I very strongly oppose this because Visa and MC are payment processors: their jobs are to (1) ensure money gets from points A to B and (2) protect consumers from fraud and other malicious practices (I know that's very vague here but...). This is neither of those things. This is them indirectly censoring individuals based on what they publish by placing pressure on the publisher to not publish those things. That is not power these processors/financial institutions should have. It is completely irrelevant what their opinion of what your paying for is. If it isn't illegal, they should have no power or right to deny it. It would be one thing if the platforms chose to do this themselves. That's the rights of the platforms (Steam and Itch); they are the ones publishing these games. It would be another if the law explicitly said that a payment processor could not send money to pornographic [whatever]. (That would be massively unconstitutional, but let's ignore that for the sake of this discussion.) Neither applies here.
Then again, I also find it absurd that my bank can't force P2P payment processors like CashApp to return money that I sent to someone by mistake, or because I was scammed/manipulated into doing it. Their logic is "well, contact CashApp", and CashApp of course says "Oh but we can't do that". Which is utter nonsense, because of course they can, they just don't want to.
Previously:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44685011
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44667667
Thanks! Macroexpanded below. Are there others?
Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44685011 - July 2025 (806 comments)
Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44679406 - July 2025 (244 comments)
Games: No sex, please. we're credit card companies - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44675697 - July 2025 (52 comments)
Itch.io: Update on NSFW Content - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44667667 - July 2025 (318 comments)
Australian anti-porn group claims responsibility for Steams new censorship rules - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44636369 - July 2025 (162 comments)
I very strongly oppose this because Visa and MC are payment processors: their jobs are to (1) ensure money gets from points A to B and (2) protect consumers from fraud and other malicious practices (I know that's very vague here but...). This is neither of those things. This is them indirectly censoring individuals based on what they publish by placing pressure on the publisher to not publish those things. That is not power these processors/financial institutions should have. It is completely irrelevant what their opinion of what your paying for is. If it isn't illegal, they should have no power or right to deny it. It would be one thing if the platforms chose to do this themselves. That's the rights of the platforms (Steam and Itch); they are the ones publishing these games. It would be another if the law explicitly said that a payment processor could not send money to pornographic [whatever]. (That would be massively unconstitutional, but let's ignore that for the sake of this discussion.) Neither applies here. Then again, I also find it absurd that my bank can't force P2P payment processors like CashApp to return money that I sent to someone by mistake, or because I was scammed/manipulated into doing it. Their logic is "well, contact CashApp", and CashApp of course says "Oh but we can't do that". Which is utter nonsense, because of course they can, they just don't want to.
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