Itch.io is shadowbanning or deleting NSFW and LGBTQ content

[Jd Smith1]

The bolded text illustrates the problem with the whole situation.

Its just standard risk management. If an aspect of your revenue stream will cause you to have to spend X on PR actions, and only generates Y income, the ratio of X to Y is vital.

If X is greater than Y, then dropping Y is the obvious choice.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think any attempt at the right solution here has to address the fallout to the Kristof article. Is the world a better or worse place for payment processors taking action in response? IIRC it led to the removal of a massive amount of exploitative content.

I think there is a defensible stance that says that was a bad choice for MC/Visa to take. But I don't see many people biting the bullet there.

And if you don't want to bite that bullet, then we are in the territory of companies taking action beyond what the legal system does. Note also the ESG pressure, in this regard.

I don't know what article you're talking about - maybe someone I have on ignore mentioned it? Is it one by Nick Kristof? He's written some stuff which was quite good on real (i.e. actual people) exploitative material in 2021 and thereabouts, but I'm not aware of him writing about pure fiction, and any unsupported attempt to equate the two is, clearly, to my mind, bad faith.

As for a better or worse world? I'd say it's a straightforward step on a path to a worse world. One where purity of thought as determined by religious extremists and aging "liberals" who have extremely puritan viewpoints is held above all else. The same sort of people who think it's fine to harm sex workers so long as you hurt sex work. New York City's 55-y/o+ intelligentsia is full of such people (seems to be quite specific to that city). I don't think it's particularly complicated.

Re: ESG pressure, the trouble is, that's not actual ESG pressure. That billionaire pressure. You're confusing the two, or the article is.

That article acts like Ackman is a well-meaning and helpful guy out to save people, but that's frankly, that's deeply disingenuous. That's like thinking, in D&D terms, that because a demon kills a devil, the demon is a good guy, the demon is to be praised, the demon is helpful. Ackman is a total power-crazed idiot who constantly throws his weight around, and 95% of the time it's for evil. That article covers the one time he ever did anything good. But the billionaire is a demon, not a saint. Just look at how much he's been behind the persecution of college students opposed to the genocide in Gaza. He's been a huge, vocal and very public supporter of completely extra-legal action, even outright violence against them, and has supported vigilante organisations and so on. Or equally all the insane threats he made at people who outed his plagiarist wife as a plagiarist! He's written articles about "racism against white people" (and he specifically means very rich white people lol), for god's sake. This is the guy who is a positive actor?

He's absolutely the exactly same kind of person as the Aussie nutjobs, just he's worth $9.5bn. And you're praising him because his broken clock was right once? Kind of seems that way but I suspect you actually have no idea who he even is, and just blindly Googled the article without understanding the context of it. At least I hope so.

Also, again we're talking about real explotiative and in many cases already outright illegal material (that laws just weren't being enforced on) in that article, whereas what's was done here was that fully legal fictional material is being removed. If you equate the two without a very detailed and well-supported argument, I'd have to say that's obviously spurious.

I think there is a defensible stance that says that was a bad choice for MC/Visa to take. But I don't see many people biting the bullet there.

What are you talking about? Loads of people are saying it was a bad choice. Literally don't know what you're talking about. Also you seem to be misusing the phrase "biting the bullet" repeatedly, because it makes no sense here or when you use it later, at least not to me (traditionally it means biting down to endure pain being inflicted on you, like by someone sewing up a wound, but you appear to think it means "engaging with an argument" or "making an argument that..."?).

Which changes do you mean? I think most people would be happy with payment processors not supporting exploitative pornographic content even if the people behind it are not punished legally. Kristof is, and he isn't, I believe, part of the Aussie group. (I don't know how he feels about the No Mercy game).

I don't really care how an extremely wealthy, utterly self-delusional (c.f. his campaign to be Governor of Oregon, a place he's never lived in) and pretty smug aging New York journo who is long past his prime and has been on the very wrong side of several issues over the last few decades feels. Should I? Can you explain why? He's not all the way to "Aussie nutjob" but equally I don't think he really understands the situation or has considered the consequences. He's a man with specific concerns and otherwise a very narrow view of the world. The only nice thing I can say about Kristof is that he genuinely seems to care about Africa and is genuinely upset by deaths there (and still does good reporting on Africa, has done for decades), unlike a lot of people, and that he was good on reporting about bad stuff Pornhub etc. were doing in 2021. Apart from that? Not a good guy, says and thinks a lot of, to my mind, very stupid things. Particularly short-sighted things.

I mean, you're pushing Nick Kristof (I think) as a moral standard, but this is the guy who sweatshops are a good thing (multiple articles on it!)

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/06/opinion/in-praise-of-the-maligned-sweatshop.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/opinion/15kristof.html

One counterpoint - there are many: Kristof’s Moralistic Journalism Was Often Full of Holes

The man is a simple-minded moralist (which I can vibe with when they're right, but often they aren't, that's the problem) and it's ironic that you say you're allergic to "simple solutions to complex problems" and then praise him and seem to hold him up as a moral standard, frankly. He's a semi-broken clock that is somehow right a few times a day (rather than just once, like Ackman), and most of the times he's right it's about suffering in Africa.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

They had something like this stance, and got some high-profile asks in the media and from investors to change it.

That's pretty disingenuous, frankly.

Let's be clear, what worked on them wasn't investors or the media or the like, it was billionaire who literally personally knew the CEO of Mastercard basically publicly bullying him.

And the material was ALREADY ILLEGAL in most countries (including the US and UK). The problem wasn't that it was legal and shouldn't have been. It was already illegal, just no-one was enforcing on it.

Further these weren't "asks to change policy", like this was a polite request. The billionaire involved basically threatened them.

This wasn't some kind of grass roots thing - this was one particular billionaire, who an extremely bad person, let us be clear and usually behind very bad causes (just look him up) who happened to be on the right side, randomly, for once. And you're acting like his intervention was a good thing. It wasn't. It was a sign of how our society's lawmakers and so on have increasingly lost power to international billionaires and corporations (including the corporations on both ends of this!).

Whereas this material is legal. Thus equating the two is not correct.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I honestly can't see shaming over "nsfw"/"adult" content, itself, being enough to get the card companies reacting like this.

Yet that's what happened. It's like saying "I can't believe that guy shot his wife just because she didn't do the vacuuming!", and you're instead coming up with literal conspiracy theories (Epstein for god's sake lol). Just because your personal mindset apparently (according to you) doesn't encompass reality, doesn't make reality wrong.

Perhaps they made the card company leadership concerned over liability or class-action lawsuits related to pedophilia or content that "encourages" violence.

That or they convinced said leadership that "morally conservative" individuals/groups are growing in power, and could be forming laws related to said content, where said leadership would either be ally or enemy.

Or, possibly threatening allegations of an Epstein connection?

To be clear, Collective Shout outlined what they did, and literally none of that happened.

What you seem to be having difficulty with here is that these credit card companies don't have a high threshold for making this kind of decision, because they've seen over the last few years that it's been consequence-free for them. So it's a very low bar to get them to demand people make changes. And the bar is getting lower, not higher, or was at least.

 

[Muh]

Its just standard risk management. If an aspect of your revenue stream will cause you to have to spend X on PR actions, and only generates Y income, the ratio of X to Y is vital.

If X is greater than Y, then dropping Y is the obvious choice.

Yes, and that is bad.

 

[The Firebird]

I don't know what article you're talking about - maybe someone I have on ignore mentioned it? Is it one by Nick Kristof?

Link.

He's written some stuff which was quite good on real (i.e. actual people) exploitative material in 2021 and thereabouts, but I'm not aware of him writing about pure fiction, and any unsupported attempt to equate the two is, clearly, to my mind, bad faith.

As for a better or worse world? I'd say it's a straightforward step on a path to a worse world.

Reading this as written, it sounds like you think the card processors actions in the Pornhub case led to a worse world. That doesn't sound like what you think to me though. Am I right that you think it was good in that case but is bad when applied to fictional scenarios? Or do you think it was bad in that case?

Re: ESG pressure, the trouble is, that's not actual ESG pressure. That billionaire pressure. You're confusing the two, or the article is.

It is, definitionally. Billionaires have a lot of power to exercise as ESG investors because they are large investors.

Also you seem to be misusing the phrase "biting the bullet" repeatedly, because it makes no sense here or when you use it later, at least not to me (traditionally it means biting down to endure pain being inflicted on you, like by someone sewing up a wound, but you appear to think it means "engaging with an argument" or "making an argument that..."?).

Here it means asserting "yes, it was wrong for MC/Visa to act w/rt Pornhub even if it mean massive amounts of exploitative content would remain available, because the principle of these businesses not making moral choices is more important". That stance would be hard for me to take. Hence the phrase.

You have extended discourses on Ackman and Kristof. I am not interested in these. I'm not asserting they are correct generally.

 

[The Firebird]

Whereas this material is legal. Thus equating the two is not correct.

This is a key point I wanted to bring out. If the standard is: "MC/Visa were right to exercise judgement for Pornhub but not for Itch because Pornhub was doing things that were illegal and itch was not"...and that took place in a context where existing legal systems were not stopping Pornhub...doesn't that imply that MC/Visa should be evaluating actions based on their own understanding of legality and executing bans on that basis? Or no?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Reading this as written, it sounds like you think the card processors actions in the Pornhub case led to a worse world. That doesn't sound like what you think to me though. Am I right that you think it was good in that case but is bad when applied to fictional scenarios? Or do you think it was bad in that case?

I think a lunatic with a shotgun shot a man in the street, and it just happened that that guy was a murderous rapist, put it like that.

The same lunatic though has been running around firing his shotgun at college students, people who outed his wife's dodgy behaviour, anyone who doesn't think white people are "the real victims", and so on. So bad behaviour leading to a good thing happening is kinda good, but it's bad if it keeps happening, isn't it?

Also yeah, there's difference between:

A) ALREADY ILLEGAL real videos of real people being raped/abused and so on. REAL being the key word.

B) LEGAL entirely fictional stories/comics/games which push some boundaries, some of which are pretty extreme, many of which are mild and far less extreme than say, many Shakespeare plays or Greek myths. Indeed, the new rules on itch.io rule out quite a few of Shakespeare's plays from appearing on there!

I'd like you to acknowledge that distinction. Someone shooting at the former, it's already illegal by the laws of the land, so yeah, okay, I'm not too bothered. Shooting at the latter? Uhoh.

It is, definitionally. Billionaires have a lot of power to exercise as ESG investors because they are large investors.

Absolutely not.

The person in question did not do this as an "ESG investor". He did it because he's a lunatic who thinks he is the main character of planet Earth and throws his (considerable) financial and political weight around constantly and for insane (or even inane!) reasons. This wasn't some well-considered and concerted effort, it was a lunatic bullying a guy who he knew IRL, and that guy (Banga) acted in significant part because there would be personal social consequences in NY upper-crust society for him if he didn't (he lives in NYC and is part of the NYC intelligentsia/elite I described). So trying to pretend it was an ESG thing is hilarious nonsense. This isn't ESG - this is ultra-rich NYC residents pushing each other around.

You have extended discourses on Ackman and Kristof. I am not interested in these. I'm not asserting they are correct generally.

You did actually assert Kristof was "correct generally", or appeared to - why else should I care about his aging jerk opinion? You didn't present a logical basis, just "he was right one time before" - so yeah I'm not really buying that.

Ackman's behaviour is absolutely vital to even the most basic and trivial understanding of events. Without the context I've provided, he might look like a sane or decent person. He might look different the Aussie nutcases. But he isn't. He's fundamentally the same kind of egotist/main character, he's just extremely, extremely rich.

Here it means asserting "yes, it was wrong for MC/Visa to act w/rt Pornhub even if it mean massive amounts of exploitative content would remain available, because the principle of these businesses not making moral choices is more important".

No.

If you are pretending there is not a difference between:

A) Illegal videos that exploit real people and are horrifying records of crimes.

B) Legal horny stories/games/comics with dubious consent or furries or other dodgy elements.

Then you are, at best, not making any kind of serious argument. So you're make a false claim equivocation here it seems. I'm fine with the other stuff being made to go away because it was ALREADY ILLEGAL I don't know how I can be more clear about that. Existing-at-the-time British, American and other laws made that material illegal, but Pornhub etc. were failing to enforce them. Do you understand the difference between illegal and legal material?

 

[The Firebird]

I'd like you to acknowledge that distinction.

Acknowledged.

Then you are, at best, not making any kind of serious argument. So you're make a false claim equivocation here it seems. I'm fine with the other stuff being made to go away because it was ALREADY ILLEGAL I don't know how I can be more clear about that. Existing-at-the-time British, American and other laws made that material illegal, but Pornhub etc. were failing to enforce them. Do you understand the difference between illegal and legal material?

You are misreading me, and there is nothing for me to add that I haven't said already. So I will leave it there.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

doesn't that imply that MC/Visa should be evaluating actions based on their own understanding of legality and executing bans on that basis? Or no?

That's clearly not what they're doing, because they've banned tons of material that is definitely, unquestionably legal in the US and EU, and the standards they're demanding are very obviously not legality-related, or even ESG-related in any normal way.

I would suggest you stop trying to suggest bullying and ESG are the same thing. My brother in christ, I was literally working on ESG-related documents on Friday, for a major corporation. ESG stuff that's genuinely considered doesn't happen rapidly. It happens slowly, carefully, and cautiously, and considers both sides of the law - i.e. are you violating consumer rights or free speech laws - unquestionably EU consumer rights laws have been violated here, for example.

Whereas both examples we have are knee-jerk reflexes that happened in days. One was okayish because the material was already democratically made illegal, one was bad, because the material was and remains legal in a democratic and free society (as it should, given making it illegal would also make, say, a bunch of Shakespeare plays illegal). And frankly, we'd have been a lot better off if Visa/Mastercard had done nothing to Pornhub, but instead democratically elected governments and law enforcement organisations had acted. But Ackman thinks he's the main character of the planet, so instead of allowing that to happen, which might take days/weeks, as soon as he read his pal Kristof's article, he decided to publicly bully a man who exists in the exact same social spheres as him (and for that matter, Kristof) - i.e. very rich NYC residents who are on a lot of fancy committees (and by the way, are literally one ONE degree of separation away from ME personally because I know a lot of fairly posh people who do or have lived in NYC), because he knew that would work. It's Old Boys' Network basically. As a Brit I know that's never ultimately a good thing even if it randomly gets used for good occasionally.