If MasterCard doesn’t have control over the NSFW bans, there is an easy way to solve this:
Announce that they are explicitly allowing NSFW purchases.
If they won’t do that, then one of two things are true:
- MasterCard doesn’t have control over its process, to which point investors should question what value they provide
- MasterCard is lying and they do have control over its processes, to which point merchants and consumers should question how much they can trust a company that will ban certain categories of purchases
Yep and yet they won’t because it’s incredibly convenient for them to be able to maintain that kind of control while disavowing it at the same time.
The point is that this would force them to show their hand. Either they will exercise control in this situation or they won’t.
If they don’t, problem solved; and, if they do then we know who the problem is.
Surely there are categories you think should be banned. MasterCard won’t buy you heroin on the street corner. This has already been a thing, the only difference is now they came for our porn I guess.
Buying illegal drugs is, well, illegal.
Buying porn with money is fully legal. Buying a porn magazine at a brick and mortar store is fully legal. Buying fucking sex toys online and at a brick and mortar store is fully legal.
MasterCard banning a specific category of goods because a small, yet vocal, group of people think they shouldn’t exist is not only absolutely stupid but anticompetitive.
Okay, but If the sex toy store was named “use these toys on fake dolls of children”, then MasterCard likely wouldnt do business there either.
You are aware of what type of content was being targeted here right?
The article addresses the topic of how quickly the banning of this kind of material can get out of hand:
These are, it seems, the same people going on book-banning crusades that ensare such smut as Calvin & Hobbes comics.
Magic Tree House author Mary Pope Osborne, children’s poet Shel Silverstein and Calvin and Hobbes cartoonist Bill Watterson have joined Judy Blume, Sarah J. Maas, Eric Carle and Kurt Vonnegut on a mind-boggling list of hundreds of books purged from some Tennessee school libraries.
The removals are the result of a growing political movement to control information through book banning. In 2024, the state legislature amended the “Age-Appropriate Materials Act of 2022” to specify that any materials that “in whole or in part” contain any “nudity, or descriptions or depictions of sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence, or sadomasochistic abuse” are inappropriate for all students and do not belong in a school library. This change means books are not evaluated as a whole, and excerpts can be considered without context, if they have any content that is deemed to cross these lines. This leaves no room for educators and librarians to curate collections that reflect the real world and serve the educational needs of today’s students.
Not their business what I do with my own money.
Their business is letting me spend my money in ways I see fut for my budget.
Yeah, there are categories I think should be banned. But should they actually be banned just because I want them to be? Only if they are illegal. Some things are legal that I think shouldn’t be, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is legal, whether I want it to be or not. Therefore, so long as it is legal, transactions should be allowed whether I like them or not.
Untill they make it my problem, I don’t care about what people are paying for.
I don’t think giving that kind of arbitrary power to a small number of private entities is a great idea.
By the government? Yep
By a private entitiy? Ummm…No?
I love that MasterCard is pushing this shit under the guise of “brand damaging” products.
Yet this whole fiasco is the most brand damage they could ask for.
If the payment processors are entities separate from Mastercard, then why not name and shame them?
Particularly as this is causing huge brand damage to MasterCard/Visa. If there is someone else who should take the issue, you’d think they’d point the issue at them and dust themselves off.
Good, point out their BS. Valve is doing lords work.
Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?
If Mastercard really was not involved they would be suing for libel.
What’s the best way to pay for games that doesn’t involve MasterCard, visa, PayPal, or any other company currently pulling this bullshit?
SEPA or giftcards
That goes through the bank/cash to voucher
