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Gamers Bombard Visa & MasterCard With Emails and Calls Over Steam and itch.io Censorship
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this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2025
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This is not about the porn. If you think about it for more than 3 seconds it becomes obvious how this is about the power finance institutions have over morals and society and how religious groups leverage moral panics as a way to weasel in harm and destroy minorities by associating immorality with marginalized groups. Just like pro-life anti choice has nothing to do with saving children, but is about hurting women and controlling their uteruses. Terfism has nothing to do with feminism but is about hurting trans people. Drug wars weren't about protecting the youth but about destroying the rights of Hispanic and black communities. And a long list of etcéteras.
This is about defending fundamental rights that will get trampled under the guise of moral and religious righteousness. It's about power and control. Porn is just the scapegoat. Several LGBTQ+ games were also hit, many which didn't even have anything to do with sex, just because of this incident. That's how it begins and it was completely intentional, the cruelty is the point.
I just sum it up to a failure of capitalism . The fact that two companies have so much power over this without having to pass any laws or legislation is really the worrying part. I just hope people continue to fight even after this one thing is resolved. Otherwise it will happen again because that’s how capitalism works
If these games are so important the devs can release them free somewhere else. Steam and itch aren't the only place to find games, and sounds like there's room for a new market just for these games if they are as popular as it seems.
Porn games were not the only games delisted. Many non-porn non-sex games were removed. Including LGBTQ+ games, and even award winning AAA games. There's no rational argument but only moral outrage and FUD. This was not a financially motivated decision, capitalism cannot solve the problems it created. You can't use commercial alternatives to dispel the damage done by this decision and again, this is not about the porn. To assume it is just about the porn is to fall for the distraction tactic. For example, the point of screaming “save the children … ~by~ ~murdering~ ~all~ ~trans~ ~people~” is in hopes that you will get distracted enough by the first part that you'll turn a blind eye to the second one. To excite your amygdala with enough outrage and adrenaline that your pre-frontal cortex can't perceive that the intentions and the actions don't follow logically from each other. You are being manipulated.