Collective Shout, an extremist anti-pornography group, has been on a bit of a tear lately working with other organizations to pressure payment processors and merchants by extension to remove adult content. Often relying on misinformation about the titles in question. 

I just want to say I encourage Itch to push back against such pressure if these groups and their nonsense show up at the digital doorstep. 

Adult content deserves a platform, and these organizations and payment processors shouldn't be given this kind of censorship power without pushback. 

If all fails I would rather have to deal with using Cashapp or something to pay for games here than give any more ground to these weirdos. 

And best believe, this kind of harassment will certainly evolve into calls for further censorship. It's how these political groups operate. 

Site owners have the hands-tied with this issue, also, this isn't the first time something like this happened, about two years ago they did the same thing, but instead targeting steam, they targeted this place (through payoneer); my bet is that Subscribestar will be the next one.

Definitely agreed that I'd like to see alternative payment processors first before seeing itch being forced to self-censor. Pornographic and explicit content is not illegal to purchase or distribute, and has a right to exist. I would like to fight for those rights wherever possible.

Alternative payment processors, counter petitioning and counter social media campaigning to pressure payment processors to not listen to them, or even legal action if it comes to that. There's already related ACLU petitions for similar discrimination https://action.aclu.org/petition/mastercard-sex-work-work-end-your-unjust-policy (Good to sign if you're a US citizen, and can reasonably cover this too, 74k out of 100k signatures needed so far), and now also a change.org petition targeting visa and mastercard for exactly this, https://www.change.org/p/tell-mastercard-visa-activist-groups-stop-controlling-w... . The petition they responded to didn't have that many signatures even, its entirely possible to garner more to try and counter them.

Pressuring payment processors in any way possible to ignore them is important, to make sure the loonies aren't the only voice that gets a say. If nothing else it shows that's not the only pressure effecting their business. Never mind the question of whether these things could classify for an antitrust lawsuit, or that there's some level of investigation reportedly happening in the Japanese government

Moreover, if there was ever a time to take a stand, its now when everyone is already pissed off about the steam stuff. Makes it easier to rally them

Listening to anything "Collective Shout" says is just moronic as just like many more extremist groups there's a ton of hypocrisy.  "They pride themselves on defending sexualization of women and girls"

However they actively supported Netflix's "Cuties" which i feel like that alone is enough to invalidate anything they say. Supporting Cuties you might as well just say "Yes i support Sexualization of minors" as that's largely what "Cuties" did.

Listening to any org without checking their past is dumb and Collective Shout more than deserves raising a eyebrow at and not listening to more than you'd listen to a screaming toddler.

They not weirdos, that is a term often used against powerless people, they are powerful. The have been on a censorship tear since 2008, and they are gaining traction. 

Awareness needs to raised against these people, there needs to be pushback against them, all spaces must be gatekept against anti porn feminists. 

if you haven't signed this petition I encourage everyone to sign it.

www.change.org/p/tell-mastercard-visa-activist-groups-stop-controlling-what-we-c...

They are a fascistic group. Antihuman and antifreedom. And somehow they managed to have control over payment processors. Now they even managed to get this website all fucked up. We will just have to sit and wait until someone with an actual brain and power steps in and stops this nonsense. Fuck collective shit.

i use itch.io almost exclusively for nsfw content. if they remove that part of their business, they are losing myself and a no doubt considerable subsection of their customer base.

Honestly its weird that the open letter only used that one game as an example and said that "A" (meaning one) "A Collective Shout team member has conducted extensive research using a Steam account set up for this purpose." they reference "hundreds of other games featuring rape, incest and child sexual abuse on both Steam and Itch.io." but its all "too distressing for us to make public." but then drop the name and description of a game literally called "No Mercy" 

Practically speaking, encouraging everyone still watching this thread to especially call and contact Stripe today. Be polite, but tell them you'll be avoiding their services if they continue making it difficult for customers to make legal purchases. 

Censorship should not be allowed. This, the UK safety omline act, its all nonsense and we must stand up to it

Collective Shout  This organization thinks they can defend their rights, but this is actually a blow to the gaming industry. If all 18+ games are removed from the shelves, then everyone's energy will be put into violent games, such as the game of the Columbine school shooting, which led to hundreds of school shootings.

Call Payment processors and take as much time as possible (This is the solution).

The reason phone call complaints are effective with these payment processor companies is because it takes up valuable time that the company could be otherwise dealing with other issues.  Phone support is expensive and slow, which makes it an ideal pressure point  A large public outcry is what causes companies to pay attention and consider backtracking.

Make a script about why this is bad (payment processor companies shouldn't be censoring legal material because they personally think it's immoral and it's an attack on free speech - you can ask AI to create a script for you if you don't have to time to write a long message) then call VISA/MasterCard/STRIPE/Paypal, you'll be on hold for a while because everyone is calling, and say you'd like to lodge a complaint.  Then when they ask what this is in regards to, just start reading your script.  The longer the better since that's the point.  We essentially have to keep this up for the next few weeks if we want something to happen.  We don’t need to be aggressive - just persistent. Keep the pressure on and call every few days, or every day if you care about this issue.

The following link has all the contact information you need to call them:

https://10kphonecalls.com/

Service reps will now try to quickly escort you to "e-mailing" instead once they realize you're complaining about itch and Steam's recent censorship - try to just keep them on the line.  In one call when they attempted to do this, I simply asked, "Are phone call complaints reported to your company or not?" and they just kept repeating "You must e-mail _________" - I was like, "You're not answering my questions, do you report them or not?" and eventually they transferred me to a supervisor who was really awesome to talk to and spent a long time talking to me..  Asking them about why companies are attempting to ban legal content is also a good question that they can't answer but will keep them on the line for a while.

We should ddos and target there website, find where they live and scare them! 

Collective Shout deserves to be booed and mocked