Original link which seems to have been taken down: https://www.vice.com/en/article/group-behind-steam-censorship-policies-have-powerful-allies-and-targeted-popular-games-with-outlandish-claims/
Update from the author:
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.
GabeN has “fuck you” money. He doesn’t need to kowtow to these uptight fucks
From Wikipedia about NCOSE
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.
It’s very weird to see “decriminalization of sex work” in there though. Because that’s extremely progressive. (And positive in my eyes.)
“campaigning AGAINST”
they’re against that…
Oh I see thanks.
They’re against decriminalizing it
I can agree with exactly ONE thing on that list which is worth campaigning against and that’s sex trafficking. However, given that this lot voted in a fucking pedo rapist as the supreme leader of their country, I doubt their conviction.
Generally, the “sex trafficking” these types of groups campaign against is the non-existent QAnon variant, where those people are somehow trafficking millions and millions of (white suburban) kids into sex slavery in those countries for more of those people.
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.
You can still identify children online. A/S/L never fails
Reminds me of the Omegle zombie survival game:
- You have six shotgun shells.
- Connect to a random person.
- 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.
- Ask “What is OP?”. If they give the correct answer, they’re a fellow survivor, and both of you refill your shotgun shells.
comprehensive sex education
Ah yes, because if there is anything that will prevent exploitation it’s not being educated about sex.
Because fucking of course they’re fascists. Of course.
HuniePop is a comedic masterpiece I will actually be upset about if it’s disappeared.
This group is nuts. Wanting to ban Detroit Become Human because it depicts child abuse is completely insane. That’s like solving sex trafficking by making it illegal to mention it.
I mean, their leader is literally under fire for saying the Epstein files never existed and people should just stop talking about it. Making it illegal to even mention sex trafficking is the next logical step to protect the Dear Leader, because lord knows tackling the real issues wouldn’t end well for him.
It’s actually a more ideologically consistent position than most reactionary groups. They want to be able to keep diddling kids while everyone shuts up about it and the queers get shoved in concentration camps. Now that’s a Good Traditional Christian Nation babyyyyyy
Doubt they want to solve it. More like make it out of sight, out of mind.
This is exactly their goal. They don’t wanna solve it. They don’t want to make things better. They just want it to not be talked about or discussed or thought about. It’s the same as your landlord painting over a patch of black mold.
Ah, I thought it was strange for the payment processing companies to come out of nowhere.
Them being pressured by conservative prudish assholes masquerading as concerned feminists makes more sense.
Is there no aspect of life that isn’t being completely shit upon and ruined by conservatives?
No. They are anti-human, straight up.
Let’s not give them ideas.
Uh holiday dishes?
You mean Christmas dishes you woke commie /s
I say Christmas dish even if its Easter
What’s next? Are they going to try to remove The Last of Us ? :/
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?
Because VICE went bankrupt. Surprised their website is running at all.
The author posted three articles involving Collective Shout. The only one that didn’t get removed replaces most of the detailing on Collective Shout with narration of the now-endangered benefits of “we both roleplay as giant women who consume our viewers”.
Moral of the story: To avoid takedown, double down
and eat peopleIt’s weird, the link on the front page is still there, but it leads to a 404:
Archive.ph is always a great choice for this kind of bs. I was able to pull the the article before they decided to remove it. https://archive.ph/x5cGQ
It seems like they are genuinely just anti-video game, which is insane. At first i thought they were pro-SA since they try to censor negative depictions of it, but then they also target GTA with blatant lies. Maybe the puritans aren’t as dead as they should be and some of them still hate the idea that someone could be having fun.
I just wonder why they choose pink asshole as they logo.
Why does every logo have to be called an asshole now?
it’s literally a *
Its a star shaped opening in a pink ring. Have you never seen an asshole?
Yeah there is no way I’d think “asterisk” with that logo, especially with an organization that is anti-everything in human sexuality. Aside from the one thing I’d agree with but they don’t seem to actually be interested in stopping.
Have you never seen an asshole?
Where is this stage in the “first they came for” poem?
I hope they fucked with wrong company. Watch Valve become the best payment processor simply out of spite. Although there is no solution for reactionaries everywhere targeting porn and sex work.
they already removed a bunch of games
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)
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.
How are you putting money on your account without the payment processors? Every purchase is through them, directly or indirectly.
Is Detroit: Become Human on the list of removed titles (that’s where the screenshot is from).
The game does deal with themes like child and spousal abuse, and has a part with a same sex couple, so it fits these fascists’ MO.
If so, ridiculous. However, I kind of hope they do go after some bigger games so people get pissed.
This far into the 21st century, paying people for art should have no barriers.
Why is there an Animal Crossing video attached to this? Also, what happened to the original article, did they delete it?
Cease and desist from said group?
This is why piracy is morally correct.
I dunno, the people making the games would love to sell them but they are literally deprived of a way to take money from you. Even if you wanted to give them money. For once it’s not the publisher fucking you over.
This is a shit take if I’ve ever seen one.
