The petition addressed that MasterCard and Visa must stop censoring legal fictional content that complies with the law and platform standards.

Archived version: https://archive.is/20250725225542/https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mastercard-visa-under-fire-petition-payment-giants-not-police-legal-content-blows-1739406

Petition: https://www.change.org/p/tell-mastercard-visa-activist-groups-stop-controlling-what-we-can-watch-read-or-play


Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

  • RegalPotoo@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Financial networks either need “network neutrality” rules or maybe that monopoly needs to get broken up

    • Natanael@infosec.pub
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      6 days ago

      Either you’re a bank under strict regulations when you’re handling that kind of money, or you have no business processing that kind of money. PayPal & co dodges most regulations due to technically not being a bank, but at that size they shouldn’t be able to abuse loopholes.

      • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        Well my adult game content provider uses paypal and they have not been affected by this bullshit.

        • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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          6 days ago

          Is that because of using PayPal, or because they’re small enough to have slid under the radar of these busybodies?

          • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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            5 days ago

            They aren’t small, they make a shit ton of adult games. I original found their games on Steam. But found you can buy uncensored version straight from the dev. With Steam you had to get a patch.

            That’s what makes no sense the adult games on Sream were censored, so there was no prom to begin with. Unless you downloaded a separate patch. And you had to know how to do that.

            I hope its PayPal, because if this happens to them fhey are practically out of business. Because all they make is Japanese anime porn games.

            • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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              5 days ago

              Wait, you’re talking about a single developer? That’s almost certainly going to be tiny. They might be relatively big for a NSFW game dev company, but that’s still miniscule compared to what we’re talking about here: Steam and Itch.

    • Eril@feddit.org
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      5 days ago

      Give me some European competition please. I’m not happy about all of them being American…

    • JustTheWind@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      No joke. Payment processors absolutely need to be treated as a utility. Stuff like this is exactly why it’s such a big deal to reinstate/protect net-neutrality as well. What we’re watching right now with payment processors isn’t even end-game yet for what they potentially could do, and it already sucks. I can’t even imagine once ISP start doing the same thing. Monopolies are the death of consumer rights. The unabated power, corruption, and corporately bought and controlled laws/ governing bodies makes the entire prospect even worse.

  • fistac0rpse@fedia.io
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    6 days ago

    Does a change.org petition with 100k signatures really count as “under fire”? Fuck them, but I doubt this will do anything sadly

    • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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      5 days ago

      This happened in the first place because Collective Shout turned up and said “A bunch of people are pissed off about this, do something about it.” They’re not a government or a major corporation, they’re just a group that represents people, no different than Change.org. If a petition caused this, why can’t a petition stop it?

    • Cyrus Draegur@lemmy.zip
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      6 days ago

      Psychologically speaking there are now upwards of 100k people who all agree on this issue and at least some of them could potentially be mobilized in additional ways now that they know they’re far from alone on how they feel.

      Goodness knows that if I were told there were something I could do as part of this cohort that individually might be ineffectual but would be a death by several dozen thousand cuts for the scumbags pulling this horseshit… I’d act on it.

      • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        100,000 people who are still essentially required to use their services for most commerce and will continue to do so.

        So many vendors won’t take Amex or Discover due to their higher processing fees you can’t really even boycott them effectively.

        • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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          5 days ago

          The members of Collective Shout are in exactly the same position. So why did the payment processors listen to them?

          The fact that this whole issue even occurred is proof that public pressure, when applied smartly, does in fact work.

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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            5 days ago

            Exactly. Collective shout argued that these companies would lose face by processing these payments. A targeted mass response will inform them that the opposite is true

        • Cyrus Draegur@lemmy.zip
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          6 days ago

          yes, can’t boycott. MAYBE can do other things. Hell, if I heard that people were doing something mildly illegal en masse to fuck things up for Visa and MasterCard, I might actually consider doing it myself as well. MIGHT.

          or something totally legal that isn’t a boycott like showing up at their headquarters in a crowd of thousands. |

          SOME people might cross the line into illegality by molotovs or other such ‘implements’.

        • mriswith@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          I’m honestly curious: Are you one of the people who doesn’t understand how the number can be represenative how the wider populace feels? Or are you one of those who are just trying to downplay the whole thing?

          • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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            5 days ago

            I’m saying Visa and Mastercard have zero reason to change their practices because people don’t really have an option not to use their services no matter how upset they are.

  • Atomic@sh.itjust.works
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    5 days ago

    Att first i thought it was just PayPal. Not great but ok. Fair enough.

    But Visa and MasterCard blocking stuff is not ok. Their position is too big. And too crucial in the infrastructure.

    But. A bank that can get something new rolling should profit quite well, which is a good incentive to come up with alternative

  • Etterra@discuss.online
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    5 days ago

    It won’t matter.bi mean nothing will change. Everyone will have to keep using their services and most people just don’t know or care. Until a new company that does the same job but without the bullshit (preferably a co-op) flights its way into the industry to break their monopoly, morning will change.

  • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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    6 days ago

    Am I the only one who thought from the headline that MC and Visa were censoring fake legal documents and not adult entertainment?

  • brachiosaurus@mander.xyz
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    5 days ago

    Cryptocurrencies were made to avoid shit like this. Good luck gently ask mastercard and visa to change their policies.

    • chuckleslord@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Cryptocurrencies were a poorly thought out excuse to use block chain. Don’t give them any more credit than that.

      • x00z@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Your comment makes no sense. Bitcoin was definitely made to be a decentralized alternative and the blockchain was part of that.

        • Klear@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          Nah, bitcoin was made to make some people rich and succeeded at that. What you’re repeating is the story they used to sell it to people like you.

          • brachiosaurus@mander.xyz
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            5 days ago

            You are commenting in a thread about mastercard and visa policing payments and still in denial about someone coming up with a decentralized alternative?

          • x00z@lemmy.world
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            5 days ago

            Lmao. I was having fun with it 10 years ago. Nowadays it’s true but not back then.

          • 0xD@infosec.pub
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            4 days ago

            That’s not true, it was made for the technology’s sake. The investment bullshit came way later.

      • brachiosaurus@mander.xyz
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        5 days ago

        How do they suck? They have their pro and cons, i would still take them as an alternative to a for profit private corporation.