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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   21140 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 1, 2025

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There has been a recent crackdown on naughty games on steam and itch.io. The game platforms say the crackdown has come from payment processors. Payment processors have said they don't want their business associated with unsavory practices, and that adult products have higher charge back rates. Some people have blamed activist religious groups on aggressively lobbying the payment processors for this crackdown.

I mostly feel a sense of annoyance. My libertarian leanings have me feeling certain ways about all this.

  1. The biggest problem is that payment processors are usually an unholy alliance of governments, banks, and financial groups. This makes them allergic to competition and new entrants to the market. The Internet has reshaped society over the last three decades and I'd say only 1.5 payment processors came out of it. PayPal, and the crypto market. The term "coup complete" got thrown around a lot in the Biden presidency to describe what was necessary to build a competing Internet ecosystem.
  2. I'm worried this might signal the revival of the religious culture wars that happened in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000's. It's frustrating to me but a lot of people seem to gravitate towards religion of some kind. I think woke culture has plenty of religious elements. The atheist movement in the 2000s seemed genuinely anti-religious. But it seems the longer term strategy is just have a different religion.
  3. Neutrality as a default. This is the end goal. Once you accept that a thing is subject to politics it becomes entirely subject to politics. We are cancelling thots and porn this year. 4 years ago it was lab leak conspiracies. I certainly think some things are more important to not be censored, but the machinery of censorship seems to work regardless of the subject being censored. Once it is built it will be used.

Neutrality as a default.

A schelling fence of "Will process all transactions for legal goods." is more stable than "Will process all transactions for legal goods, except ones I morally dislike.". Yet informal sanctions by payment processors against Japan were met by much more mixed reception in the English speaking communities, that is not wholly negative like restrictions on itch.io and Steam have been. The logic of "First they came for..." was not considered.

To be expected, really. Japanese media has long faced censorship abroad, usually swept under the moniker "localization". Once the logic that consenting a Japanese adult and a consenting American adult must require the consent of every intermediary to communicate, the leap towards foreigners regulating communication between two consenting Japanese adults only requires foreigners thinking their moral code is universally applicable. A very common viewpoint in the era where particularism is disregarded.

Manga Library Z, a website legally hosting out of print manga, who director is the acclaimed manga artist and polician Ken Akamatsu, shut down in late R6 (2024) due to credit company's decision to prevent payments. (The site has since come back up, but without the option to pay with MasterCard or Visa cards). In April of last year, www.dlsite.com, removed the option to pay with the previously two mentioned cards, but also with American Express. Remaining payment option are probably unfamiliar to gaijin. Fantia was on the chopping block next month, but AmEx was still able to be used. (Fantia also supports "Toracoin", but the ways to buy it are the same as for Fantia, so it does not function as a loophole) Visa defended its conduct that was incomptable with being a common carrier on the grounds of "protecting the brand" (1).

This article is a good overview.

(1) MasterCard's 5.12.7, paragraph 2, PDF:

The sale of a product or service, including an image, which is patently offensive and lacks serious artistic value (such as, by way of example and not limitation, images of nonconsensual sexual behavior, sexual exploitation of a minor, nonconsensual mutilation of a person or body part, and bestiality), or any other material that the Corporation deems unacceptable to sell in connection with a Mark.

vs Visa's 1.3.3.4, PDF:

A Member must not use the Visa-Owned Marks:

ln any manner that may bring the Visa-Owned Marks or Visa Inc. or its affiliates into disrepute

ln relation to, or for the purchase or trade of, photographs, video imagery, computer-generated images, cartoons, simulation, or any other media or activities including, but not limited to, any of the following:

– Child sexual abuse materials

– Incest

– Bestiality

– Rape (or any other non-consensual sexual behavior)

– Non-consensual mutilation of a person or body part

These restrictions have nothing to do with the law in Japan, but are a random selection of the worst legal restrictions on speech in the developed world (there are legal restrictions on depictions of mutilation are in Japan, but that part is not used to interfere with commerce outside of Japan by MC/V, while Australian restrictions are used against Japanese merchants) with the added carte blanche "deems unnacceptable" and "bring into disrepute". They of course are too wide to be applied to all, thus the enforcer is given the lattitude to threaten almost any storefront selling media not explicitly for children. And also create a chilling effect. That "reputation of the brand" is something that is explicitly noted in the rules, is why the MasterCard's statement just over a month ago, that MasterCard will process all lawful payment was seen as duplicitous.

Japan needs to go after Mastercard and Visa, forcing them to operate in a blind carrier sort of way or start levying massive fines daily.

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