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Group Behind Steam Censorship Policies Have Powerful Allies — And Targeted Popular Games With Outlandish Claims
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It's very weird to see "decriminalization of sex work" in there though. Because that's extremely progressive. (And positive in my eyes.)
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It's very weird to see "decriminalization of sex work" in there though. Because that's extremely progressive. (And positive in my eyes.)
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Archive: https://archive.is/2025.07.20-004547/https://www.vice.com/en/article/group-behind-steam-censorship-policies-have-powerful-allies-and-targeted-popular-games-with-outlandish-claims/To be honest, when this story first appeared especially with Valve being the ones to announce the censorship, I thought it was sort of a nothing burger with Valve (Gave Newell having libertarian values) being pissed that someone has control over what they can sell on their store or not. I also personally believe in the past 5-10 years that there is so much adult content and so much gateways to adult content in non adult content spaces that I personally feel *something* needs to be done about it. But after seeing the group behind it, it's basically the opposite extreme. We should be able to talk about sex and sexuality, and have media that dives into these topics without some of the extreme fetishism that is on the internet (e.g. cuckoldry, gooning). While I feel conflicted about these games being on an extremely popular pc gaming store, the people who are trying to get it removed aren't helping - they are the problem by being so extreme in their views of sex and sexuality themselves.
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Oh I see thanks.
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Honestly valve mishandled this issue. This sounded like a solid opportunity to be like "Okay, AO and NSFW games are no longer able to be sold via third party merchants" and then disabled the ability on the payment page. Like they already offer an ability to pay directly, just require funding to be from steam wallet, then the transaction records are only "add funds" or "wallet payment" or whatever they use for steam wallet funding. Or if it is just paypal, make it so it has to be a first(wallet) or a second(credit cards) party instead of a third party(paypal)
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Well, that's new: usually when I need the archived article it's because the original was paywalled, but this time the original seems to have been deleted completely. Is Vice getting censored too now?
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Archive: https://archive.is/2025.07.20-004547/https://www.vice.com/en/article/group-behind-steam-censorship-policies-have-powerful-allies-and-targeted-popular-games-with-outlandish-claims/
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I assume the payment processors demanded these games not be on the marketplace at all, not just that they didn't handle the payments for them.I was under the understanding that they cared only about their image and the fact that their service was being used to purchase those items. If that's the case, then they shouldn't have an Issue with it existing in the first place, just that people can associate their platform with those type of games. If Steam went out of their way to make it so you can't use third party(or even second party tbh) merchants with adult-only and NSFW style games, then consumers wouldn't be able to relate their service to those type of games. If what you said is correct there, that's a massive overstep on the payment processors, but I don't think that's the case here. For example, when visa stopped accepting advertisements on Pornhub, it was because it wasn't able to control whether or not it was being depicted next to CP, which is against its rules. They entire quote was as follows: "It is illegal, and Visa does not permit the use of our network for illegal activity. Our rules explicitly and unequivocally prohibit the use of our products to pay for content that depicts nonconsensual sexual behavior or child sexual abuse.” If this is the same case, just disabling the payment processor's ability should more than suffice. Having said my main concern about all this is, currently steam is rolling over, but as people have said previously, steam is a large company. They could just decide full stop that you can only pay for video games with a steam wallet, which will make it so you have to add the funds to your wallet ahead of time. This also will remove quite a bit of protections that consumers have when using a credit card because at that point the service is Steam providing you money for your wallet instead of Steam providing you a functional game which means that any type of argument consumers would do with chargebacks of like this game isn't functioning on my system would be immediately thrown out because steam only charged you to add funds to your wallet instead of buying a game like it currently is.
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From Wikipedia about [NCOSE](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Center_on_Sexual_Exploitation) > The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), previously known as Morality in Media and Operation Yorkville, is an American conservative anti-pornography organization. The group has also campaigned against **sex trafficking, same-sex marriage, sex shops and sex toys, decriminalization of sex work, comprehensive sex education, and various works of literature or visual arts the organization has deemed obscene, profane or indecent.** [...] The organization describes its goal as **"exposing the links between all forms of sexual exploitation"**. Doing the lords work by fucking up (lol) any discourse about sexuality.A thing about how the group's goals are contradictory: Sex education is probably the best tool to protect children from sexual exploitation. So stopping sex ed aids child molesters, by making it easier to manipulate children.
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Reminds me of enforcing the identification of all internet users for the sake of "protecting the children".Which actual criminals can circumvent, and takes away anonymity from children, which is by far the best protection for them. So yeah, if you want to protect children, this is a serious step back.
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Which actual criminals can circumvent, and takes away anonymity from children, which is by far the best protection for them. So yeah, if you want to protect children, this is a serious step back.
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Reminds me of the Omegle zombie survival game: 1. You have six shotgun shells. 2. Connect to a random person. 3. If they ask "ASL", they're a Zombie. If you have a shotgun shell left, you shoot them and use up one shell. If not, they bite you and you die. 4. Ask "What is OP?". If they give the correct answer, they're a fellow survivor, and both of you refill your shotgun shells.
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I was under the understanding that they cared only about their image and the fact that their service was being used to purchase those items. If that's the case, then they shouldn't have an Issue with it existing in the first place, just that people can associate their platform with those type of games. If Steam went out of their way to make it so you can't use third party(or even second party tbh) merchants with adult-only and NSFW style games, then consumers wouldn't be able to relate their service to those type of games. If what you said is correct there, that's a massive overstep on the payment processors, but I don't think that's the case here. For example, when visa stopped accepting advertisements on Pornhub, it was because it wasn't able to control whether or not it was being depicted next to CP, which is against its rules. They entire quote was as follows: "It is illegal, and Visa does not permit the use of our network for illegal activity. Our rules explicitly and unequivocally prohibit the use of our products to pay for content that depicts nonconsensual sexual behavior or child sexual abuse.” If this is the same case, just disabling the payment processor's ability should more than suffice. Having said my main concern about all this is, currently steam is rolling over, but as people have said previously, steam is a large company. They could just decide full stop that you can only pay for video games with a steam wallet, which will make it so you have to add the funds to your wallet ahead of time. This also will remove quite a bit of protections that consumers have when using a credit card because at that point the service is Steam providing you money for your wallet instead of Steam providing you a functional game which means that any type of argument consumers would do with chargebacks of like this game isn't functioning on my system would be immediately thrown out because steam only charged you to add funds to your wallet instead of buying a game like it currently is.
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How are you putting money on your account without the payment processors? Every purchase is through them, directly or indirectly.a few ways to be honest. They already have steam wallet cards at most electronic retail stores which operate the same as gift cards but I was thinking more along the line of the payment processor is still there, but the goods being purchased is no longer the game itself, just adding currency on, which more-or-less removes the problem all together. Payment processors are no longer being used to buy NSFW content, its being used to purchase wallet funds. So the association is no longer valid. Alternatively they could go the Mullvad approach as well, and allow for cash, check and wire transfer over if they really wanted to. Heck honestly, with how big they are, they could even make a low transaction fee savings card and could probally rival the companies themselves. I know a few people that would happily switch to said card if it meant ease of access buying games. Additionally, a mix of these could be done, at some point card companies would fold because its threatening their bottom line. I personally think if they went the steam wallet route, the companies wouldn't want to engage big stores such as walmart, as a good portion of their revenue is via the transaction fees those companies provide.
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a few ways to be honest. They already have steam wallet cards at most electronic retail stores which operate the same as gift cards but I was thinking more along the line of the payment processor is still there, but the goods being purchased is no longer the game itself, just adding currency on, which more-or-less removes the problem all together. Payment processors are no longer being used to buy NSFW content, its being used to purchase wallet funds. So the association is no longer valid. Alternatively they could go the Mullvad approach as well, and allow for cash, check and wire transfer over if they really wanted to. Heck honestly, with how big they are, they could even make a low transaction fee savings card and could probally rival the companies themselves. I know a few people that would happily switch to said card if it meant ease of access buying games. Additionally, a mix of these could be done, at some point card companies would fold because its threatening their bottom line. I personally think if they went the steam wallet route, the companies wouldn't want to engage big stores such as walmart, as a good portion of their revenue is via the transaction fees those companies provide.>Payment processors are no longer being used to buy NSFW content, its being used to purchase wallet funds. So the association is no longer valid. You can make that argument, sure. You could also make the other argument, that their services are being associated with this content by proxy, at minimum. I don't agree with them. I'm just pointing out what their argument is. I also agree Valve should make an alternative. They've got the resources and the reach to do it. They could probably even get other companies to use it and take a percentage of each transaction for another revenue stream. As it is, they're losing a percentage to these companies, and now they're fucking with their business too. They should be doing everything they can to get away from them.
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To be honest, when this story first appeared especially with Valve being the ones to announce the censorship, I thought it was sort of a nothing burger with Valve (Gave Newell having libertarian values) being pissed that someone has control over what they can sell on their store or not. I also personally believe in the past 5-10 years that there is so much adult content and so much gateways to adult content in non adult content spaces that I personally feel *something* needs to be done about it. But after seeing the group behind it, it's basically the opposite extreme. We should be able to talk about sex and sexuality, and have media that dives into these topics without some of the extreme fetishism that is on the internet (e.g. cuckoldry, gooning). While I feel conflicted about these games being on an extremely popular pc gaming store, the people who are trying to get it removed aren't helping - they are the problem by being so extreme in their views of sex and sexuality themselves.
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No. They are anti-human, straight up.
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E Pluribus Anus
