Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors
fedilink
736
Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors
Update on NSFW content
itch.io
external-link
We have “deindexed” all adult NSFW content from our browse and search pages. We understand this action is sudden and disruptive, and we are truly sorry for the frustration and confusion caused by...

The group responsible is “Collective Shout”, the same org has targeted Steam before.

There are calls on social media now to contact Mastercard, Visa and co. and file complaints.

Gibibit
link
fedilink
English
70
edit-2
2M

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.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
102M

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.

kind of a clever way to say “hey don’t give us grief, if you want to change this go complain to visa and mastercard.”

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
142M

Like folks here have said, accepting crypto payments might help, but who knows how soon that is going to get regulated.

It’s kinda impossible to regulate technically. That’s the whole point of crypto. Or do you mean that the company itself might be legally prohibited to accept crypto by their local law? That’s possible I think. I guess we’re slowly but steadily approaching the demand to have actual darknet fully-crypto gaming platform operated by anonymous team.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
172M

deleted by creator

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
62M

Crypto is great. As long as you stay within its ecosystem

Making crypto backed by more and more things (like games) makes staying within its ecosystem more comfortable in the long run.

Not to mention your still beholden to the traditional payment processors the moment you want to get your money out of crypto and back into an actual usable form.

the moment you need to sit on the line where you’re transferring in and out real money to crypto crypto to real money on a small scale with frequent processes. You just end up right back where you started.

Yeah, but there are already tons of widely-known legal services everybody uses like Coinbase, Binance, etc, which make it easy to P2P from card to crypto and it’s impossible to control money flows after it turns into crypto, which means controlling how people spend their money like this would be impossible. But yeah, regarding big players like Steam adopting crypto and converting into/from real money on large scale - and what payment processors can do about this if they are pissed off - this is something I have no idea about. But people like Elon Musk probably do this a lot with incredible volumes of money.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
92M

It’s kinda impossible to regulate technically.

No it’s not.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
52M

Elaborate please.

_cryptagion [he/him]
link
fedilink
English
12M

They don’t need to, crypto is already heavily regulated. If you’ve been alive at all in the past decade, you know this.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
22M

Except Monero and a few exceptions, AML and KYC checks are everywhere. Tainted coins and shit.

Crypto goes somewhere that they don’t like? Crypto is seized when it reaches an exchange and they ask for ID and source of funds

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
12M

Crypto goes somewhere that they don’t like? Crypto is seized when it reaches an exchange and they ask for ID and source of funds

I don’t understand. Lets say I have a normal bank card, I paid taxes for all the money I got there. Sometimes I buy crypto using p2p on some platform using this card. I trade this crypto with some other crypto on the same platform. Periodically I send crypto to my personal wallet from there. From my personal wallet I buy porn games for example. At which point someone comes in and seizes anything?

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1
edit-2
2M

They would not, but you would not be anonymous this way. You get problems when:

  • The crypto you received is through a shady source (it could be any individual which pays you with dirty coins)
  • You engaged in pro-privacy activity, which links you with illegal activity, like coin mixers to blur the origin and destination of crypto
  • You received more crypto than you bought

As long as you stay with centralized exchanges and directly send crypto to some websites, you should in theory always be fine (as long as you don’t send them to criminal or pro-privacy services), but that’s not the original goal of crypto

Apart from that, some countries straight up force you to declare every transaction you make with crypto, which isn’t doable for most people and puts them in illegality

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1
edit-2
2M

You don’t have to send crypto from exchange directly to websites. You can send it to your external wallet (outside of any platform), and spend from there. And no one’s ever going to be able to prove that wallet belongs to you.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
12M

It’s basically the same as directly sending

The exchange will know what you spend crypto on

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
0
edit-2
2M

Nearly every cryptocurrency (aside from like Monero), is a literal open, transparent ledger that anyone can (and do) view and analyze.

It’s not anonymous at all.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
12M

Look, when you use some platform with KYC, they indeed can tie that id information you give them to your internal addresses you use on the same platform. But the moment you send it to your external wallet that link is lost. They can see the transaction but they don’t know and can’t check if that destination address belongs to you, or it’s a person who sold you something, or it’s your friend/relative, or someone you donated to, etc.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
2
edit-2
2M

This is naive and incorrect. There is a reason why darknet markets these days only deal in Monero, for the most part.

I’m not saying it’s trivial, but there are literally corporations dedicated to analyzing block chains for law enforcement. It’s an entire industry.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
12M

Then explain how exactly is this incorrect. If you buy and smuggle weapons for example, feds do undercover operation and pretend to sell guns, they set their own wallet, they track transactions, they co-operate with exchanges and have access to KYC data, they see you sent from exchange to wallet X, and then wallet X payed for weapons to their undercover wallet Y. What they achieve here is: they just see there is some chance that wallet X also belongs to you and maybe it’s you who are buying those weapons, but they can’t use this as proof of anything, what they can do is start spying on you from other vectors: your regular bank accounts, your social media, or even IRL to check if they can find any real evidence. That’s basically all. This is not at all a concern for people who don’t run international multibillion crime syndicates, etc. And also this all is extremely irrelevant to original topic. Because those games aren’t even illegal, it’s basically just a fkin preference of payment processors to demand Steam and Itch to take them down. If Steam operated in crypto, no amount of transaction tracking would make it possible to enforce something like this, because this is not law enforcement to begin with, it’s not illegal games and they are not taken down due to any legal concerns.

furry toaster
link
fedilink
English
22M

yes, even without KYC, one opsec fail and they can get quite a info on you, things like usage patterns and eventually potentially a profile, upon which will probablycreate a “credit score” of sorts and probably sell advertising data too because why not!?

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
12M

Okay, how exactly will this allow to ban selling legal porn games via blockchain? Because this is what is happening with payment processors.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
82M

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.

Sounds like the bar is so low to be even comparing the two sites.

Create a post

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Rules

1. Submissions have to be related to games

Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.

This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.

2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.

We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.

3. No excessive self-promotion

Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.

This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.

4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you’re submitting before posting to see if it’s already been posted.

We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.

5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.

No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.

6. No linking to piracy

Don’t share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.

We don’t want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.

Authorized Regular Threads

Related communities

PM a mod to add your own

Video games

Generic

Help and suggestions

By platform
By type
By games
Language specific
  • 1 user online
  • 221 users / day
  • 655 users / week
  • 2.01K users / month
  • 7.13K users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 7.26K Posts
  • 148K Comments
  • Modlog