For U.S. Residents:

To support S.401, the Fair Access to Banking Act, you can contact your elected officials (specifically your Senators and Representatives) to express your support for the bill. You can also support organizations that advocate for fair access to financial services. 

Here's a more detailed breakdown: 1. Contact your elected officials:

• Identify your representatives: Find out who represents you in the Senate and House of Representatives. 
• Communicate your support: Contact their offices (via phone, email, or letter) and express your support for S.401. 
• Explain your reasons: Briefly explain why you support the bill, such as your concern about the potential for discrimination against legal industries or individuals based on factors like political opinions or religious beliefs. 

2. Support organizations advocating for fair access:

• Research relevant organizations: Look for groups that focus on financial inclusion, anti-discrimination, or access to financial services for specific industries.
• Consider donating or volunteering: If these organizations align with your values, consider supporting them financially or through volunteer work. 

3. Stay informed:

• Follow the bill's progress: Keep up-to-date on the bill's status through websites like Congress.gov, which provides information on all actions taken on the bill.
• Share information with your network: Spread awareness about S.401 and the importance of fair access to banking. 

Why is this important?

S.401 aims to prevent financial institutions from denying services to customers based on factors like political opinions, religious beliefs, or ESG standards. This is crucial for ensuring that legal businesses and individuals have equal access to the financial system and are not unfairly discriminated against. 

If you are needing a form letter, here is one you can customize:

I am writing to express my strong support for H.R.987 & S.410 - Fair Access to Banking Act. This legislation addresses a deeply concerning trend I’ve observed in recent years: the increasing willingness of financial institutions and payment processors, such as Visa and Mastercard, to act as de facto regulators by restricting access to financial services for individuals and businesses engaged in lawful commerce. 

Time and time again, we've seen payment processors refuse service to creators, artists, and businesses simply because their products or services are viewed as controversial or "objectionable", even when no laws have been broken. Most recently, this has extended to the digital gaming space, where storefronts are being pressured to remove content that, while sometimes controversial, remains fully legal. This selective denial of service is often justified using vague and subjective terms like "reputational risk," but in practice it functions as a mechanism for enforcing arbitrary ideological standards. These actions pose a direct threat to free expression and economic liberty. 

As a life long gamer of *age removed*, content that I would like to consume that is not illegal should not be taken away from me, purely because a financial institution finds it objectionable. This is pure censorship on a corporate level.

No unelected financial entity should have the power to dictate what legal goods and services the American public may access. This kind of financial gatekeeping chills speech, harms livelihoods, and undermines the very principles of due process and democratic accountability. I respectfully urge you to support this bill and defend the right of all Americans to participate in the economy without fear of being blacklisted by private actors for engaging in lawful activity. This legislation is a critical step toward restoring fairness and neutrality to our financial system. 

Interesting that most people creating this content are on the left politically, but this bill was introduced by a politician on the right and all 43 cosponsors are also on the right. Interesting times. My Senator is already listed as a cosponsor. I hope this passes, but knowing the Ds, this will get killed like so many other good pieces of legislation. Our government is fundamentally corrupt and broken. They no longer serve the interests of their constituents.

These bills (there’s a similar version in the House) are getting a lot of attention among Itch and Steam this week, but we should be clear that this is a bill designed to serve conservative ends, and there’s no guarantee under a conservative administration that it will protect independent game creators.

To understand how these bills will be implemented if passed, it’s important to understand their origins. One context made explicit in the text of the Senate bill is Operation Chokepoint, and Obama era program that advised financial institutions to deny services to businesses and groups that administration deemed at high risk of money laundering and fraud. A number of those businesses were in industries (like arms manufacturing, payday lending, and crypto startups) with heavy investments in Republican and libertarian political circles. And, indeed, the most consistent supporters of these bills (which have been introduced multiple times since the first Trump administration) have been gun lobbies like the NSSF, and crypto industry investors like Mark Andreeson. (I suspect that familiarity with the legislation came to the indie videogame scene by way of his spiel about it on Joe Rogan.)

So, on the one hand, throwing support behind the bill is likely to help out a lot of business that many here would be opposed to helping.

Maybe that seems like an “enemy of my enemy is my friend”-type situation, but I don’t think it is. It depends on the premise that financial institutions can’t find a pretext for excluding Itch and Steam that will pass muster under the Fairness in Banking Act. But the same legislators passing this act are also drafting laws to restrict access to NSFW material online, and are particularly motivated about limiting LGBTQ visibility and expression, not to mention anything they can connect to “woke” or DEI initiatives. If they pass something like the Fairness in Banking Act, I have no doubt they we’ll see them carve out exceptions for the very sorts of media you’re hoping to protect here.

In other words, it’s entirely plausible a law like this could make it impossible to de-bank Collective Shout, without protecting Itch from de-banking.

2 days old but i will say be careful with supporting S.401 because that bill is mainly for banks and shit not being able to deny the usage of funds from banks for more oil rigs and other environmentally destructive practices that would increase the carbon footprint and pollution of these projects and less of the protection of consumers about content.

That's a law made by republicans (the same that are very very much happy with these results, and with considering all porn illegal), only meant to make debanking of nazis impossible.

If you want to REALLY make a difference check the SAFE SEX workers act.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/fight-overturn-fosta-unconstitutional-internet-censorship-law-continues

https://reason.com/2024/12/18/the-safe-sex-workers-study-act-a-bill-aimed-at-ultimately-repealing-fosta-is-back/

Is Collective Shout LGBQT+?  If they are, then they really stabbed their own.  I'd of thought it was a Christian conservative group tbh.

Hey, I'm from Romania, but I would like to support you guys and be of help. What can I do?