this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
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Vice: Group Behind Steam Censorship Policies Have Powerful Allies — And Targeted Popular Games With Outlandish Claims [update in post text body] (archive.is)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by misk@sopuli.xyz to c/games@sh.itjust.works
62 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Original link which seems to have been taken down: https://www.vice.com/en/article/group-behind-steam-censorship-policies-have-powerful-allies-and-targeted-popular-games-with-outlandish-claims/

Update from the author:

https://bsky.app/profile/acvalens.net/post/3lufjdqmhxs2v

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[–] passepartout@feddit.org 107 points 3 days ago (5 children)

From Wikipedia about NCOSE

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), previously known as Morality in Media and Operation Yorkville, is an American conservative anti-pornography organization. The group has also campaigned against sex trafficking, same-sex marriage, sex shops and sex toys, decriminalization of sex work, comprehensive sex education, and various works of literature or visual arts the organization has deemed obscene, profane or indecent. [...] The organization describes its goal as "exposing the links between all forms of sexual exploitation".

Doing the lords work by fucking up (lol) any discourse about sexuality.

[–] Saledovil@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 days ago

A thing about how the group's goals are contradictory: Sex education is probably the best tool to protect children from sexual exploitation. So stopping sex ed aids child molesters, by making it easier to manipulate children.

[–] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 48 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I can agree with exactly ONE thing on that list which is worth campaigning against and that's sex trafficking. However, given that this lot voted in a fucking pedo rapist as the supreme leader of their country, I doubt their conviction.

[–] Mirshe@lemmy.world 19 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Generally, the "sex trafficking" these types of groups campaign against is the non-existent QAnon variant, where those people are somehow trafficking millions and millions of (white suburban) kids into sex slavery in those countries for more of those people.

[–] passepartout@feddit.org 23 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Reminds me of enforcing the identification of all internet users for the sake of "protecting the children".

[–] Saledovil@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Which actual criminals can circumvent, and takes away anonymity from children, which is by far the best protection for them. So yeah, if you want to protect children, this is a serious step back.

[–] yermaw@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You can still identify children online. A/S/L never fails

[–] Saledovil@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

Reminds me of the Omegle zombie survival game:

  1. You have six shotgun shells.
  2. Connect to a random person.
  3. If they ask "ASL", they're a Zombie. If you have a shotgun shell left, you shoot them and use up one shell. If not, they bite you and you die.
  4. Ask "What is OP?". If they give the correct answer, they're a fellow survivor, and both of you refill your shotgun shells.
[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 28 points 3 days ago

comprehensive sex education

Ah yes, because if there is anything that will prevent exploitation it’s not being educated about sex.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 29 points 3 days ago

Because fucking of course they're fascists. Of course.

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

It's very weird to see "decriminalization of sex work" in there though. Because that's extremely progressive. (And positive in my eyes.)

[–] 9bananas@feddit.org 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"campaigning AGAINST"

they're against that...

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

Oh I see thanks.

[–] HearTwoTalk@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

They're against decriminalizing it

[–] blobchoice@feddit.uk 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

To be honest, when this story first appeared especially with Valve being the ones to announce the censorship, I thought it was sort of a nothing burger with Valve (Gave Newell having libertarian values) being pissed that someone has control over what they can sell on their store or not.

I also personally believe in the past 5-10 years that there is so much adult content and so much gateways to adult content in non adult content spaces that I personally feel something needs to be done about it.

But after seeing the group behind it, it's basically the opposite extreme. We should be able to talk about sex and sexuality, and have media that dives into these topics without some of the extreme fetishism that is on the internet (e.g. cuckoldry, gooning).

While I feel conflicted about these games being on an extremely popular pc gaming store, the people who are trying to get it removed aren't helping - they are the problem by being so extreme in their views of sex and sexuality themselves.

[–] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com -2 points 1 day ago

without some of the extreme fetishism that is on the internet (e.g. cuckoldry, gooning)

What's wrong with those?

[–] Metostopholes@midwest.social 68 points 3 days ago

Ah, I thought it was strange for the payment processing companies to come out of nowhere.

Them being pressured by conservative prudish assholes masquerading as concerned feminists makes more sense.

[–] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 51 points 3 days ago (2 children)

HuniePop is a comedic masterpiece I will actually be upset about if it's disappeared.

This group is nuts. Wanting to ban Detroit Become Human because it depicts child abuse is completely insane. That's like solving sex trafficking by making it illegal to mention it.

[–] azertyfun@sh.itjust.works 20 points 3 days ago

I mean, their leader is literally under fire for saying the Epstein files never existed and people should just stop talking about it. Making it illegal to even mention sex trafficking is the next logical step to protect the Dear Leader, because lord knows tackling the real issues wouldn't end well for him.

It's actually a more ideologically consistent position than most reactionary groups. They want to be able to keep diddling kids while everyone shuts up about it and the queers get shoved in concentration camps. Now that's a Good Traditional Christian Nation babyyyyyy

[–] lath@piefed.social 21 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Doubt they want to solve it. More like make it out of sight, out of mind.

[–] Mirshe@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago

This is exactly their goal. They don't wanna solve it. They don't want to make things better. They just want it to not be talked about or discussed or thought about. It's the same as your landlord painting over a patch of black mold.

[–] MisterOwl@lemmy.world 43 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Is there no aspect of life that isn't being completely shit upon and ruined by conservatives?

[–] shani66@ani.social 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

No. They are anti-human, straight up.

[–] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 1 day ago

anti-human

Don't insult anti-humans. Conservatives are anti-fun.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 days ago

Let's not give them ideas.

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[–] grue@lemmy.world 23 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Well, that's new: usually when I need the archived article it's because the original was paywalled, but this time the original seems to have been deleted completely. Is Vice getting censored too now?

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 16 points 3 days ago

The author posted three articles involving Collective Shout. The only one that didn't get removed replaces most of the detailing on Collective Shout with narration of the now-endangered benefits of "we both roleplay as giant women who consume our viewers".

https://www.vice.com/en/article/this-vtuber-just-raised-over-780-for-the-aclu-after-steams-new-content-policies-her-anti-censorship-message-is-urgent/

Moral of the story: To avoid takedown, double down ~~and eat people~~

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[–] ideonek@piefed.social 21 points 3 days ago (9 children)

I just wonder why they choose pink asshole as they logo.

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[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 11 points 3 days ago

Where is this stage in the “first they came for” poem?

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 3 days ago

Is Detroit: Become Human on the list of removed titles (that's where the screenshot is from).

The game does deal with themes like child and spousal abuse, and has a part with a same sex couple, so it fits these fascists' MO.

If so, ridiculous. However, I kind of hope they do go after some bigger games so people get pissed.

[–] mormund@feddit.org 12 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I hope they fucked with wrong company. Watch Valve become the best payment processor simply out of spite. Although there is no solution for reactionaries everywhere targeting porn and sex work.

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Honestly valve mishandled this issue. This sounded like a solid opportunity to be like "Okay, AO and NSFW games are no longer able to be sold via third party merchants" and then disabled the ability on the payment page.

Like they already offer an ability to pay directly, just require funding to be from steam wallet, then the transaction records are only "add funds" or "wallet payment" or whatever they use for steam wallet funding. Or if it is just paypal, make it so it has to be a first(wallet) or a second(credit cards) party instead of a third party(paypal)

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I assume the payment processors demanded these games not be on the marketplace at all, not just that they didn't handle the payments for them.

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I was under the understanding that they cared only about their image and the fact that their service was being used to purchase those items. If that's the case, then they shouldn't have an Issue with it existing in the first place, just that people can associate their platform with those type of games. If Steam went out of their way to make it so you can't use third party(or even second party tbh) merchants with adult-only and NSFW style games, then consumers wouldn't be able to relate their service to those type of games.

If what you said is correct there, that's a massive overstep on the payment processors, but I don't think that's the case here.

For example, when visa stopped accepting advertisements on Pornhub, it was because it wasn't able to control whether or not it was being depicted next to CP, which is against its rules. They entire quote was as follows: "It is illegal, and Visa does not permit the use of our network for illegal activity. Our rules explicitly and unequivocally prohibit the use of our products to pay for content that depicts nonconsensual sexual behavior or child sexual abuse.”

If this is the same case, just disabling the payment processor's ability should more than suffice.

Having said my main concern about all this is, currently steam is rolling over, but as people have said previously, steam is a large company. They could just decide full stop that you can only pay for video games with a steam wallet, which will make it so you have to add the funds to your wallet ahead of time. This also will remove quite a bit of protections that consumers have when using a credit card because at that point the service is Steam providing you money for your wallet instead of Steam providing you a functional game which means that any type of argument consumers would do with chargebacks of like this game isn't functioning on my system would be immediately thrown out because steam only charged you to add funds to your wallet instead of buying a game like it currently is.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How are you putting money on your account without the payment processors? Every purchase is through them, directly or indirectly.

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

a few ways to be honest.

They already have steam wallet cards at most electronic retail stores which operate the same as gift cards

but I was thinking more along the line of the payment processor is still there, but the goods being purchased is no longer the game itself, just adding currency on, which more-or-less removes the problem all together. Payment processors are no longer being used to buy NSFW content, its being used to purchase wallet funds. So the association is no longer valid.

Alternatively they could go the Mullvad approach as well, and allow for cash, check and wire transfer over if they really wanted to. Heck honestly like what PC said, with how big they are, they could even make a low transaction fee(seller side) savings card and could probably rival the companies themselves. I know a few people that would happily switch to said card if it meant ease of access buying games.

Additionally, a mix of these could be done, at some point card companies would fold because its threatening their bottom line. I personally think if they went the steam wallet route, the companies wouldn't want to engage big stores such as walmart, as a good portion of their revenue is via the transaction fees those companies provide.

this is all hypotheticals though

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago

Payment processors are no longer being used to buy NSFW content, its being used to purchase wallet funds. So the association is no longer valid.

You can make that argument, sure. You could also make the other argument, that their services are being associated with this content by proxy, at minimum.

I don't agree with them. I'm just pointing out what their argument is.

I also agree Valve should make an alternative. They've got the resources and the reach to do it. They could probably even get other companies to use it and take a percentage of each transaction for another revenue stream. As it is, they're losing a percentage to these companies, and now they're fucking with their business too. They should be doing everything they can to get away from them.

[–] burgerpocalyse@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago

they already removed a bunch of games

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 7 points 3 days ago

This far into the 21st century, paying people for art should have no barriers.

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