This is beyond unacceptable and if you live in the UK you should sign this and contact your MP!
Edit: We have a post here where we talk about the criteria used, how developers can check their page’s status, and how they can appeal if they think a restriction has been unfairly applied to their page: https://itch.io/t/5133739/our-update-on-the-uk-online-safety-act
We are not “blocking anything with queer content”. Pages where the developer has added tags indicating adult content have automatically been marked for filtering for the UK’s Online safety act. Tags specifically related to queer content such as queer or LGBT were not used for determining the status of the project.
I know this is going to sound brutally rude as text often comes across much harsher than is meant to, at least in my eyes, but I think you horribly misused that italics as that first sentence is highly incorrect. You are, in fact, effectively shutting down most LGBT content. Think about it for a moment; what is the one aspect of being LGBT that is depicted in media? Sexual interest (though I realize it is different in most people's minds, in media it is the intimacy and struggle to be accepted in a romantic way that is often depicted for LGBT people, as romance has always been a main draw-in in all forms of literature and media). Which means, most of the games are going to have adult content in it and you literally just stated "tags indicating adult content have automatically been marked for filtering". So maybe don't place emphasis on 'anything' in your first sentence. I believe what you mean to say is you are not intentionally blocking queer content, which is completely different than saying you are not blocking' any'.
And off subject, but I want more people to see this point I have been making as I feel it is a valid argument and have said before in other places, this whole thing in general is hypocritical (not directed at you personally, but those pressuring you such as card companies and CS and others). I'm in my forties. I had to learn about the same plays by Shakespeare for like 8+ years of my academic life growing up. Schools praise that guy for his literary prowess. All of his stories cover every theme of adult and NSFW. Juliet was 13 and made love to a guy at least 18 (though in those times that was normal, a game about it now would be banned), Hamlet had incest, multiple stories had rape, and almost all of them involved murder. Did that make him promoting those acts? If so, then schools shouldn't be teaching about him as they are promoting them. Movies like Kill Bill have mass murder and rape, but is anyone saying Tarantino is promoting it or has intent to do such acts? No. So, people need to stop targeting games in general.
That being said, here's hoping you decide to raise a middle finger to credit card companies and make your own currency system they cannot deny, or maybe even go crypto. I mean, if you look into their history, these card companies tend to stop doing business with you even after you submit to their guidelines and delist and delete things, as they have done PH and others in the past.
horribly misused that italics
The italics were quoting what the original posted said in their title, which, in my opinion, is an incorrect statement. I’ve updated the post to use the full quote. (possibly the semantics of anything vs everything are confusing here, I take the original poster’s intent to mean everything)
I think the discussion of the intersection of adult content and queer content is valuable and should be had. We are not the creators of this legislation, and unfortunately we have to comply with it even if we disagree with it. My post was plainly stating that we do not consider the use of queer tags as criteria for the automated restriction.
I did a quick query so you can get an idea of how impactful the restriction is. We have approximately 20,000 public projects containing tags queer or lgbt. Approximately 5,700 of those will be put into geo-restriction based on the developer-provided tags. That’s definitely a substantial amount, but there’s still a large volume of queer content that will not be affected.
In our post here we talk about the criteria used, how developers can check their page’s status, and how they can appeal if they think a restriction has been unfairly applied to their page: https://itch.io/t/5133739/our-update-on-the-uk-online-safety-act
Thanks
Love the info on the stats, that makes me happy to know. Not sarcasm, being sincere. So, thank you for posting that. I honestly assumed the number of de-listed items to have been much higher in the percentage.
I will correct your improper use of italics however, as you don't quote someone with italics, but with quotation marks - hence the 'quot' in 'quotation' - so your initial post just came off as if you were placing emphasis on on words to stress them for your own sake, and the italics were still misused either way. (Edit: I just saw you also already fixed it into quotes and of the entire several words used rather than just the emphasis on 'anything'. Thank you, as it looks much less hostile now. lol)
I somewhat disagree with your statement of "we have to comply with it even if we disagree with it". You aren't being lorded over by government officials, the rule is being offered by a credit card company (well, two that I am aware of). You have every legal right to raise a middle finger and sever services with them. You are choosing not to. Again, as I said before, I understand that most of your revenue probably passes through their hands and not everyone would be like me and value principles over money, but personally, I'd not bend to the knee to either of them. There are many other ways to transfer money. But, your website, so I'm not here to tell you what to do with it. I'm just stating my feelings. I sincerely hope things work out with your choice and that MasterCard and Visa don't end up severing services with you anyway as they have with other websites in the past even after removal of all adult content on them. And I sincerely hope when all of this blows over it doesn't effect the future of Itch.io negatively.
Anyway, your site has been a huge service to me, and I want to end on a good note to show I'm not trying to be mean or angry at all, so I wanted to thank you for what you have built here. If all of this blows to shit, I at least want to give my thanks for your services and let you know some of these devs have given me safe outlets to filter my depression into when I was going through a hard time and I would have never discovered them if it weren't for your site. So, sincerely, thank you.
I somewhat disagree with your statement of “we have to comply with it even if we disagree with it”. You aren’t being lorded over by government officials
I think you may be mixing up which topic you’re in. This is about the UK Ofcom Online Safety Act. If we do not comply we face serious fines and the potential removal of our service from the UK.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer
You would be one-hundred percent correct in your assumption. I apologize. I saw you posting the UK link but felt as if it had no place for me to look at as I am in the US. I saw the first post posting a petition and thought you and he were just posting links to discuss a UK petition for the government to step in like the 2 US ones I signed, and didn't realize it was VERSUS the government. Wow, so it effects me even though I'm not there. This BS has escalated way beyond what our news and media have been covering. Man, I knew you were in a tough spot, but the fact of the matter is way beyond what I thought; especially after reading the post below by another user detailing the rules stating even mentioning eating disorders is a violation. This entire world is F-ed due to people with money trying to press their views on those without. Just because they want to shelter topics that are negative will not make them go away, it just builds weaker people and less awareness, making for more easily offended people and worse issues because people don't know how to cope with the things that are no longer discussed.
Edit: Okay, I just read the link you provided. I have to say I am sick of this sexist BS where everyone only lists females as victims. In this link "Protecting women and girls" or of course because CS is feminist theirs is "objectification of women". That is all I see everywhere in media, and it always enrages me. I'm a guy and got objectified CONSTANTLY in my youth! I've also had someone attempt to rape me when I was in my late twenties. But no one seems to F-ing care about the male population and want to act as if it is EXCLUSIVELY females that have these things happening to them. As if men are the sole villains.
Male assault (that is to say, Males being assaulted by women, or possibly by anyone) is one of, if not *the* most underdiscussed and openly demeaned topics on the planet.
At a certain point regardless, it's not about the topics they claim, they just want to use sympathy for those valid issues, twisted to meet their own purposes - as has always been the case for hundreds of years
As the other poster mentioned, you do region-block queer content as a part of the "adult" content.
It would be helpful to know which tags are affected and to have an official announcement covering it, though I understand that the issue with the payment processors takes priority now and Itch.io does not have enough resources to oppose them openly. Therefore, it is on us as creators and customers to do so and same goes for the OSA for those of us who are in the UK.
Instead of deindexing and/or delisting games outright, I really wish Itch would put an overlay on affected games that describes the reasons for that specific game to be deindexed/delisted. I understand that would require quite a lot of work to implement, but I think it would dispel suspicions of nefarious blocking of LGTBQ+ content.
Given that many people talk about all aspects of LGTBQ+ life as inherently pornographic and harmful to children (e.g. two men kissing eachother), it’s easy for people (including me) to strongly suspect this has and will disproportionately affected LGTBQ+ projects and creators.
In our post here we talk about the criteria used, how developers can check their page’s status, and how they can appeal if they think a restriction has been unfairly applied to their page: https://itch.io/t/5133739/our-update-on-the-uk-online-safety-act
Thank you. This is helpful, especially the tags affected, the Geo-Restrictions tab, and the link to the petition.
I would add that the OSA bans not only porn but also "content that encourages, promotes, or provides instructions for either: self-harm, eating disorders or suicide". How one differentiates between "mentions" and "promotes" is not obvious. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer#types-of-content-the-act-tackles .
While I do hope that this act will be repealed, I believe the users should be ready to work around it in the meantime.
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:
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.
Though I find this amusing and this plan may work in the shorthand, I see this type of passive aggressiveness being more problematic in the long run. For starters, too much harassment in this manner and the companies will most likely just temporarily remove their call centers and force e-mail, which they could just use a filtering system to auto-trash incoming concerns related to the topic. This would also effectively harm the employees who are just trying to do their jobs as they would be laid off with no call centers being active. Arguably, I know people may say 'well the employees are at fault for choosing to work for the companies', and I would agree. But I still feel like it would be unjust, if the entire company isn't going down, to only punish one section that holds no power.
This type of "harassment' is actually what has made these same payment processors backtrack in the past, when they tried to remove sexual content from Only Fans, and at the advent of VHS tapes when a group of religious people attempted to keep pornographic material on VHS out of stores. These people at the time referenced a 1970s movie Caligula, which was basically the movie equivalent of 'no escape' or whatever the rape game they're using now is, as well as an Atari 2600 game called "Custer's Revenge," which wasn't merely a rape game, but also featured racist abuse of Native Americans.
And briefly, Bank of America (who owned Visa back then, that changed in 2008) listened. Suddenly video stores had to close that section or lose the ability to process cards.
Until the fap army was organized by a comedy magazine - specifically, National Lampoon, which once wasn't just a shitty movie mill, but was instead Ivy League mad magazine.
You know what they said? They said "just write a letter to Visa."
They got half a million letters written to Visa saying "dude I'll stop using your card."
It got so bad that the retail company Sears (a large company at the time) decided it was an opportunity, and they started Discover card. A lot of people forget this now, but Discover card's original reason to exist was "we're not going to tell you how to shop. If it's legal, we'll transact it."
Complaining in all forms helps. We have to scare these companies (like Visa) worse than Collective Shout did. They won't try to save 40,000 customers at the expense of two hundred thousand.
Complaining would work, yes, I am not arguing that fact. I strongly support it. I'm saying that most people attempting to occupy phone lines just to cause clutter and chaos would most likely not do so in a way that isn't obviously harassment and would make things worse as it would just be seen as bullying and endanger the livelihood of those just trying to make a living.
The public outcry and fighting back by refusal to use the cards is the underlining point that you mentioned that is what won in the end, nothing else. Boycotting is always the answer. Always. It is the most professional and strong means of obtaining any goal and this is what I have been suggesting to anyone capable of doing so. My bank uses Visa as both credit and bank cards, and I have a large debt I am paying off through them, or trust me, I'd already be refusing to use my card. But that is the main goal here we need to all do as a community; refuse to provide them with an income if possible. They already are taking a large blow financially by refusing to accept payments related to NSFW content, so it would harm them even more and their numbers would drop financially if as many people as possible refused to transfer services using their 'products' (as they word it on their websites when I went to read their policies).
Also, it was nice to see someone who detailed all the things I grew up with lol I was born in the early 80's, and know quite well all the names you dropped and the events. Also, side not about the Discover card is it ultimately failed for a long while because it's policy was no interest, instead charging the company accepting it the interest fees, making most places refuse it. Did not know it was Sears who had created it though. But, I do recall Sears being the K-Mart and Wal-Mart of the 90's. It was the go-to place for everything from professional photography to buying my NES games and school clothes, so that makes sense.
Edit: I'll add Collective Shout is just a patsy. If you look into it, you'll see they are a group of ten people with little to almost no funding until the recent random millions donated to them out of nowhere. MasterCard and Visa have done this many times in the past without any organization pressuring them to do so. Do I despise Collective Shout? Absolutely. But there is no way, in my eyes anyway, that they are the reason two card companies would risk billions of dollars by shutting out the adult industry as a steady source of revenue all for a handful of people. There is definitely a lot more to it than just a few feminazis playing Karen on the interwebs. I don't believe anyone pressured them to attempt to shut down Manga Library Z when they did, for example.
Boycotting?
You want to boycott "using money on the internet?"
The opponent here is an effective monopoly, they control the majority of payment processing. You cannot boycott without abstaining from the modern world.
This is the same nonsense as trying to boycott ISPs, Cell Providers, or Insurance Companies.
Sure, you technically CAN by abstaining from society, but can you REALLY expect someone to abstain from society.
Visa and Mastercard are not the only credit cards out there, or the only ways of transferring funds. Also, they are not a monopoly. They aren't even a trust. To be a monopoly the entire infrastructure would have to be owned by just one company. To be a trust it would have to be run by multiple companies partnering. But as I said, Visa and Mastercard are only two of many such entities, which makes them neither. Monopolies are illegal here in the states. If they were a monopoly, they wouldn't be allowed to exist. The problem is that they AREN'T a monopoly as it means they aren't under the scrutiny of the government as they should be regardless.
Haha, you sweet summer child. "Monopolies are illegal here in the united states"
I have 3 options for internet service provider in my area. All 3 are owned by comcast.
Not only is that a monopoly, it's a government enforced monopoly because it is illegal for someone to make an ISP without government permission.
Additionally, simply because these 2 companies are owned by different entities does not suddenly make the monopolistic business they do disappear. They clearly collude, when one raises rates, the other does too. When one decides to go on a random censorship crusade, the other one does too.
Laws are only as useful as they are willing to be enforced, and the US government is not interested in enforcing its laws against billionaires, only peasants.
Here's another example, a year ago or so, every single US Cellular provider was caught illegally selling user data, estimated to be billions of dollars in profit. The largest fine that was given out was a percent of that. Imagine being allowed to steal 1 billion dollars, and the "penalty" for stealing 1 billion dollars was paying government officials 0.01% of the money you stole. This is how our government works now. This is how laws are enforced.
"Laws are for thee and not for me" is the motto of corporate america.
Actually, about Comcast, you are mistaken. The reason it appears as a monoply for you is because you are not a large business. If you check your area's sources depe enough, you'll find that you actually could get a different provider if you were a large business. Because it counts as having two opposing companies as an option in the same area, even if one is inaccessable to the average person, it is allowed. It is a stupid BS clause, and I found out about it dealing with exactly what you said when I lived in Florida and was only offered Bright House. Apparently, Verizon existed for corporations in the area, such as Wal-Mart.
And again, you appear to not know what a 'trust' is. The collusion you described would be a perfect description of one such trust. However, as they are only two of many card companies, it is not a monopoly or a trust. If you wish to insult me by talking down to me and calling me a child, at least do your research first and look like you know what you are talking about.