To be clear - "Collective Shout" both is and isn't responsible. It's the payment processors who actually enacted policies and are using them as the scapegoat for negative feedback.
How many times have people reported Twitter after Elon Musk took over for showing Nazi propaganda alongside their ads - with no response. An 'open letter' in July about a game already banned in April? DELIST EVERYTHING IMMEDIATELY.
First they came for the incest/rape games, which most people somewhat agree with (although the principle is still wrong) Next up is all nsfw games. After that, it'll be mainstream and indie games altogether. This never stops with just one "victory" for these groups.
It’s going to come down to anything with even a whisper of LGBTQ+/minority/disability/etc representation, just like with books.
They start with the “egregious” content (not that it’s necessarily right to remove that either), then narrow it down until it shapes up into hegemonic conformity and systemic oppression via media (there’s a term for it, kind of like stochastic violence but not quite that I can’t remember atm).
Exactly this. It is so transparent that the goal is to target minorities and lgbtq+ folk. After that, who knows. “Unchristian” games probably.
BDSM games have been targeted as well for "sexual violence". Only straight, vanilla PiV missionary for the express purposes of having children within the confines of marriage where nobody is enjoying it porn will be left.
Once they get rid of the sex they'll come for the violence.
Steam is gonna look mighty empty if every game with violence is removed tho.
Collective shout finacials
year: 2024
revenue: 458043
employee_expenses: 107000
other_expenses: 215488
net_surplus: 135555
employees:
total_fte: 2
full_time: 0
part_time: 1
casual: 4
volunteers: 15
donations_and_bequests: 389800
government_grants: 0
commercial_income: 0
expense_to_revenue_ratio: "70.4%"
average_expense_per_employee: 39400
Leadership
- name: Melinda Tankard Reist
role: Founder, Movement Director
public_socials:
- Twitter: @MelTankardReist
- Instagram: @collective.shout
public_email_address: Not publicly listed
salary: Not publicly listed
- name: Caitlin Roper
role: Campaigns Manager
public_socials:
- Instagram: @collective.shout
public_email_address: Not publicly listed
salary: Not publicly listed
- name: Renee Chopping
role: Campaigns Strategy
public_socials:
- LinkedIn
public_email_address: r******@collectiveshout.org
salary: Not publicly listed
- name: Lyn Swanson Kennedy
role: Campaigns Strategy
public_socials:
- Instagram: @collective.shout
public_email_address: Not publicly listed
salary: Not publicly listed
- name: Coralie Alison
role: Movement Operations Manager
public_socials:
- Twitter: @CoralieAlison
- Instagram: @collective.shout
public_email_address: Not publicly listed
salary: Not publicly listed
Annoy them, call their bullshit, but don't harass or threaten them, those are likely to backfire spectacularly
I'm wondering who gave these credit card companies the moral authority.
Finicial authority beats moral everytime.
The fact that they hold the keys to the kingdom. Online retailers and businesses rely on credit card processors to be able to do business, which is all the leverage they need to exert tremendous pressure on the businesses they service.
This is something that really should be getting legislated against, but good luck in the US under the current administration. Maybe the EU has a shot.
Meanwhile, on my feed there's a post directly below this one about a compiler that will give you BSDM messages for good and bad coding and can even be hooked up to a remote butt plug to pleasure you when you compile a successful program.
I'm completely fine with certain content being delisted because it is considered essentially on par with hate speech or something like that.
However, I really do not like that it is payment processors making that call. If someone makes that call, it should be the store in question (itch.io, Steam, whatever) or it should be the government.
Fuck these god-bothering pieces of shit. No, seriously. It sounds like they need it.
Goddamn cookers the lot of them. Perhaps I'll make an abortion game on Itch in protest.
Let the Digital Euro become a thing. It will wreck havoc on the current payment ecosystem.
And the Digital Euro is not a crypto. It will be a digital currency, backed by the ECB, at a one to one exchange rate with standard euro currency.
be careful. stablecoins are a step towards central bank digital currency. once CBDC is established, it’s all over for freedom to spend money.
I mean the issue here is not with the money itself, it's the payment processors
The eEU is supposed to be one, itself. And even if it fails Wero and MBWay are growing, which are direct money transfer systems.
Time for Brazil's PIX to be exported around the world. That's likely to be hard, as here it is a direct, bank agnostic account-to-account transfer without middlemen and without any tax, so it'd need cooperation between the involved countries.
You're describing the same system behind Wero and MBWay. We can just use cellphone numbers to move money from account to account, regardless of the banks at each end of the transaction.
First, fuck Visa and Mastercard. Second, fuck Collective Shout. Third, I feel for the itch forum mods.
ACLU petition concerning the payment processors: https://action.aclu.org/petition/mastercard-sex-work-work-end-your-unjust-policy
Puritanical US based payment processors need to stop getting their panties twisted.
So how do we go about suing these guys? They're erasing art. And no, I'm not just some gooner who wants more jackoff material, Itch apparently removed anything with nudity in it.
I am a guy who wants more jackoff material, and I am an adult, and I am allowed to have sources for that material that is not some piecemeal ad hoc storefront where I subscribe to individual developers who drip feed content as it gets developed.
I am all for supporting artists and have subscribed to a few Patreons when my wallet allows, but I like having a place where I can play some demos or games that an artist puts up for free because why not? I am so sick of storefronts being targeted like this. All of the porn on Steam is behind an age gate, and sure, Itch could use such a gate, but it doesn't need to delist an entire form of art.
It's nice to see a more reasonable response in the comments on Fediverse. On the itch discussion board people are frothing at the mouth posting death threats and the like against itch staff.
The anger is completely misdirected. I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to just let itch drop dead after this abuse from two sides simultaneously. Mega corps and rights groups at one side, and their very own users on the other.
Once this review is complete, we will introduce new compliance measures. For NSFW pages, this will include a new step where creators must confirm that their content is allowable under the policies of the respective payment processors linked to their account.
Itch is even willing to go for partial filtering, what more do you want. The only thing that will please these people is when itch waves their magic wand and keeps everything as is. Like folks here have said, accepting crypto payments might help, but who knows how soon that is going to get regulated.
Can't wait for an EU alternative to Visa/Mastercard. Heard Wero is supposed to be that. Europe can't decouple from US garbage fast enough.
GNU Taller. I heard it was working in Switzerland
I wonder who major porn sites use as payment processors? (I don't know the answer, I'm just saying...)
Most of the large ones only take bank transfers and cryptocurrency now.
How the fuck did we get to the point where a company which literally only takes your money and gives it to someone else (and also gets paid for that) can decide what kind of content people consume?
There should be laws forcing payment processors to be neutral. They should have to accept any transaction that would be legal if made using cash.
Considering how long payment processing as a business has been a thing, I'm amazed its not more regulated in terms of being forced to be neutral or being unable to decline processing payments that are related to completely legal transactions.
Posted this elsewhere so just going to copy paste here but with regards to Collective Shout:
I think we need to get this group to weigh in on the content of certain holy books. Surely as a secular organisation they will have no problem demanding that the bible and qur'an be banned (I bet I know which one they actually would like banned).
After all we don't want kids exposed to books that contain incest, sex, violence, rape, etc. I'm sure there are some parts of Ezekiel they will want editted at the absolute minimum.
I imagine balkanisation would be one way to make them slightly less visible/insufferable, and you know they would love some factional infighting.
Every time they get brought up they should be forced to confront that the people pulling their strings are most likely engaging in all the things they want banned from culture (regardless of culture or intent). Once they are forced to start lobbying Visa and MasterCard to block transactions to religious bodies I will accept they genuinely believe in the drivel they leak. Until then its performative puritanism.
P.s. not a fan of religion of any stripe, but I would feel as violently opposed to censoring them as I am to censoring anything else, I will accept it if its the only responsible solution until then alternative can be found.
I never thought I would say this, but cryptocurrency might have a use after all.
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