only restriction they should ever have in processing payments is whether or not the transaction is legal under the law, full stop.
If they don’t like processing payments for pornography or adult content (including games), then don’t be a payment processor. They’re a business, not a person, and therefore their “preferences” regarding content are irrelevant.
https://www.amazon.com/Streetcar-Named-Desire-Blu-ray/dp/B07...
Why is Mastercard processing money for this movie that contains a rape scene?
This isn’t as accurate as you might hope. I can pretty much only buy hobby-related things on Steam but I can buy just about any non-perishable household item on Amazon.
What people are pissed at is a card payment network abused for moral regulation.
> A Merchant must not submit to its Acquirer, and a Customer must not submit to the Interchange System, any Transaction that is illegal, or in the sole discretion of the Corporation, may damage the goodwill of the Corporation or reflect negatively on the Marks.
I didn't expect they had such clear rules expliciting they can ban any kind of transactions they don't like or would make them look bad, regardless of the legality of it.
I am looking forward to the day when they shutdown and everybody realizes this.
I definitely wish there were more option in payment processing and this is a good example of how crypto has failed, it should be a seamless drop-in imo. I also don’t believe this is a matter of free speech. It surprising to see so many folks wave the free speech flag where I don’t follow the logic. The government under any administration is not going to come to the rescue of free speech laws.
English in Japan is more of a customer support tool than a language. Proficiency is improving in some places, but on decline at large, below already atrocious status quo. This means the size of English-speaking audiences for actually Japan-centric news is small and not the first priority, not small && more important. Extremely little of whatever happening in Japan appear on mainstream English social media, let alone regular mainstream media.
If that much was not obvious to whoever pulling strings on this ongoing thing, I think there may be a chance that lack of observable responses after their earlier actions led to a misplaced confidence that gaming is a tiny top-down market and consumer resistance is nonexistent.
The responses were significant enough that it elected an equivalent of senate for third term and got former PM Kishida make a hand-wavy assurance on video even just few days before this one. It was almost certainly just a lip service, but also not nothing. How would anyone interpret that as a situation safe to escalate further?
If I remember correctly a big part of Valves heavy investment into linux was Microsoft wanting to lock windows down more, and now in 2025 gaming on linux is a viable alternative to windows.
nottorp•3h ago
"Mastercard finds out there are a lot of gamers out there, makes an attempt at damage control." would be more appropriate.
v3ss0n•1h ago