“We approached payment processors because Steam did not respond” – Australian pressure group Collective Shout claims responsibility for Steam and Itch.io NSFW games removal
“We approached payment processors because Steam did not respond” – Australian pressure group Collective Shout claims responsibility for Steam and Itch.io NSFW games removal
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I wonder if these dumb fucks realize the domino effect this shit has.
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Feels like another case of “we know what’s best for everyone” turning into blanket censorship. No one’s defending the worst stuff, but sweeping everything under the same label just hurts devs and players who aren’t even close to that line.
The butthole logo is peak irony
Pulling a wall street journal classic on gaming. Hello Adpocalypse 2025
Glad to hear that steam ignored them at least.
A group of losers who need to get a life and stop trying to be the moral police
So like, what’s the line? Let’s say these chucklefucks demand Visa demand Steam to drop Resident Evil or Final Fantasy. So big companies like Capcom or Square just somehow shrug and lose the Steam income? Microsoft and Sony? If our complaints do nothing do we just wait and see if these assholes fuck with the wrong money? Or do they stick to making life hard for smaller publishers without deep pockets?
They’re claiming responsibility because it’s good optics for them within their scene. It doesn’t mean that they are actually responsible. There’s simply no way that a grassroots organization like this has the leverage to influence the worlds largest financial institutions, especially in a way that costs them millions of dollars per year. They’re just co-opting this outcome for clout and credibility.
The fact of the matter is that every financial institution and industry lives and dies by Risk Assessment. Banks, Insurance Companies, Payment Processors, Credit Providers, and every other business that operates in the industry of money handling base nearly all of their major decisions around risk calculation, with “risk” being an algorithmically calculated score that determines how likely they are to profit or lose money from a given transaction. If you are “high risk”, then your insurance premiums go up, your credit interest rates go up, and your loan values go down. This is to insulate the business from any potential loss. If you are “low risk”, then your premiums and interest rates are low, because you are a safe bet for profit.
This same process applies to product types as well. Certain markets are “high risk” for things like fraud, illegal transacting, chargebacks/refunds, and other outcomes that cost Payment Processors money. Most Payment Processors won’t participate in transactions involving firearms, pharmaceuticals, gambling related transactions, many kinds of adult content, resold goods, digital services, and more. A major part of this is that the American legal system has designated Payment Processors as being “complicit” in any transaction that they authorize. If a business sells adult content to a minor? Payment Processor is partially accountable, as an example.
Historically, Payment Processors didn’t have much of an issue with various kinds of adult content. That changed when various sites made it easy to upload your own content and sell it, oftentimes without the consent or knowledge of other people present in the videos. There was also little to no verification of the age or status of the individuals in the videos. As this came to the public forefront, companies like Visa and Mastercard completely backed out of any transaction for that kind of good, so as to avoid legal culpability in those sales.
Now we have new issues in the avenue of artificial adult content. Once again, this was historically something that Payment Processors did not have an issue with. But now in the modern era of Generative AI tools, people can quickly an easily put together content containing incredibly realistic depictions of anyone they want, again without that person’s knowledge or consent. They can make these depictions include illegal or highly taboo acts. And they can churn this content out at an obscene rate with little to no development skill. AI tools and artificial adult content is a highly volatile combination that is now a hot button topic in legal circles, and due to the lack of moderation, regulation, and sheer volume of content, Payment Processors are now backing out of transactions involving this kind of content. The amount of risk involved is currently too high. It has nothing to do with censorship or moral values.
I say all this because it’s extremely easy to get distracted by the idea that these changes are politically or religiously motivated, when they are not. Financial institutions do not care whatsoever about what you spend your money on, and they are very happy to collect those transaction fees from you. If a ruling came out that protected them from any kind of liability related to transactional outcomes, you had better believe they’d be foaming at the mouth to be a middleman in the pharmaceutical, firearm, and adult content industries.
I checked out their site. It’s women getting angry/jealous of other women taking their clothes off.
Again.
It screams the excuse “protect the children” or the classic bush’s “they are terrorist”
Anyone signing up for the Steam Credit Card? Sounds like an opportunity Gabe, just saying.
the internet is just dying lately and no one really seems to care
Steam for the win, I guess, but wtf are these payment processors doing listening to a gaggle of Karens. The processors can’t even own what happened, basically saying it was happening anyway, and it’s just a massive coincidence. Pathetic.
Control is awesome when you think you will be the one behind the wheel. But eventually, new drivers take your seat.
Collective shout has summoned the wrath of gamers and now we gonna crash them like an orange.
How is it that a collective can organize and shoot down games that they don’t like and we can’t get together and shoot down a collective organization that we don’t like?
Are the payment processors going to crack down on movies and books next?
Most of the Thriller / Horror genre will be gone.
Game of thrones has Incest and shows plenty of “Violence against women” and children being murderd.
Will that get removed from all storefronts & streaming platforms as well ?
Censorship never ends with “the worst” it over reaches and consumes like a cancer, we need to find a way to push back, to fight back.
This is only the beginning, with this and the new internet policing that countries are starting to put in place like the UK, Europe & soon Australia our freedom of expresion will be heavily moulded & monitored by what the government’s beleives is best.
They will mould our future and change what we can see feel and think.
We will lo longer be able to freely express our opinions without possible government intervention also, judging from the UK monitoring anti migrant sentiments and puttint those people on a list.
The era of internet free thinking and freedom is coming to a end.
I hope everyone in this group’s balls gets twisted
and I’m all for the science to medically attach balls so they can be twisted if none are available for twisting
# Make Balls Twist 2025
Even if their goal is like a potential morally justified one
The methods of involving the payment processors akin to “going directly to the managers because you didn’t like what a staff member told you” is bullshit
It doesn’t matter if I don’t find this content appealing to me, it’s not my Call to get to say what other people get to enjoy forcibly
We need the science for mechanical torsion twisting servo hands to just completely 1080 grasp and rotate the balls from the host
Some people have too much spare time nowadays. I bet that members of that “pressure group” don’t have a fulltime job and they don’t really do anything good to society.
Why should a game be safe for work? Game are played outside of work.
As always, I’ll just suggest checking all the hard drives of the leaders of the Collective Shout organization. Projection is compulsive with these types of people.
What can we collectively do to hurt this company?
Collective Shout? The same group that defended the movie Cuties for sexualizing pre-teen girls? That Collective Shout?
we all know that they are the problem, no need for them to admit to be the problem
Feels like this was the ultimate endgame when they distracted gamers by making that certain baby company the enemy. While gooners went after consulting firms that helped games less fanservicy, they were secretly plotting to make “full servicy” games illegal.
It doesn’t help that this group is from Australia. Why is a group in Australia dictating US and EU policy. They can fuck off. Also steam not answering them is based as hell.
Fuck these prude ass moral panic assholes. Go find an off the grid commune and leave us and our porn games alone
Recent events make me scared for the future, all those cyberpunk dystopias I’ve read are becoming more and more real by the day.
This feels like more crusading from people who can’t take no for an answer
I’m insecure and can’t be happy so I need you to feel the same. – the collective probably
The collective of shouting karens needs to be shut down man, insane.
They are now claiming fake death threats, these people are scum
I don’t understand why this group is so obsessed with censorship, it’s not like gooner games are gonna make its players go rape every female out there they see, in fact, the games actually help them to ease their horniness
Australians are about to have to submit ID/selfie just to do a Google search and are spending more time campaigning against this. While a huge issue, it is really small comparatively if you are taking the stance against the censorship.
I say we start pressuring them in return.
Fuck this group of shitters.
Now, as a consumer what can we do? i doubt the change org petition has any impact, but i’m actually curious of what can we do about it?
While I’m certain this is a PR spin by Collective Shout because of all the hate they’ve rightfully gotten in recent days, **IF**, and that’s a big if, Steam didn’t remove the two types of games that they mentioned that should’ve never been there to begin with then shame on Steam.
So how do we take down that group?