The bible contains several of the things Itch considers verboten, including incest, rape, child abuse, etc.
If someone makes a game based on the bible, does that get banned?
No it wouldn't.
Itchio makes the distinction between pornography games which glorify incest, rape and child abuse etc - and narratives which touch on them in ways which are not glorification. I would like to observe with a heavy sigh that this is shown to be true in the fact no payment processor has ever banned the bible.
Context and framing matter. Its incoherent to discuss content divorced from context. Le epic social media quip you are parroting is a weak attempt at a gotcha, and you will not receive your reddit gold.
Edit: The bible is a bad story which glorifies incest, and worse. Incest glorification is part of the christofascist project. I believe that christofascists are capable of hypocrisy and successfully policing their hypocrisy by noticing context. Context and framing are things all human brains recognise, even those filled with christofascist worms, nobody analyses content without context. Hashtag Ban the Bible.
You're kissing their arse. Context is not a tennable factor. It's intentionally vague so that it can be stretched when and where they feel like it. This is *something we have seen* in practice many many times. Context doesn't matter. Their opinion and their thoughts matter. It is not objective. Even with context.
You're just ignoring the points people bring to you believing itch and their decisions are the greatest good and that their wording or policies could never be abused or used in bad faith. That is not remotely the case.
We have seen more and less successful examples of web moderation throughout the web site's, its true.
No website has ever been moderated objectively Every single one of Itch's wording or policies could be abused and used in bad faith. That has been true since the first day of the web site, and for all its rules.
The itch.io FAQ page that these standards are coming form says "The following is a non-exhaustive list of prohibited themes present in card processing networks. We are unable to support the sale of any works containing these topics:"
It says containing. it makes no distinctions based on context. The problem is that when a policy is this vague. Will they be abled to the bible probably not. It massive work that many would defend but the fact of the matter is that it could be ban under this new policy.
When people ban inappropriate works, they expand the define of inappropriate to anything they don't like. Censhorpship doesn't stop at what you dislike
Your argument that no moderation can ever be perfect misses the point. No legal system can ever be perfect does that mean we just abandoned laws entirely. No, we find the problems in the laws and make them better. This is a bad moderation policy that in its current form has tons of problems and people and groups like collective shout are only going to push to make it broader.
Well. There are some cases where it would be very obvious (for example if the girl in the end marries her rapist..yikes.) But yes. That has potential for overreach. In germany, we have a law against media "glorifying violence" and that wording causes a lot of trouble and its very weirdly enforced. There are tons of "I went to war. It felt totally awesome" stories which are legal in germany while some horror games where you 99 Percent of the time run away from monsters are accused of "glorifying violence."
Overreach is always a possibility, and its one we must both be vigilant to prevent and fight where we see it. Removing 'gross-out' porn containing scat and vomit is overreach.
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Deplatforming is sometimes ok, and its ok that web platforms don't owe users a platforms. But I don't agree with state censorship. Germany has some good laws, their ban on nazi media is awesome, and it has unfortunately lead to the banning of games where you kill 100000000 nazis. We begin to touch on broader topics here like the perception of games in popular culture, and who has the monopoly on violence. It seems unfortunately obvious that a state wouldn't consider propeganda celebrating the violence it monopolises as 'glorification'.
I am not a pacifist, and think glorification of violence is ok in some contexts. glorification of sex too. sex ftw
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There are many people who are defending obvious cases like a girl marrying her rapist, with slippery slopes and catastrophising. They see it as "throwing acceptable targets under the bus".
However, I do not see people who produce and consume games in the obvious case category as a group who would have solidarity me if. I mean I SEE them, I can lurk their forums and discords and pick up on this sentiment. In certain filter bubbles, the idea that this hurts queer games at all is not even discussed. These are not the kind of people who would speak for me if only alas.
I can certainly imagine situations where these rules are used for overreach. But "they banned the bible lol also, btw you need to have solidarity with women raper simulator 9000" sounds stupid to me. No thank's.
It is a hard task, sure. I am thankful Itch is choosing to take up the task instead of implementing a full NSFW ban, which would have been easier to do. But it wouldn't have been right, it would have been bad, so I'm glad NSFW can stay.
I disagree with your assessment that the new guidelines are so vague that literally anything nsfw falls under them. I think that is a bad faith reading.
The task is impossible. With the amount of users, the amount of games being put out, with AI content generation speeding all of that up, they're essentially trying to swallow the ocean here. Certainly, 25 or so people couldn't do it. This forces Itch into an untenable situation where they probably can't afford to hire enough people to do this manually. They could do it through automatic filtering of some kind, maybe, but then they need to codify the standards because automated systems can't run on vibes.
Good book? More like BAD book!!
Yeah the bible sucks and is usually only seen as passable due to Christian hypocrisy. Saying that "according to the new standards, itch would ban the bible" is saying payment processors are too binary in their thinking to even be hypocrites, which is unhelpful quippy hyperbole.
No payment processor has ever banned the bible. No conservative has ever been swayed by allegations of hypocrisy.
There's a lot of philosophy that argues that hypocrisy isn't even a bad thing. I do generally think hypocrisy is bad, I just want to mention the perspective exists. I don't want to argue about the goodness or badness of hypocrisy now either, ponder it in your own time.
I'm not a pacifist lol violence ftw. Sex ftw.
The glorification qualifier is indeed a problematic one. I have yet to see such a game. Please do not link examples. Rape and abuse are plot devices to make something brutal and vile. Even if the victims would give into the abuse, how would that glorify the act. But it is moot to discuss this part of the ban.
You only need to take the incest part. It is not even illegal in most places. Just a social taboo. Is there a glorification qualifier there? For the abuse they could flimsily justify it with the fallacy of how crimes in fiction cause crimes in real life (this is disproven). But with incest it is just a ban on something they do not like.
Oh, and yeah, there is glorified incest (and rape) in the Bible. The aftermath of Sodom's destruction has daughters sleep rape their father to have children. Those people were the ones that God did not smite... And by definition that is not even a fictional setting, but a guideline Book. They absolutely should ban the Bible for its content.
Edited my original post so people know I am not defending the bible.
The glorification qualifier is indeed a problematic one. I have yet to see such a game. Please do not link examples.
I will respect your request not to link examples. For people seeking examples, they are overflowing on cg pornography sites. If you want to know how's its glorified, victims are portrayed as objectified bodies to master and not characters who deserve empathy.
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As for incest, I must admit I am confounded by how many people have come forward insisting it can be consentual. Incest is a form of abuse that takes advantage of the trust between relatives. Incest in the real world always involves coercion, violence, and/or children. This includes historic incest such as inbreeding in royal families.
Fictionalised depictions often write in that mutual desire and consent are there. This does not happen in reality. The fantasy of consentual incest has caused its real victims to face victim blaming and ostracization.
If you want to know how's its glorified, victims are portrayed as objectified bodies to master and not characters who deserve empathy.
That's objectifcation, not glorification. Glorification is when you get praise for an action. Portraing an action as something to strive for. Just portraing something as matter of fact is not glorifying it. It can be described as downplaying or making light of it. But again, that's not glorification.
To bring a fictional example. The Ferengi in Star Trek glorify commerce. They strive for more and more money. So it could be said, that in this fictional world that greed is glorified. Although it is from the perspective of the humans, and they do not share those values. The humans glorify diplomacy (not TOS ;-)
Incest is not a code word for rape between family. Incest just means sexual relations between close blood relatives. If you count cousins, those can even marry. And just like non-incest relations, you can have those with consent - but usually not with social acceptance. Baring the cousin marriage.
If a victim is denied empathy and objectified as a body to master, the mastery of their body becomes glorified. This is the narrative rape fiction in pornography tells. Your example does not match the narratives I am describing.
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Incest is a word to describe a rape that occurs when familial relationships are exploited for sexual abuse.
The words glory and incest do not convey the meaning for which you applied them.
The word glory has religious roots. It basically means that glowing saint's halo. So gloryfication is likening something to something holy. What you described is many things, but not gloryfication. Gloryfication is the extra step to make something good even more splendid. It is not getting praise, it is getting very great praise. Mere praise is not enough to invoke glory. It is not treating something as being better as it really is, it is treating something already splendid as even more splendid.
Incest is a neutral word in regard to consent. It specifies blood relation. Cousin marriage is incest. About 10% of all marriages world wide are incest marriages. The statistics is a bit distorted by some regions having up to 50% and other near 0%. If a blood relative commits sexual abuse, you get incest on top, but you can't use them as synonyms.
to cause to be or treat as being more splendid, excellent, etc., than would normally be considered.
to honor with praise, admiration, or worship; extol.
sexual intercourse between closely related persons.
the crime of sexual intercourse, cohabitation, or marriage between persons within the degrees of consanguinity or affinity wherein marriage is legally forbidden.
very great praise, honor, or distinction bestowed by common consent; renown.
adoring praise or worshipful thanksgiving.
the splendor and bliss of heaven; heaven.
a ring, circle, or surrounding radiance of light represented about the head or the whole figure of a sacred person, as Christ or a saint; a halo, nimbus, or aureole.
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That commentor blocked me, after dropping some insults.
The usage of words was and is incorrect, no matter if someone gets angry about being corrected about it. If a discussion is about "incest", but someone means "incestual rape", misunderstandings will occur. Same if something is called "glorification", but meant is "trivialization and objectification".
I hope people like that do not enjoy killing murder death games, because according to such logic that would mean their brain is rotten by all that murder gloryfication that is happening in every rpg, shooter, platformer, right down to harmless Mario games where it is ok to kill little creatures by stomping them to death. One is even awarded points and high scores for such activtiy. (Should the post be edited or deleted, there were ad hominems against basically all people that might play questionable games, because their brains got rotten by doing that.)
I am not interested of apologism for real world incest.
I was answering questions under the assumption I was talking to someone who was somehow genuinely naive. Now that is is clear that was not the case, idgaf.
Incest is practiced by actual puritanical christofascists
Why would I post some book I hate.
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I care little about such things. I believe that statements are irrelevant from who makes them. It is fallacy territory, if you give credit to an argument because of who made it. Same for discredit.
That's why using words wrong and using non arguments bothers me. I like reason and reasoning. Using words wrong makes reasoning non sensical. If handal wants to talk about how vile incest is, ok. But handal seems to think that incest means to abuse your own kids (or parents if you look at what happened in the Bible), while the rest of the world thinks that brother and sister getting it on, is incest. Also cousins marrying is incest too and rather common. One cannot have a discussion, if people talk about different things but use the same word.
But at this point, handal is just trolling and venting. Or using yet another word wrong. Did you look at that link where supposedly christian fanatics would practice incest? It is an problematic event for other reasons, neatly outlined in the article, but incest is not among those problems. It is a fathers and daughters dance event and comes from those virginity pledging crazes.
"I can forgive incest but draw the line at 'abusive' language" ass post. Feckless moderation. I want to be clear here that I was being rude to people advocating for incest in real life. Not just chuds asserting their grotesque intent to create the worst fiction possible, but incest in real life. This site deserves to get fucked, if you let pro-incest advocates run around here.
I hate NEETs I hate fandomites I hate forums debate culture I hate respectability politics.
Better still, pay them back. CENSOR BULLSHITLIGEON! Get all the nothing but hate and lies and the nothing but hate and liars out of your life forever! And for the very first time in your life, you will finally be free from evil and all their evil, and they will never have any of their precious POWER over you ever again!
Then something actually good can come in your life from all of this! You will finally be free!!!
Works for me!