WE DO NOT ACCEPT | Stopping Payment Processors and the End of Freedom (VL) - Virtual Legality

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:14):
Hello, and welcome to another episode ofvirtual legality.
I'm your host, Richard Hoag, managing member ofthe Hoag Law Business Law Firm of North Hill,
Michigan.
And I am here today with a special episode ofvirtual legality and one in which I think we
are going to talk about perhaps the mostimportant topic that I have ever discussed on
this channel or in this show.
As such, I have a special favor to request.

(00:36):
If you enjoy this conversation at all, if youhave your own thoughts on this conversation,
please do leave a comment to this YouTubevideo.
There's a number of topics we're going todiscuss that I have a feeling are not going to
be thought kindly of by the algorithm that runsYouTube.
If you're listening to this in podcast form,please leave a comment or review or otherwise.
I think this is an important conversation tohave, And the more people that can see this,

(00:58):
that can talk about it, that can think aboutit, the better.
But I do fear that because of the topics thatwe're about to discuss, all of the robot
overlords that we otherwise interact with on adaily basis are not gonna so much care for this
particular video.
So if you could do that for me, I would reallyappreciate it.
Now that said, we have to talk about censorshipand not censorship from a government, the

(01:19):
spirit of censorship.
We're gonna talk about a third party coming inand changing what two consenting entities and
individuals wish to do with the transactionsand the money that they have earned or want to
spend.
And as part of that conversation, we're gonnatalk about some pretty gnarly topics and that's
how censorship gets you, to be frank.
Before we even get into the subject matterhere, censors operate on the premise that

(01:44):
you're not going to be willing to defend thatstuff that you find, for lack of a better word,
icky.
That society's disfavored are gonna continue tobe disfavored, and you're gonna allow for that
because you frankly disfavored them yourself.
And that's totally understandable.
But the stuff that they come for first is oftenonly the first thing that they wind up going

(02:04):
after.
Let's talk about it.
Steam now bans games that violate the rules andstandards of payment processors and banks.
This is primarily impacted titles with adultcontent.
And this is an article from Engadget.
We're not gonna go over every possible articlethat you could read on this subject.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of them.
So if you're interested in this, please do gosearch out this information for yourself.

(02:27):
I don't wanna be the final arbiter of what'simportant about this story for you, but these
are the articles and items that I found that Iwas interested in that I think outline what's
happening here.
Steam has added a new rule to its guidelinesthat has resulted in certain games getting
banned according to a report by Automaton.
The new clause states that content that mayviolate the rules and standards set forth by

(02:49):
Steam's payment processors and related cardnetworks and banks or Internet network
providers is not allowed and could result inremoval from the platform.
And we're gonna look at the primary sourcematerial here.
We're gonna look at that rule and my issueswith it as a lawyer in just a minute.
But continuing with this article, In otherwords, if credit card companies get mad about
something, they could actually have the powerto ban a game.

(03:11):
And that seems a little bit overly general inthis article, but I think it is apt.
If you wanna be concerned about this topic,what you should be concerned about is not
specifically the games and content we are aboutto talk about right now, but what it means when
you have a rule in place like the one we'reabout to see when you have platforms like Steam
capitulating to third parties like creditproviders and what it means for the content,

(03:35):
the art, the expression that you can otherwiseconsume or that you can even see on a platform
like that one.
The clause goes on to say that this will affectcertain kinds of adult only content.
So Valve and Gabe Newell hope.
This has likely already resulted in many gamesbeing pulled off the platform.
The vast majority of these titles have obvioussexual themes and many have the word incest in
the title.

(03:55):
Hello YouTube.
I'm sure you're happy with me saying that word.
We're gonna look at that database entry in justa minute.
This move might sound unusual on its face, butpayment processors have consistently fought
against being used to purchase adult content.
These battles are typically instigated on thenotion that adults only platforms don't have
enough safeguards in place against illegalcontent.
Now that's important.
That second sentence is an important part ofthis conversation because even the payment

(04:19):
processors, the Visas, the Mastercards of theworld know that they don't have the authority
to just go force people to do what they want interms of content unless they can leverage it in
some way.
And the leverage here is the notion that theseplatforms can't have illegal content on them.
They're not allowed to do that or they will getin trouble with the governmental authorities.
And so these payment processors can at leasthang their hat on the hook that, okay, what we

(04:43):
really have an issue with is not the contentitself.
We're not that tyrannical.
We're not that authoritarian.
But we have an issue with the fact that wedon't think your process is good enough to
identify all the illegal content that youprobably have on your platform.
So that's part of how this conversation usuallygoes.
That does not appear to be what's happeninghere.
This is a step further than what we have seenin the recent past, and that's why it's worthy

(05:06):
of conversation and why I'm so adamant aboutthis topic today.
MasterCard MasterCard and Visa blocked the useof their cards on Pornhub in 2020.
Mastercard went a step further in 2021, addinglanguage to its specialty merchant registration
requirements that announced banks that connectmerchants to our network will need to certify
that the seller of adult content has effectivecontrols in place to monitor, block, and where

(05:30):
necessary, take down all illegal content.
I doubt you'll find too many people upset thatgames with titles like Sex Adventures Incest
Family were removed from the platform, says thedisengadget author, but it could set a
potentially troubling precedent.
Some Steam users are upset with this rulechange on the grounds that it creates the quiet
normalization of financial censorship.

(05:50):
Indeed, it does.
In other words, if gigantic financialinstitutions get to decide what is appropriate
and what is not, who is to say it won'teventually impact regular games?
Now that's a perfectly apt question, and Iunderstand why it's framed this way, but I
would caution anyone reading this article orlooking at this topic in general to separate
out regular games and not regular games on thisissue.

(06:14):
One thing to note, and we'll get to it when welook at the Steam rules in particular, is that
Steam and every other platform that operates inthe West already outlaws the contributions that
are illegal under whatever jurisdiction they'reoperating in.
Right?
That's how you have to operate as a citizen ofwhatever jurisdiction you find yourself in.
So Steam already says you will not uploadthings that are illegal.

(06:35):
You promise that you won't upload things thatare illegal.
Yes.
They will have processes in place on thebackground to check for what's illegal on the
premise that people do occasionally lie whenthey sign those certifications.
But understand that this is an additional ruleto what is already banned from platforms like
Steam.
You can't upload things that are illegal.
So we're capturing something that is alreadyallowed in whatever jurisdiction and whatever

(06:58):
country society we're talking about.
One Steam user notes that queer content getsflagged as explicit even when it's PG, which is
a sentiment echoed by others.
One user says this move looks innocuous atfirst glance, but it's a Trojan horse.
And by the time we get to the end of thisvideo, I think you will understand why I say
this, but the very first thing I wouldrecommend to anyone following this story,

(07:18):
whether it's with me or elsewhere, is that youdon't look at something like this, censorship
by a third party as something innocuous on itsface.
Even if you think that the games that we'regonna look at here are not worthy of your
protection, you have to understand that theconcept of third party censorship of forcing
Steam, a platform that is otherwise willing tosell something, to not sell something that is

(07:41):
otherwise legal in the area in which they'reoperating, to not sell it because you don't
like it as the payment processor or as we willsee an advocacy group behind the payment
processors move in this particular respect,that that's not an acceptable way to live in a
modern western democratic society.
On the flip side, says Engadget, Steam has beenhome to some truly foul content over the years.

(08:03):
We've reached out to Valve to ask for a commenton this news and we'll update this post when we
hear back.
And we will get there in just a minute, Ipromise.
Steam database, which apparently keeps track ofall the movements in and out of Steam, which I
think is almost impossible because there are somany games moving in and out of Steam in any
given time, pointed this out when it happened.
This was what was referred to in that articlewe just looked at.
Steam has added a new rule disallowing gamesthat violate the rules and standards set forth

(08:27):
by payment processors and card networks orInternet network providers.
At the same time, many incest themed games wereremoved from the store, and then they show all
these removals.
And I can't promise you this folks, but I'mpretty sure I have not personally bought any of
these games, and yet I am still very passionateabout fighting for freedom of expression and

(08:48):
against actions like this.
If Steam wants to make a rule that says thesethings are unacceptable to us and we don't
wanna sell them, they're a private company thatis fully within their rights.
But by the time they are getting forced on thisparticular issue by what amounts to an
infrastructure company that dominates themovement of money that you've otherwise earned
to pay for things that you want to buy acrossbanks, then I've got an issue with them being

(09:11):
forced in this particular way.
And no, this is not a defensive steam.
I find their actions here to be very weak.
But if we look at the statements that they'regoing to make, and we will in just a minute,
then we will see that they're mostly afraid oflosing all their money.
Right?
They've built all this platform out, but ifnobody can pay them money for the content that
they would otherwise provide, then that's goingto scuttle their business even if they would

(09:34):
otherwise not have it scuttled.
So I understand the leverage that Visa,Mastercard, or other payment processors have
over a platform like Steam.
I would sit here and say, you've got to getstrong.
You've got to look at this and say, if we givean inch here, if we allow our payment
processors, an infrastructure component of whatwe are doing here to say what it is we are

(09:57):
allowed and not allowed to sell, then there isno reasonable rubric.
There's no reasonable rule we can put in placethat stops them at a given line from telling us
everything that we can and can't do.
So if we wanna have a platform at all, we haveto hold our ground at some point.
We have to do it now.
And Steam hasn't done that.
We will see in a moment that itch.io hasn'tdone that.

(10:20):
If we want to stop this kind of censorship, ifwe wanna stop payment processors, financial
institutions, credit card companies fromcontrolling what it is we can see, what we can
think, what we can read, what we can play, thenwe have to start with these kinds of games,
these kinds of moves because otherwise it'll betoo late.

(10:40):
Continuing on, I would point out that one ofthe most famous movies of all time in Chinatown
has a very significant incest based componentand no one yet has tried to strike that down,
but I use it as an example for what we used toknow as a society was allowed in our fiction to
say, hey, that's an interesting dramatic point.

(11:01):
That's a story we can tell and not otherwisethink that it's endorsement or otherwise
causing damage to the world if you're Visa orMastercard.
But I bring that up here only to point out thatthere are a lot of things that happen in
fiction that we don't necessarily wanthappening in society, but we also don't want to
ban everybody from reading, watching, orplaying those things, especially solely on the

(11:25):
ambit of the people that are ostensibly justtrying to move money from bank to bank.
Now looking at that Steamworks documentation asI promised earlier in this episode, we can
scroll down and see what onboarding yourproduct on a steam looks like, what rules they
give you for what is and isn't allowed.
You can't include hate speech.
You can include nude or sexually explicitimages of real people, adult content that isn't

(11:49):
appropriately labeled or age gated, libelous ordefamatory statements, content that you don't
own or have adequate rights to, content thatviolates the laws of any jurisdiction in which
it will be available, content that is patentlyoffensive or intended to shock or disgust
viewers, content that exploits children in anyway.
And a lot of these rules already double up onthat number six that's on your screen right

(12:10):
now, content that violates the laws of anyjurisdiction in which it will be available.
Now that's already a problematic bit bit oflegal language because if I'm making a game and
I'm making it available in The United Statesthrough Steam you tell me, oh, well, China has
a problem with it, and so I'm gonna kick it offof Steam.
That's not the greatest thing for me to have todeal with.
I don't know what the laws are in everyjurisdiction on Earth.

(12:30):
In fact, don't think any lawyer does.
And so that's probably an unreasonable request,but not nearly as unreasonable as the new
number 15, content that may violate the rulesand standards set forth by Steam's payment
processors and related card networks and banksor Internet network providers.
In particular, certain kinds of adult onlycontent.
Now Steam doesn't write their documentationlike lawyers.

(12:53):
They never have.
That's a part of the software industry on thewhole.
They try to write things in what they callplain English, but it does mean that you
introduce ambiguities.
It does mean that you're not as precise as alawyer drafting these things would otherwise
be.
So like this second sentence, in particularcertain kinds of adult only content, really
doesn't matter for what the actual restrictionis.

(13:13):
It's just included seemingly as an aside, butthis restriction in 15 could capture anything
at all.
It doesn't reasonably stop at adult content.
If Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, whomever decidedthat they didn't like gays, they didn't like
blacks, they didn't like republicans, whateverit is that they decided and that that goes
against their rules and standards to depictthem in any way, there is nothing in this

(13:36):
provision that restricts their ability to banthose games or otherwise ask for their removal
only to quote unquote certain kinds of adultonly content.
So that's the first thing I note here.
The second thing I note is that content thatmay violate the rules and standards is a
different kind of concept than as we see innumber six, content that violates the laws.

(13:56):
Right?
It's not content that may violate the laws,it's content that violates the laws.
The provision in 15 should probably be writtenas content that actually violates the rules and
standards set by their payment processors andrelated everything else, but it doesn't.
It says content that may violate those things.
So one, it's inclusive of things that may noteven violate it as long as they may violate it.

(14:18):
And it's determined presumably by the paymentprocessors themselves who I don't have access
to or optics on.
And it's on standards and rules that don'tappear to have been provided to me in any way.
Presumably, Visa, Mastercard, and the otherpayment processors are not providing those
standards and rules to Steam in general.
And so if they're not doing that, then Steamcan't pass them along to their clients, the

(14:40):
people that put content and games on theirplatform.
So we have like five different layers ofambiguity here, that result in a person making
content, making a game to put on the Steamplatform so that they can make money, they can
feed their family, whatever else that they'redoing.
And they don't even know what they're agreeingto here because they don't have these standards

(15:01):
and rules to actually bounce off of in anyevent.
So it's now sending content into the darkness.
Valve presumably put this rule in place on therequest of one or more of the payment
processors at the heart of this particularcontroversy, but it provides absolutely no
solace or understanding, no meeting of theminds as to what this term might even mean as

(15:21):
between Valve and the people that are makingtheir content.
So this is a legal train wreck.
This is a legal car crash, however you want toframe it in your mind as it stands just as
written.
And that's before we even get to more of theproblems as we go into this story.
Continuing on, Valve confirms the credit cardcompanies pressured it to delist certain adult
games from Steam.

(15:42):
It's not a great precedent, that's for sure,says PC Gamer.
We were recently notified that certain games onSteam may violate the rules and standards set
forth by our payment processors and the relatedcard networks and banks, said Valve.
As a result, we are retiring those games frombeing sold on the Steam store.
Valve is reaching out to devs impacted by thechange and issuing app credits should they have

(16:03):
another game they'd like to distribute on Steamin the future.
So Steam takes a bit of money, a small amountof money in payment for actually putting the
game on their platform.
So if you get delisted after that's been paid,that's essentially been lost.
They're not refunding that money as best I cantell here.
They're issuing a credit like you get if yourplane is delayed and you wanna get to wherever

(16:23):
it is that you're going and you get a creditthat may or may not be sufficient to actually
get you to your destination.
This is one of those situations where thecompany is keeping your money, keeping your
cash that it can spend on other things,offering you a credit and not otherwise helping
you out in the future.
Now that's better than nothing to Valve'scredit there, but it's not as good as a refund
of the money that was spent on actually gettinglisted on the store.

(16:44):
So just getting delisted randomly for nothingthat you actually did wrong because that rule
that we just read was only put in place as aresult of this story.
That's that's a problem if I'm a video gamecreator and I'm trying to put something on one
of these platforms.
PC gamer continues, to be fair to the housethat Gabe Newell built, Steam, I don't think it
has much of a choice.
Now that's not true, but we'll talk about thatin just a minute.

(17:06):
Valve explicitly said that it was removing theoffending games because loss of payment methods
would prevent customers from being able topurchase other titles and game content on
Steam.
Now that's the framing device that Valve andSteam has used here.
Hey, you won't be able to buy games from us ifwe can't support any of the credit card
processing payments through our system.
And so in order to make sure that you cancontinue to buy things from us, we're the good

(17:29):
guys.
We're gonna get rid of these games that theydon't otherwise like.
But it's not too far afield to suggest thatwhat Steam is really concerned about is if you
can't buy the games from them, they can't getthe money from you.
Right?
So they're saying, okay, we'll get rid ofthese.
I think it's about 500 games because we wannamake sure that we can continue to get money
from you.
But Steam is a giant entity and Valve is agiant corporation in this space.

(17:53):
One of the reasons this story is so interestingis because usually you see something like this
go up through the smaller platforms, throughthe smaller companies until they get to the
really big fish.
Here the story actually begins with the bigfish.
Steam is the biggest fish in the PC gamingmarket and you would expect Steam to have the
strongest backbone on a question like this.

(18:13):
Look, alright, payment processors.
You're really gonna kick us out, if you're notgonna process any of these payments, that's a
huge amount of money for you paymentprocessors.
They take a cut out of every transaction theyhelp facilitate, and so you have to get rid of
that off your bottom line and we'll figure outa way around this.
If we're Steam, we'll figure out a way to havea secondary marketplace where we only sell gift
card bucks and that you can't otherwise lookthrough and figure out what those gift card

(18:37):
bucks are being spent on.
We'll sell those gift card bucks, we'll makeour own financial system, and we'll make all
the money.
We'll do even better because we're not payingcredit card or processing fees at all, and you
guys can go take a walk off a short pier.
Steam didn't do that.
Steam said, nope.
Alright.
We'll capitulate on this.
And that's one of the areas where I think thisstory is not being discussed enough.

(18:57):
The platforms are in by far the best positionto fight this entire endeavor and Steam bending
the knee, Steam yielding the ground, whateveryou want to frame that particular metaphor as
is going to speak to the other platforms thatdon't have nearly the leverage or power of
Steam and Valve.
And so they have done everything but lead onthis enormously important question of freedom

(19:22):
of expression, what art means, what peopleshould have the access to either in their
gaming, their video, their reading orotherwise.
And by capitulating in this way, they've done agreat disservice to everyone that believes in
that freedom of expression.
And I think that's all I wanted to pull fromthis particular PC gamer article except to note
that this quote here that has Valve talkingabout payment methods being lost isn't

(19:46):
otherwise sourced in the article.
I hate it when authors do that.
I was able to find it on a article from PCGuide which links to another article because
this is the way these things sometimes go onthe Internet to a source called Gaming on
Linux.
I wasn't able to get that particular linkprovided in this article to actually show this

(20:07):
quote.
So we're a couple of steps removed fromactually seeing Valve make this statement, but
there's no real reason to believe that theydidn't express this thought.
So we're gonna continue to say it here.
It's reported on in a number of places.
We were recently notified that certain gamesmay violate the rules and standards set forth
by our payment processors and their relatedcard networks and banks.
As a result, we were retiring those games frombeing sold in the Steam store.

(20:28):
We are directly notifying developers of thesegames and issuing app credits should they have
another game they'd like to distribute on Steamin the future.
And if I were those developers, I would be verycautious about wanting to distribute on that
platform at all except that if you wanna make aPC game available to the biggest audience,
you're gonna use Steam.
And I think Steam knows that so they can dosomething like this to developers that they
otherwise think of themselves as quote unquotedisfavored.

(20:51):
And so this is gonna be okay for them, but itshows a tremendous lack of backbone from Steam
because you do not give an inch like this andnot expect to ultimately give a mile, which is
in fact what we see as part of this story.
That's the Steam part so far.
But as we see from Nicole Carpenter at StevenTotillo's Game File, which is one of my

(21:12):
favorite sources right now for quote unquoteserious or hard games journalism at this point,
crackdown on sex video games goes wide,alarming developers and impacting award winning
titles.
Thousands of NSFW, not safe for work games,currently can't be found when searching the
popular itch.
Marketplace.

(21:32):
And if I pronounce it as itche0 at some point,that's how I think of it in my head.
So I apologize for anybody that uses thatplatform.
That's not where I regularly go to game.
But I believe they prefer itch.io.
I will try to say that as much as I can.
Thousands of games labeled not safe for work nolonger show up in the search results for two of
the biggest online marketplaces for PC gamesfollowing a crackdown that ostensibly involved

(21:54):
hundreds of games featuring rape, incest, andchild sex abuse on Steam.
And yes, YouTube is just gonna love this video,you can already tell.
But the mass de indexing of thousands of gamesand other pieces of media has had a broader, if
potentially temporary impact censoring anygames flagged as having sensitive content.
Some of those games are indie award winners.
Now I understand the framing device of thisarticle.

(22:15):
Look, it is very hard to defend the long listof sex family incest titles that are on that
Steam database.
I get that.
That is how censorship works.
So you take an article like this and you try toframe it as but it captured some other more
important, more regular, more normal games inthe maelstrom of removals here and so care
about that one.

(22:36):
What I would tell my viewers, my listeners herein virtual reality is to try to avoid that
distinction in your own head.
This is not about regular, not regular.
This is not about, what is beyond the pale andwhat is acceptable and, oh, no, the critically
acclaimed game has been sucked into thisparticular maelstrom.
It is about censorship.
It is about the fact that someone outside ofthe people that are otherwise trying to make

(22:59):
content available wants to say that shouldn'tbe allowed, but they are not the government.
They are not elected to anything, and thatshould be looked very much askance, very
circumspectly, very cautiously by anybody thatis reading this story.
So we're gonna hear a good story about how acritically acclaimed game got sucked into this.
That's fine.
That's bad.

(23:19):
But that should not be the only impetus behindbeing concerned about this particular set of
events.
The crackdown on sex related games beganearlier this month with mass delistings of
games on Valve's Steam marketplace.
A purge of another sort began early Thursday afew days ago now as game distribution platform
itch.io, which is largely focused on indiecreators, suddenly pulled all adult and not

(23:41):
safe for work content from its search andbrowse pages.
The games are there mostly, just not findablevia search, which is the equivalent of being
dead.
In its efforts to assess its content, itch.iohas seemingly pulled any content marked as
sensitive, including independent gamesfestivals awards, Seamus McNally grand prize,
and Nuovo award winner, Consume Me, fromdevelopers Jenny, Jiao, Hissia and AP Thompson

(24:04):
or Thompson is probably more likely there.
I apologize for any mispronunciations there.
Consume Me is a personal game about disorderedeating and diet culture.
And Hissia said she's not even sure if shetagged the game as sensitive.
The demo has been up on itch.io since 2018.
Yes.
I believe I saw it on a day of the devs.
There's nothing that would earn it a maturecontent rating.
What's unclear is how long it'll take toreturn.

(24:25):
If it isn't reindexed by our launch date ofSeptember 25, then we probably won't launch on
itch.
Game makers on itch.
Began to realize on Wednesday that theircontent was being shadow banned or de indexed
from the digital marketplace.
And on Thursday, the itch.
Founder said in a statement that the platformtook the sudden and disruptive action of de
indexing all adult games and removing others toprotect the platform's core payment

(24:48):
infrastructure.
So the very same thing that we saw Steam say orat least that it's reported that Steam said,
which is we need to make sure that people canstill buy things from this platform.
But this is a bigger story than all of that.
The calling of not safe for work content onitch.io has been deep.
On July 16, there were 28,144 games in the notsafe for work category page on itch.

(25:12):
Now only 5,979 appear, and it's not clear whythese games remain despite being listed on the
n s of the NSFW category page.
Earlier this month, 7,167 games on itch weretagged NSFW.
Now only two such games can be found.
The majority of games impacted by itch.io's newpolicy are still available to access and

(25:32):
purchase, but don't show up during searches.
And we're gonna look at the itch.i0 statementas part of this in just a second.
As with Valve Software's recent removal ofseveral games with sexual content from its
Steam platform, itch.io was targeted byCollective Shout.
And keep that name in mind, we're gonna get tothat towards the tail end of this video.
You better believe we are.

(25:53):
An Australian group that describes itself as agrassroots campaign movement against the
objectification of women and the sexualizationof girls, and that calls for censorship of what
it deems to be pornographic.
And that what it deems to be is so important aspart of this conversation.
Right?
We are talking about a group of people that areself selected and determining of their own

(26:14):
accord what is in is and is not acceptable foryou or I to consume or observe.
That's the core of this conversation.
This is not an electric group.
These are not government officials of any kind.
These are people that apparently are fromAustralia that have decided that they are going
to change the culture of Earth and they'regonna do it by convincing Visa, Mastercard, and

(26:35):
other payment processors that they should pullback their processing services when there's
something that this particular group doesn'tlike available on those platforms.
Regardless, again, of whether or not what we'retalking about is legal because places like
Steam already have bans on what is illegal thatyou can't put that content on their platform.
The group has claimed responsibility for actslike Target and Kmart pulling the popular Grand

(26:59):
Theft Auto five from their Australian storesand getting musician Tyler, the creator's
Australian tour canceled.
Tyler the creator probably, probably one name.
Don't know his music, so I apologize there.
In April, Collective Shout aimed its efforts atvalvinitch.io to get a game called No Mercy
removed from sale.
Its creator said the game is about maledomination and allows the players to have sex

(27:20):
with any woman, including her mother and otherfamily members whether she wants to or not.
No Mercy, as described, is on the extreme endof the spectrum and was indeed pulled from all
storefronts.
Now, Ms.
Carpenter, the author of this article, is doinga really good job putting the right language in
place to suggest what she knows and what shedoesn't know here.
Right?
This is she takes the no mercy description fromwhat she could find from Collective Shout and

(27:42):
says, as described, this is on the far end ofthe spectrum.
Other language that she uses is talks about thethings that she can convey properly that she
has actual knowledge of and what she can't.
This is one of the reasons I like Theme Filesso much is that they take the effort to
actually make sure that they aren't juststoking the fires of Internet outrage and do a
better job than most of conveying what'sactually happened to you as you read it.

(28:05):
So I give full endorsement to Gamefile.
If you're interested, it's a substack.
Steven Dortilla, formerly of Kotaku, formerlyof MTV Gaming, runs it.
I think he may have mentioned virtual realityin one or more of them in the past.
I'm not positive of that, but this is not afunded endorsement.
I just really like their content, so check itout when you get the chance.
This continues to talk about on July 11,Collective Shout announced it had sent an open

(28:27):
letter to a group of CEOs at six digitalpayment processors, including PayPal and
Mastercard, urging them to block paymentprocessing for both Steam, itch.io, and any
other platforms hosting similar games.
The group wrote, we do not see how facilitatingpayment transactions and deriving financial
benefit from those violent and unethical gamesis consistent with your corporate values and

(28:47):
mission statements.
And we're gonna look at that letter in fulltowards the tail end of this video.
Payment processors have power over the peopleand companies who rely on them.
If Mastercard or PayPal were to revoke accessto Steam or itch.io, the platform's whole
payment infrastructure would collapse.
These platforms need a payment processor forusers to buy things.
Neither the platform holder nor the gamedeveloper make any money if access is revoked.

(29:10):
We're gonna talk about the function of apayment processor again as part of this video
because I think that's really important tounderstanding what it is they do, what it is
they're supposed to do, and what it is they'renot supposed to do, such as judging what the
money is spent on.
So we'll talk about that.
I promise.
On July 18, Valve confirmed to PC gamer that ithad been recently notified that certain games
on Steam may violate the rules and standardsset forth by our payment processors and the

(29:32):
related card networks and banks.
Note, by the way, as part of the statement, andI should have mentioned this earlier, that
Valve is using the same language that theyactually just put into their rules for content
providers on their platform.
They have been notified that certain games mayviolate the rules and standards.
So it appears that Valve is doing this withoutdirect understanding that the actual games at
issue here do violate those rules andstandards.

(29:54):
Just a statement presumably from one or more ofthe payment processors that said they may
because nobody's going through any kind of dueprocess here to actually establish what is what
is in and what is not in these games.
By July 19, Collective Shout had claimed thewin after dozens of gamers games were removed.
Valve also quietly added a clause to itspolicies that we went over at the top of this

(30:14):
video.
While most impacted games on itch.io are stillthere, just not searchable, some have been
removed from the site.
And then they go over some of the summarieshere.
I will link these articles in the podcastdescription to this video so you can check
those out for yourself.
But that's the situation with itch withitch.io, and they made their own statement much
more publicly than Steam actually did.

(30:35):
We have de indexed says itch.all adult not safefor work content from our browse and search
pages.
We understand this action is sudden anddisruptive and we are truly sorry for the
frustration and confusion caused by thischange.
Recently, we came under scrutiny from ourpayment processors regarding the nature of some
content hosted on itch.io.
Due to a game called No Mercy, which wastemporarily available on itch.i0 before being

(30:58):
banned in in April, the organization CollectiveShout launched a campaign against Steam and
itch.
Directing concerns to our payment processorsabout the nature of certain content found on
both platforms.
So two things here just from the early bits ofthis statement.
One, you can see what I'm concerned about as alawyer, and an advocate for the justice system

(31:19):
and government and civics in general, certainlyin The United States, if not everywhere, that
Collective Shout launched this campaign todirect concerns to payment processors and not
to go through what normal advocacy groups woulddo in this context, which is go and seek
advocacy from their representatives, go througha governmental process, actually go to those
elected to govern these particular issues bythe people of those jurisdictions to make

(31:43):
policy decisions of this type.
Instead, collective shout said, we are themakers of policy.
We can decide what is allowed and not allowed,what should be acceptable, and we can take this
key pin, this key linchpin of theinfrastructure of digital platforms like Steam
and itch.io and tell that linchpin that we havethis problem and we're gonna make it public.

(32:04):
We're gonna do all these bad things to you ifyou don't otherwise facilitate what it is that
we want to see happen.
Collective shout does this.
They do it for no mercy to begin with and thatis in fact the slippery slope that leads us
here to July 2025.
But there is no indication, there's no reasonto believe that that slope is otherwise going
to end just with these removals just in July.

(32:29):
Itch.i0 continues.
Our ability to process payments is critical forevery creator on our platform.
To ensure that we can continue to operate andprovide a marketplace for all developers, we
must prioritize our relationship with ourpayment partners and take immediate steps
towards compliance.
And again, this is the same concept that Steamand Valve put out there, which is that we wanna
make sure that we can still allow you to buythe other games that you otherwise want.

(32:52):
These things are probably not high volume onthese platforms in any event.
But again, it's very self serving.
Right?
This is a sign of weakness of the platform, notstrength.
They're trying to say, we're helping you, thecustomer, make sure that you can buy the things
you wanna buy.
But realistically, they are saying we need tomake sure that we can have a digital pipeline
of money or else we're not gonna be able tofunction as a platform same as Steam did.

(33:14):
But one thing I would impart on you if you'rewatching this or you're listening to it is that
as a consumer, we should take the steps to talkto these platforms to say, hey, look, we
understand the situation.
If you wind up getting Mastercard, PayPal,Visa, whatever it is, stripped from our ability
to pay you in that function, Let's figure out away whether it's bubble gum or bailing wire to

(33:37):
get you a financial infrastructure to get youmoney.
We would much rather support a platform that isgoing to defend our right to play what we wanna
play, to defend the freedom of expression overall of these people that are making those
things.
And we would not like to see whatever it isthat you are really concerned about, whether
it's Grand Theft Auto, Detroit Become Human,some other games that have popped up as part of

(34:00):
this particular story, Baldur's Gate three.
And we wanna make sure that we can still accessthose things.
Let's figure this thing out together.
Let's not negotiate with these people becausethis is no way at all to run a railroad.
This is a time critical for itch.io.
The the situation developed rapidly and we hadto act urgently to protect the platform's core
payment and infrastructure.

(34:21):
Unfortunately, this meant it was not realisticto provide creators with advanced notice before
making this change.
We know this is not ideal and we apologize forthe abruptness of this change.
So behind the scenes, one thing I can see fromthis statement is that whatever payment
processor is working behind the scenes on this,whether it's Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, or
someone else, they are working with substantialleverage.

(34:42):
They are pressuring these platforms to act withhaste regardless of how that might
deleteriously affect the contractualrelationships they have with their own client
base, the people that make content for theirplatform.
And that leverage is sufficient enough for bothSteam, the big dog, and itch dot the smaller
dog, to say yes, we'll capitulate to thatrequest.

(35:04):
And that's a problem.
Right?
When we talk about the power that thesecorporations have, we usually think about it as
a consumer facing power.
This is business to business, but it is a powerthat is self evidently very substantial and is
driving these platforms to make concessionsthat they otherwise do not appear to want to
make.
Right?
Both of the statements from Steam and itch.
Certainly evidence a kind of frustration thatthey're having to do this at all.

(35:28):
They know this doesn't reflect well on them.
They know this does not help them with therelationships they have with their content
creators, but they say this is a time this is atime critical moment.
We are currently conducting a comprehensiveaudit of content to ensure we can meet the
requirements of our payment processors.
Pages will remain de indexed as we complete ourreview.

(35:48):
Once this review is complete, we will introducenew compliance measures.
For not safe for work pages, this will includea new step where creators must confirm that
their content is allowable under the policiesof the respective payment processors linked to
their account.
Now at least the itch.
Says, at least in reading this, that they willlink whatever policies, procedures, standards,
and rules these payment processors are talkingabout to the request for confirmation.

(36:12):
Otherwise, you just have to confirm into thevoid.
Steam is asking you to confirm into the voidthe entire time, saying you promised that what
you uploaded will not, may not violate thestandards and rules put forth by these payment
processors.
No.
We're not gonna tell you what those standardsand rules are.
Yes.
Those standards and rules might change on thefly behind the scenes.
You still won't know what they are, but you'regonna promise to us that what you are making

(36:33):
may not violate them, which is almostimpossible as a human being to actually make
that certification.
But if you want access to our platform, you'regonna make it.
And if there's liability to be affixedsomewhere along the line, you're just gonna
have to be liable for that.
And we're steam and we don't care because we'rebig.
We ask for your patience and understanding aswe navigate this challenging period.
I'm sorry we cannot share more at this time aswe are still getting a full understanding of

(36:54):
the situation ourselves.
We will post a follow-up on our blog if thesituation changes.
And that's itch.io.
Right?
This is Steam.
This is itch.
This is the same kind of story happening inmultiple places here, and yet we aren't seeing
the kind of noise that I would expect to seefrom video gamers and from video gaming outlets
about this particular story.

(37:14):
Yes.
I've seen IGN articles.
I've seen some other places cover it kind ofsuperficially, but this is an existential
threat to video gaming if not to all art on alldigital marketplaces.
There is no reasonable place where this kind ofconcept can stop.
Right?
If you are going to accede to this on thisparticular ground, hey, Visa, Mastercard,
PayPal, whomever doesn't like it, then there isnothing that stops them from not liking the

(37:38):
next thing tomorrow.
And if you are going to accede every time, thenthey're just gonna eat the whole thing.
They're gonna eat the whole platform.
They're gonna eat all art on earth if this ishonestly allowed to continue in this way.
Now, I don't think the platform holders willallow it to continue till the ends of the
earth, but they have not indicated to me as ofyet that they have any backbone to stop any of
this at present.

(37:59):
Now, what are payment processors?
We need to talk about that to understand whatit is that they are doing and what it is that
they shouldn't be doing.
Payment processors is from a website called theretail exec.
What they are, how they work, and top tools.
So this is written as if you are a merchant, asif you're steam.
You are putting together an online e shop ofsome kind and they want you to know what it is

(38:19):
a payment processor even does.
And so we're gonna look at it with that eye.
A payment processor is a service that helpsbusinesses accept and process electronic
payments.
It acts as a conduit, securely transmittingpayment information between the merchants and
customers banks to complete the transactionefficiently.
The payment gateway captures, verifies,encrypts your customer's payment information

(38:40):
before transmitting it to the paymentprocessor.
It bridges the physical gap between your onlinebusiness and your customers, fulfilling the
role of a point of sale system in an in storesetting.
Upon receipt, the payment processor then takesover.
It sends the encrypted data to the financialinstitution for approval.
Then it shuttles the funds safely from yourcustomer's bank or credit card company to your
merchant account.

(39:01):
However, since providers like Stripe and PayPalcan serve as both the payment gateway and
payment processor, things can seem a bitcomplicated to the average e commerce manager
and business owner or the standard averageperson that's looking at these things from
afar.
To help you avoid the confusion, let's breakdown how they're different and they have a nice
table here.
I've given you a quick rundown of how paymentprocessor work, but in this section we're going

(39:23):
to go deeper.
So before we dive into the process, let's takea look at definitions.
The cardholder, your customer who initiates thetransaction.
For us here in virtual reality, that's you andme.
The people with the Visa or the Mastercard.
The merchant, the seller who receives thepayment, Steam, itch.io.
Payment gateway.
In the case of Steam and itch.io, I believeitch.
I don't think I bought anything from them inthe past.

(39:43):
This is where you're inputting your informationinto their website.
They've created a gateway that is going toencrypt that information.
Technology that securely transmits paymentinformation from the customer to the payment
processor.
So you put all that in, it gets sent over tothe payment processor, and the payment
processor is the entity that handles thetransaction data between the merchant and
financial institutions.
It then goes and talks to your bank or the bankthat issued the credit card, and then it gets

(40:06):
authorization to send the money over to themerchant's bank.
The merchant bank authorizes the acceptance ofthe money, etcetera, etcetera.
Step by step payment processing flow, customerinitiates payment, payment gateway encrypts the
data, payment gateway authenticates thepayment, payment processor forwards to the
acquiring bank, acquiring bank communicateswith the card networks, card networks routes to
issuing bank, issuing bank authorized thetransaction, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

(40:27):
All this happens in minutes, if if not lesswhen you hit that button that says you want to
buy something.
In fact, it's to the benefit of the merchant toget that process going as fast as possible.
And what these payment processors are supposedto do is be able to do that quickly,
efficiently, and validly to make sure moneyisn't changing hands in a way that isn't
authorized, by the various parties as part ofthis deal flow.

(40:49):
But what they aren't supposed to do is reallyconsider what it is this money is being spent
to buy.
You don't see any indication here of why themoney is changing hands.
Essentially, you have a credit card that'sissued by JPMorgan Chase, you are saying, okay.
I want to send $60 to this particular merchantand that's all you get to know about it.
Move that $60 that I earned doing my job andotherwise doing the things that I provide value

(41:12):
to society for and you just move it.
That's what you are providing value for and youdon't ask any questions.
This is most commonly thought of as a kind ofcommon carrier type function.
If you aren't familiar with phrase commoncarrier, we're gonna get to that in just a
minute.
But suffice it to say, this is aninfrastructure type function.
This is a utility type function.

(41:33):
We need to move money from bank to bank.
We have a very regulated and enormouslycomplicated industry that has the money in
these various institutions and so we needsomebody to help facilitate those moves.
And you aren't otherwise supposed to be in thebusiness of judging what it is that that
movement is happening for.
And yet Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, other paymentprocessors say, well, we have some thoughts

(41:55):
about what you should be spending your money onand well, I have some thoughts about what they
are thinking on that particular score.
That's what a payment processor is and yetbecause of those regulations in the financial
industry, they have a lot of interest in abunch of other stuff because in The United
States at least, we have a number of rulesabout anti money laundering and other

(42:17):
requirements of banks, financial institutions,and money movers that have to go and look deep
into whether or not money is moving for somekind of illegal purpose.
Right?
So they don't wanna have liability togovernment or otherwise for the money being
used in some form or fashion that would runafoul of these regulations.
And so they can take a deeper interest reallyby law in what this money is being used for,

(42:40):
and that has led to things like this wherePayPal, Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, other payment
processors have their own rules about what itis you can and can't spend your money on.
It's one of the reasons we've seen issues withplaces like Patreon before, and please do
support the channel through Patreon if youstill can by the time this video is actually
uploaded.
But we have seen this in the past that thesepayment processors have decided that their

(43:05):
ability to make sure that things aren'tillegal, that their money is being spent on
means that they have to take a more directedpath to making sure that whatever the merchant
is selling doesn't have any illegal componentswithin it.
And that's kind of a a hook to hang their haton as I used the phrase in the past, but it
really doesn't mean what these paymentprocessors seem to think that it means, which

(43:27):
is that they should put their nose intoeverything anybody anywhere in the world wants
to do with their money.
That's really not what they're designed for andit's really not any effective way for this to
all operate.
Now I did pull up one place where I actuallysaw somebody talking about what these payment
processors were actually acting asking for.
This is a website called sieve.itai, I think.

(43:47):
And so this is a blog post that talks aboutpayment processors saying that you shouldn't
show incest.
We knew that was a flag point based onsteveanditch.io.
Self harm, content that promotes hate, bodilyexcretions, etcetera etcetera, which somebody
in the text that I saw on this particular storyrightly brings up as Death Stranding.

(44:09):
Death Stranding, one of the best games of theyear.
Death Stranding two, one of the best games ofthe year.
Prominently has a urination feature becauseyou're out there in the wild and one of the
things you can do is, urinate in order torelieve yourself out there.
And it's not a button I hit very often, but itis a function in the game.
Is this the kind of thing, that the paymentprocessors would say is not allowed?

(44:29):
Certainly, if somebody were so inclined to pushthe issue with the payment processors, they
might have some success there.
And you might get an article like the one wesaw in Gamefile that talks about this
critically acclaimed game being removed.
But I just want to reiterate that it's notabout the acclaim.
It's not about the artistic validity thatsomebody can appoint to something that says it
should be allowed for people to engage in.

(44:51):
It is the fact that it's happening at all thatis the problem in this particular story.
But that leads us to talking about what reallyneeds to be talked about which is collective
shout.
Or as PC Gamer once again puts it, Australiananti porn group claims responsibility for
Steam's new censorship rules in victoryagainst, quote, porn sick brain rotted Peyto
gamer fetishists, end quote, and things onlyget weirder from there.

(45:18):
This was first reported by Waypoint, which hassince pulled its two articles on the subject
without explanation.
The article's author, Anna Valens, has allegedthat Vice's parent company Savage Ventures
removed the articles due to concerns over theircontroversial content rather than any error in
the reporting.
And this is part of that whole kind of slipperyslope discussion, which is to say Collective
Shout as an organization seems to be veryeffective at using backroom discussions to

(45:42):
indicate that they're gonna cause some majorproblems for whoever speaks negatively about
them or whoever doesn't abide by what it isthat they want to see happen such as these
payment processors.
Collective Shout began in 02/2009, reports PCGamer here.
Co founded in self by self described pro lifefeminist, Melinda Tankard Reist.
Collective Shout describes itself as agrassroots campaigning movement against the

(46:05):
objectification of women and sexualization ofgirls in media, advertising, and popular
culture.
To date, it has been involved in anunsuccessful effort to ban Snoop Dogg and
Eminem from Australia, a successful 2015campaign to prevent Tyler the Creator from
touring Australia, we saw that referencebefore, a successful 2015 campaign to pressure
Target and Kmart to stop selling Grand TheftAuto five in Australia, a petition to ban the

(46:28):
game No Mercy from sale, which ultimately ledto the developers pulling it from Steam and
itch.io.
We saw that in the itch.i0 statement.
An unsuccessful petition to ban Detroit BecomeHuman from sale in Australia.
And it's unclear just from this summary of thecampaigns exactly what issue they had with
each, although we can imagine based on theirspecific issue with sexualization and
objectification of women and young and younggirls.

(46:49):
And while that is something that I think a lotof people can get behind as a concept, I
personally am not a big fan of what I woulddescribe as the coarsening of culture in
various degrees.
I also don't think that I am the right arbiterof what you or anyone else should be allowed to
view, read, play, or what have you.
And so when you look at this, you can agreewith what they're going for if you are so

(47:13):
inclined and still disagree with the methodsthey use to try to get it and with not allowing
others to otherwise have access to art or mediathat you wouldn't otherwise want to have access
to yourself.
The other thing I would point out in thisparticular paragraph is I do note the
description here of pro life feminist is kindof a strange one, and it's a fight that you see

(47:33):
online right now as to whether this group, hasbeen discussed a lot as part of the story, is
in fact a right leaning or left leaning group.
I think that's a red herring.
I think that's a fairly pointless conversationto have.
I think it's designed for outrage bait onlineand in social media circles.
The point here is not that they are rightleaning or left leaning.
They certainly have certain right leaningcharacteristics that we might associate with

(47:56):
things like the Christian right back in theeighties or nineties and trying to squash rap
music and various other things that it lookslike that.
They also have certain characteristics thatthey share with things like Anita Sarkeesian
and her critiques of sexualization in videogames and what should and shouldn't be
happening in video games as an industry.
And so there are right leaning and left leaningcharacteristics of this particular group and

(48:18):
what they're trying to accomplish here.
It's not really about that in my mind.
It's about authoritarianism versus freedom.
It's about tyranny, in this case tyranny of theminority of another country in all likelihood
if you're not listening to this or watchingthis from Australia, against what the majority,
what society has deemed to be allowable, whatis legal in the the way that society functions.

(48:40):
And so this is authoritarians versus freedom,not right versus left.
To me, you can disagree with that.
Again, please leave all the comments you haveto.
Anything I say in this video, YouTube isdefinitely gonna need to know that this is not
just rage bait, that this is not just outrage,and that it shouldn't just shadow ban this
video for all time.
That this is an important conversation thatneeds to be had with more and more people, not
fewer and fewer people.

(49:02):
On July 7, Collective Shout shared an update toits nomercychange.org campaign, calling on
supports to email payment processors to demandthat they cut ties with Steam and itch.i0 over
hundreds of rape, incest, and child abusegames.
This was followed by an open letter fromCollective Shout asking that they immediately
cease processing payments on Steam and itch.i0and any other platforms hosting similar games.

(49:22):
Collective Shout later wrote that a 67individuals called and emailed payment
processors as part of the campaign.
Collective Shout claimed victory the same day.
Since we launched our campaign calling onpayment processors to stop facilitating
payments for rape, incest, sexual torture, andchild abuse themed games on Steam, They've
added a new rule to their policies plus removedhundreds of these games, the group wrote on

(49:43):
Twitter.
And again, I'm entirely in favor of peoplegoing out there and advocating for what change
they wanna see in the world or however youwanna frame this particular concept.
What I am not in favor of is these groupsdeciding for me what it is that I'm allowed to
see, what it is that I'm allowed to read, orotherwise enjoy.
In follow-up tweets, Collective Shout wrotethat it was experiencing harassment from

(50:05):
misogynistic gamers over the campaign, and thatthere remain 82 games tagged with rape and
incest the group will continue campaigning tohave taken down.
This is of a claimed 500 games that the grouptook issue with.
Those numbers are gonna end up though, and theycount what games have been removed and what
games seem to still be there on Steam as partof the story.
And then they quote Collective Shout cofounderMelissa Melinda Tankard Reyes, all these porn

(50:28):
sick brain rotted Peyto gamer fetishists sodesperate to get their hands on Rape My Little
Sister incest games, they're now exchangingclues on how to find them so that they don't
all die overnight.
Later that day, she shared a long tweet threadfurther claiming victory with Steam's decision.
And again, I don't know that there's actuallyany evidence that this group is forcing the
hand of these payment processors other than thefact that we can look at what campaigns they've

(50:50):
tried to run and the fact that these thingshave in fact been removed in the past.
But this is the kind of thing that you seewhere they are claiming that they did this that
looks a lot to me like what we might otherwisedescribe in more serious circumstances to
terrorist activity.
Right?
And I don't use that word lightly on this.
This is the action of a group that is trying toforce bigger parties, governments or what have

(51:14):
you, in this case payment processors to dosomething and then is claiming that they got
the bigger group to do something after the factwith threats of various kinds, in this case
financial, that they that these bigger groupsappear to believe they could otherwise fulfill
against them.
The articles remain available on the way backmachine.
I fact checked every article's content, andthen they start talking about the removals over

(51:38):
on Waypoint as part of this discussion.
But let's talk about Collective Shout overall.
You can see from their website, they have anumber of campaigns they are arguing against.
They've got one here, ban porn on x, formerlyTwitter, kids exposed, tell these retailers to
bin the bunny, which appears to be against thePlayboy magazine.
Magazine.
And those are the main campaigns on their theirthread list here.

(52:00):
You can see a number of other articles.
They do appear to do what they say that they'regoing to do insofar as being against sexual
sexualization and objectification of women.
Collective Shout is a grassroots campaigndescribed by them in their about page against
the objectification of women and thesexualization of girls.
Since our launch launch in 2010, we've achievedmany wins.
Billboards objectifying women pulled down,sexualized children's clothing withdrawn from

(52:23):
sale, sexually violent games banned, AndrewTate's pimping courses removed from Spotify,
and an age verification trial underway to helpprotect kids from exposure to porn.
Now whether or not you agree with theseparticular activities, these campaigns, the
issue here is not that their policy is bad.
You might agree with it entirely.
The issue is that they're trying to imposetheir policy on, in this case, the rest of the

(52:48):
world without the rest of the world'sdemocratic people's representatives say so.
Right?
The US has determined what is illegal and whatis not illegal as part of art and content and
all these various things.
We have a very robust first amendment freedomof expression protection here in The United
States.
We have not otherwise acceded to a smallgrassroots campaigns movement in Australia

(53:09):
dictating what it is that we are and are notallowed to see.
And yet, here we are.
Thanks to Visa, Mastercard, or other paymentprocessors.
We wanna see a world free of sexploitation,says their vision, where the objectification of
women and sexualization of girls isunthinkable.
I actually think in certain parts that's athat's a laudable goal is to say, hey, I'm not

(53:30):
for objectification of basically anyone.
I believe entirely in the human spirit, and Ibelieve it so much that I wanna see every human
be allowed to experience their own freedom ofexpression and the freedom of expression of
other human beings, and yet here we are.
Okay.
So that's their vision statement.
You can read all as much as you want about themon this particular page.
Then we get to some more telling quotes.

(53:50):
If women choose to participate and get paid,what's the problem?
And this is them interviewing themselves.
Focusing on the choices of individual womenobscures the power dynamics behind exploitation
industries and those who stand to profit fromthem.
Now understand, remember, we're talking aboutvideo games here as part of this video.
We aren't actually talking about actual womenbeing exploited in this context unless you're
talking about voice actors in some of thesegames, I presume.

(54:11):
One of our approach is to challenge the toxicculture rather than focusing on the so called
choices of individual women.
So understand what that paragraph says.
Right?
This group that we're talking about here is onethat says, yeah.
Okay.
So certain people are consenting to certainthings, but you know what?
The entire culture is so polluted, is so gonethat they don't even know what they're
consenting to.
In this case, they're talking about women, butthey'd also probably say the same answer with

(54:32):
respect to consumers.
Right?
You say, okay.
Well, who are you to tell that guy over therethat he's not allowed to buy that game,
especially when we're talking about digital artof these things and not actual women being in
all involved in process.
And they say, well, yes.
Okay.
That's fine.
People can make choices, but they're not reallymaking choices here because the power dynamics
are all skewed and the toxic culture has ruinedanybody's ability to actually consent to any of

(54:57):
this.
And so we're going to change that for you herefrom Australia with the power of the payment
processors at our back.
They continue.
They have another answer here that I wanted tohighlight.
Why are you against child sex abuse dolls?
And I was only able to put this by context.
It appears that there are dolls that they somepeople use to allow men to abuse them at some

(55:18):
kind of concept.
I don't really understand this particularissue, so apologies there.
If you've got more to enlighten me with, leaveit in the comments.
Don't be too explicit or YouTube will hate thattoo.
But they say, why aren't you against why areyou against these things?
Isn't it better that predators use these thansexually abuse real children?
And their answer, in Australia, this materialis illegal.
That's fine.
Go convince your Australian representatives tomake things illegal that you don't like and

(55:42):
have them be illegal in Australia.
I'm totally okay with everybody in their ownjurisdiction running their own jurisdiction.
That's what western democracy means, in largepart.
But that doesn't mean that you say, okay.
In Australia, this material is illegal.
The Commonwealth criminal code prohibits thesale, reproduction, possession, and
distribution of offensive and abusive materialthat depicts a person or is a representation of

(56:02):
a person who is or appears to be 18.
Okay.
That's that's fine still.
Although, again, it sounds like you're the onesmaking the determination that something is
illegal here.
While some people defend the use of these, asvictimless, these products serve to normalize
and legitimize men's sexual use and abuse ofchildren.
That is a perfectly fine position to have.
That's a policy position to have.

(56:23):
That's what you should be convincing yourrepresentatives and the people around you of if
it is important to you.
As the United Nations special, reporter on thesale on sexual exploitation of children notes,
this material may encourage potential offendersand increase the disparity of the abuse.
The objectification of children comfortsoffenders in their actions.
A 2019 report by the Australian Institute ofCriminology concluded not only that there was

(56:45):
no evidence child sex abuse dolls preventedabuse, but that they could increase the risk of
child sexual abuse by desensitizing users,bridging the gap between fantasy and reality,
and can be used to groom children.
Folks, that's a policy argument.
Right?
We're used to seeing these kinds of things, andyou can agree with that side of the policy
argument, or you can disagree with it entirely.
That's what the democratic process is about.
The process of convincing your fellow citizensin whatever jurisdiction you're located in that

(57:09):
you are right about issue x and they're wrongabout that issue and putting a law together
that makes sure that society represents what itis that you think is the right way for society
go to go.
That's democracy.
That's what it means.
This is not that.
This is having a policy prescription sayingthis is what we think.
We've got these reports to back us up.
I guarantee you that there are reports that saythe opposite.
That's how reports work.

(57:29):
We've got these reports that back us up, and sowe're gonna use that to back up our particular
initiatives.
The issue here is not so much with themadvocating for policy change.
The issue is their methods of advocating forpolicy change by using the cudgel of what is
essentially an essential service, aninfrastructural component of the way digital
marketplace works in 2025 to make sure thatother people, not just in Australia but around

(57:52):
the world can't experience what they don't wantthem to be experiencing.
And that's the kind of answer that they give.
I obviously have my own issues with thisparticular group and their methodology, but I
can still sit here and say, honestly, theirtheir concept wanting to be against
objectification and sexualization of youngchildren is something that I can generally get
behind.
Convince me and convince our representativesthat whatever precepts you would put in the law

(58:15):
for these kinds of issues should go into thelaw, and I'd be in favor of going through that
process.
But that's how democracy works.
It doesn't work this way where you get Visa andMastercard to wield the weapons of the
financial system at your disposal.
The letter is directed to PayPal, Mastercard,Visa, Paysafe Limited, Discover, and the Japan
Credit Bureau.
It follows our investigation which uncovered500 games featuring violent sexual torture of

(58:36):
women and children, including incest relatedabuse involving family on the stream and
itch.io gaming platforms.
And again, their investigation is their owndetermination.
They say these are the things that we findviolative of our mental say so.
And yes, right now, I think more people thannot are going to agree with there being
something wrong fundamentally about media thatdepicts violent sexual torture of women and

(58:58):
children, including incest related abuseinvolving family members, but that's where this
kind of stuff starts.
You saw the earlier article talk aboutcampaigns against Grand Theft Auto.
You saw the article talk about campaignsagainst the game Detroit Become Human.
It doesn't end right here.
It continues going until everything on Eartheither complies with what they think should be

(59:18):
allowed for you and I to ingest as media or itdoesn't and is banned.
Collective shout had earlier forced the removalof No Mercy, a violent sexually explicit video
game that allowed users to role play as acharacter who rapes and tortures women from the
steam platform following a viral globalcampaign, which attracted over 70,000
signatures and international media.
70,000 signatures is no small number, but italso is a significant number for the amount of

(59:41):
people that play games on Steam.
So we are again talking about the tyranny ofthe minority and not even the tyranny of the
major majority, which is a phrase you mighthear me refer to when we talk about government
action in general.
Now they sent this to PayPal, Mastercard, Visa,PaySafe Limited, Discover, Japan Credit Bureau.
One interesting thing of this story is that wedon't actually know which payment processors

(01:00:02):
are pushing this issue so hard, or at least Icouldn't find it in the research that I did to
make this video.
And so people kinda talk about Mastercard andVisa as the ones that are the most likely here
because they are the big dogs.
They are the ones that have something like 99%of financial transactions, that they help
facilitate in the digital environment.
And so I think it's likely that one or both ofthem are involved in this, but we don't know

(01:00:23):
for sure.
And before we do know that for sure, I dohesitate to name any of these other than to
note that this letter was sent to theseparticular organizations.
They continue with their quote, these gamesendorsing men's sexualized abuse and torture of
women and girls fly in the face of efforts toaddress violence against women.
We do not see how facilitating paymenttransactions and deriving financial benefit

(01:00:44):
from these violent and unethical games isconsistent with your corporate values and
mission statements.
And that's fine.
Go advocate to the private organization likeVisa and Mastercard that they shouldn't be
doing this thing.
But it when it leads to something like this,when we're talking about infrastructure and not
just access to the App Store or something alongthose lines, then we've got a bigger issue than

(01:01:06):
what many that are reporting on this story arewilling to state it as.
We request that you demonstrate corporatesocial responsibility and immediately cease
processing payments on Steam and itch.io andany other platforms hosting similar games.
And they have signatories that includethemselves, the National Center on Sexual
Exploitation, Exodus Cry, Center to End AllSexual Exploitation, FILIA, Coalition Against

(01:01:27):
Trafficking and Women Australia, along withMichael Salter, professor and director of
Childlike East Asia and Pacific Hub, moresignatories in that paragraph.
And we can find the full letter here becausethey put it all up for us to read.
Re your corporations facilitating and profitingfrom rape, incest, and child sexual abuse game
sales.

(01:01:48):
And, again, we do not see how facilitatingpayment and driving financial benefit is
consistent with your corporate values andmission statements is a heck of a thing to say
and apparently is enough to get these paymentprocessors moving on their behalf in regard,
but it is an issue at the end of the day.
This is censorship writ large, designed toprevent you or I from playing certain things

(01:02:09):
that we might otherwise want to play, andthey're designing it in this particular way so
that you can't otherwise easily defend thesethings because they are not so easily
defendable.
But believe you me, if they keep going downthis line of attack, they will eventually get
to something that you care about and we wouldthen be essentially under the control of what
we're allowed to see, read, hear, and eventhink of Melinda Reyes of Australia and Haley

(01:02:36):
McNamara of The US, Michael Salter ofAustralia, Helen Taylor, and all these other
signatories to letters like this one regardlessof whether or not we would have them otherwise
govern our society.
And that's a big issue.
It's an existential threat, I would argue.
And we see it has affected other societiesbefore ours.
Here's an article from 2024 talking about VisaJapan and their CEO that says disabling card

(01:02:59):
payments for legal adult content is necessaryto protect the brand.
And we go and we look at this article fromDecember 24.
It says, hey.
They were asked during a q and a session, whydid Visa make their service unusable on sites
selling adult content that's legal in Japan?
And in response, they say it is sometimesnecessary to deny use to protect the brand.

(01:03:21):
He goes on to say these are complex decisionsinvolving both global and local policies and
that it is important to maintain sincerity andintegrity and we will continue to do so.
Now this jumps out to me again as a corporatelawyer as something that is exactly what I
would expect some of these private companies tosay, But what we can do as consumers of art, of
media, however you want to frame this, if youdon't like calling video games art or certainly

(01:03:43):
not the ones that are named in the Steamdatabase list that we talked about earlier,
that what we care about here is not what Visawants to think of as the brand.
Right?
We care about you stopping the function of aplatform unless they do what you say and that
what we need to say as consumers is that thebrand Visa in this regard as a payment

(01:04:04):
processor, the brand's importance is in themovement of money.
We don't say that what is being sold in thesemarketplaces is reflective of the payment
processor at all.
And that needs to be communicated to them inits entirety in order for them to lose their
ability to say even this much that it'sreflective on the brand.

(01:04:24):
I am very sympathetic to companies, privatecompanies, not wanting to be associated with
things that they don't wanna be associated I amvery sympathetic to that argument.
I understand why a CEO or COO might make theone that we see here.
But what consumers can do is say, hey, look.
What concerns me with Visa, what concerns mewith Mastercard is whether or not the money
that I want to spend got to the other placethat I wanted to spend it on quickly and

(01:04:46):
efficiently and with no issues on my end.
That's what I want to see.
That's what I care about.
That's what reflects on your brand.
Same as if I'm making a phone call.
I don't want you at AT and T or Verizon orwherever to be judging who it is that I call.
I don't want you to be outlawing 900 numbers orwhat have you because you think that that
reflects poorly on your brand.
What reflects poorly on your brand is whetherthe video works, whether it's a staticky phone

(01:05:09):
call, and nothing else.
We're talking about an infrastructuralsolution, a service that you provide that is in
between what is actually happening here.
And I don't want you to think or have this hookto hang your hat on that consumers have any
relationship between what they are buying withtheir money or what anybody else might be
buying on the platform with their money andwhat the payment processor is otherwise

(01:05:31):
facilitating.
So get it out of your head Visa that thisreflects on the brand and consumers.
Help them get it out of your head because youare going to communicate that that isn't what
Visa and Mastercard should be concerned with inthe first instance.
Or as NieR automata creator Yoko Taro says,it's a security hole that endangers democracy

(01:05:52):
itself.
And this is from the same conversation point inlate twenty twenty four about credit card
payment companies refusing to process paymentsfor legal adult content.
Publishing in similar fields have always facedregulations that go beyond the law, but the
fact that a payment processor, is involved inthe entire infrastructure of content
distribution, can do such things at its owndiscretion seems to me to be a dangerous on a

(01:06:12):
whole new level.
It implies that by controlling paymentprocessing companies, you can even censor
another country's free speech.
In a follow-up tweet, Yoko Taro goes on to saythat I feel like it's not just a matter of
censoring adult content or jeopardizing freedomof expression, but rather a security hold that
endangers democracy itself.
And I looked at this article when I wasresearching this video and I thought to myself

(01:06:32):
to begin with, that seems a little bit far,doesn't it?
But, obviously, if you've been listening to methis whole time, you know that I've adopted
this as basically true.
Right?
If you've got a society, if you've got awestern democracy and you're electing your
representatives to have these policyconversations and policy debates to determine
what is and isn't allowed in that society, thento have another group, especially one that's
foreign, it's outside the bounds of thejurisdiction of your society, determine for you

(01:06:56):
what is and isn't allowed without going throughthat policy process is fundamentally
antidemocratic.
It's fundamentally outside the bounds of aliberal democracy, and so we have to look at
those with the correct existentialunderstanding that allowing these operations to
happen, allowing a payment processor that hasthis complete control of the payment processing
system to say we are not going to allow thisgroup in this other country to buy these things

(01:07:21):
that they otherwise want to buy, then that's aproblem for the entire process because we have
systems to say what's legal and illegal.
And if we say something is legal, then youpayment processor should really have no say in
that, especially when we're not seeing anythingthat suggests that your brand is at all
impugned by what steam or itch.io or Patreon oranyone else actually allows people to spend

(01:07:45):
their money on.
And that's the real threat here.
Now folks have asked me when they wanted totalk about this issue, what laws could we
potentially invoke here?
They asked me about antitrust because Visa andMastercard in particular control so much of the
marketplace.
I don't think that's a terribly good mechanismto try to seek protection from Visa and
Mastercard primarily because the law, theSherman Act, in The United States that I've got

(01:08:08):
highlighted on your screen right now that saysevery contract in the form of trust or
otherwise in restraint of trade is declared tobe illegal is predominantly focused on
restraints of trade that are designed tobenefit the market situation of the actor.
Right?
If Visa were making contracts or otherwiserestricting steam because they thought it
didn't gate it enhanced the market presence ofVisa or Mastercard or PayPal or whatever we

(01:08:30):
wanna put on that side of the ledger on thisquestion, then the law probably has something
to say about that.
The law probably has something to say that's arestraint of trade that's designed to help
enhance your market position, and so we can beconcerned with that.
In this particular case though, they areessentially acting as a co opted political
entity, almost a quasi extra government, makingthese policy determinations on the part of

(01:08:54):
Steam and on the users of Steam or itch.
And so I don't think the law actually wouldlook at this as a restraint of trade for most
precedent that we could talk about in thiscircumstance.
It's not impossible and new laws and novelapplications of laws happen all the time, but I
think it's probably a difficult argument to winin the long run.
Antitrust laws are famously kind of difficultto impose on private actors, certainly by a

(01:09:18):
private actor themselves and not a governmentagency like the FTC or the Department of
Justice.
So I think that's a probably a pretty poorsolution to this particular issue.
But the one that I did wanna highlight for you,you heard me reference it earlier in this
video, is the concept of a common carrier.
Now you may have heard this phrase if you're abig reader of supreme court decisions, in the

(01:09:39):
past because there's been a conversation as towhether or not Internet providers, Internet
service providers, and other kind ofinfrastructure providers around the Internet
should be considered common carriers.
What is a common carrier?
Well, I pulled up a a law blog article for youhere.
Says It a common carrier is a private or publicentity that transports goods or people for a
fee and is required by law to provide itsservices to anyone willing to pay.

(01:10:02):
Now that's actually a little bit too reductiveas to what a common carrier is because in The
United States, as they continue, commoncarriers are regulated by the Federal
Communications Commission under title two ofthe Communications Act of 1934.
You say, well, Rick, didn't they just say it'sabout moving goods or people?
How does the Communications Act come into play?
That's because telecommunications, phones,Internet providers, and whatnot, those are the
most predominant common carriers in Americanregulatory law.

(01:10:25):
Right?
When we talk about that phone, I wasn't usingthat example, just out of nowhere to talk about
it.
It's that we think the telephone companies areproviding a service to everyone.
They don't decide who it is that they canprovide the service to and not.
Don't decide who it is you can talk to and whatsubjects you can talk to them about or not.
Right?
It would be a real issue in The United Statesif Verizon could just come in and say, well,

(01:10:48):
we're not gonna provide phone service to youanymore because we thought that phone sex you
had with your wife was a little too kinky forour liking and so good luck finding another
phone service.
That's not how phone operators work.
And we accept that because it's such afundamental important infrastructural component
of modern society that telecommunicationscarriers are all kind of ruled as common

(01:11:09):
carriers.
They have to bring everybody on theirregulations around what fees they can charge
and how they can operate, and that can be itsown problem.
Right?
I'm not gonna sit here as a corporate lawyerand tell you that government regulations is all
fantastic in every regard.
But in certain circumstances where a servicethat is provided is essentially essential for
the operation of a modern economy, then thegovernment often has reason and ability to step

(01:11:33):
in and say, look, you need to offer your stuffon a non discriminatory basis.
You need to offer it to everybody and you'renot to look at the underlying subject matter of
what your service is used for.
Right?
Your job is to make sure money x goes from banky to bank z and to take no interest in why that
money is changing hands.
Now the government itself, as I said before inthis video, has already complicated that matter

(01:11:57):
somewhat because of anti money laundering rulesand other know your customer rules that have
been imposed on banks and financialinstitutions of all kinds.
But setting that aside for just a moment, I dothink that there could be pressure put on
places like Visa and Mastercard and otherpayment processors that say, look.
If you're gonna operate in this industry, ifyou're gonna move money from point x to point

(01:12:18):
y, then you need to be a common carrier.
You need to offer your service withoutdiscrimination.
You should have no interest in what that movieis be money is being used for because that's
not your job.
If it is anybody's job, it's the government'sjob and the people elect their representatives
to determine what interest the governmentshould have in what that money is spent on.
And I think that's an argument that you couldmake.

(01:12:39):
I think it's an argument that people could winand I think I certainly think it's an argument
that would freak the Visas and Mastercards ofthe world out if it began to gain traction at
any significant degree.
Common carriers after all are obligated toserve all customers equally as long as the
request complies with legal and operationalrequirements.
They have a bunch of regulations that areimposed upon them, by The United States.

(01:13:00):
Regulatory bodies grant carriers the authorityto operate under specific terms, rates,
schedules, and rules.
These bodies can create, interpret, and enforceregulations on those carriers, ensuring safety
and compliance in their operations, which is avery generous reading of what the regulatory
bodies do in this regard.
But it does mean that you wind up with thingslike payment processing, which nobody thinks of
as being a part of the economy that shoulddictate what content is available for people to

(01:13:23):
otherwise consume is regulated as the utilitythat it is.
Right?
The the the water coming into your home, theelectricity coming into your home.
Moving money in a digital environment in thetwenty first century is that important to that
many people that maybe this is the kind ofthing where the government should step in even
if they are loath to do so because thegovernment has been very slow in doing much of

(01:13:43):
anything with the digital infrastructureoverall.
And that's not to say that that's where I wantthings to wind up here, but it is the kind of
pressure that people that were interested inthis particular topic could put on vSend
Mastercard if they were so inclined.
Which leads us to what can you do?
Right?
So I wanted to talk as part of this video,which is very rare for me in virtual reality

(01:14:05):
about what you might be interested in doing ifyou were very interested in this topic.
Right?
So this looks like a bad thing.
Rick just said this is one of the mostimportant videos in virtual reality that he's
ever made.
Very concerned about the freedom of expression.
He thinks this is a slippery slope that leadsto more and more censorship.
And if we don't do something to buoy theseplatforms, to cut down on these payment

(01:14:27):
processors, to talk about these activists, andotherwise to advocate in our own governments,
then this could get out of hand very veryquick.
Whereas I put on social media the other daywhen I was potentially planning to make this
video, this is the kind of story that can eatthe whole industry, if not multiple industries.
This could eat all of culture and mediacreation across the world if it's allowed Visa
and Mastercard to get to decide what it is thatyou or I can otherwise buy.

(01:14:49):
So what can you do?
Well, I would offer that if you are going tolook at this from the platform's perspective,
as I said at the top of this video, then youneed to look at them and say this is weak
sauce.
Right?
This is bad.
You don't have the backbone that you need tohave here.
And if you don't get the backbone, you're gonnalose the ability to control what it is that you
sell to me entirely.
So don't negotiate with the terrorists, Steam.

(01:15:09):
Don't negotiate with the terrorists, itch.io.
I understand how scary this is.
Right?
They are telling you we're gonna cut off yourability to make money at all, and they are just
strong enough to do it.
But say, don't negotiate with them.
Talk to Steam and itch io if you're theconsumer and say, look, we'll figure this out.
I understand that you need to have money tomake this function.

(01:15:30):
Figure out how to have your own financialsystem with gift cards, with app credits,
whatever it might be.
We'll figure out a way to get that money to youand tell them that it's gonna be okay,
essentially.
Right?
What these platforms need is to understand thatwhile this feels very threatening and I'm sure
the phone calls are very furious, the emailsare very fast and angry, that it's gonna be
alright.

(01:15:50):
You're You're gonna figure this out.
And if you're steam, if you're the size ofvalve for god's sakes, suck it up and work with
your customers to figure out a way that you canget through this without just letting these
payment processors decide what it is that youare allowed to sell when your own government
has otherwise deemed those things to be legal.
So don't negotiate with terrorist platforms andif you're on the consumer side, tell them that

(01:16:13):
hey, alright, you think you're worried you'renot gonna get any money now, then maybe I don't
otherwise buy things from you if you otherwiseaccede to these things because this is an
existential threat to everything I hold dearnot just in video gaming, but around the world
in terms of media.
Now to payment processors, it gets a little bitmore complicated.
Let them know that your brand is moving money,right?
Visa, Mastercard, you wanna say, we do have aninterest in not being associated with these

(01:16:38):
very bad things.
I get that.
I understand that.
But help them understand that nobody thinks ofVisa and Mastercard when they're thinking about
Bob down the street buying family sexcapadesincest story or whatever it is from Steam, with
the payment processing happening.
Bob decided to buy that money game with his ownmoney.
Steam decided to sell it.
That's on Bob and Steam.

(01:16:58):
That's not on Visa.
That's not on Mastercard.
Don't let them think that it is and help themto understand that it isn't.
Right?
Or at least help the world understand that ifthey make this claim in the future that it's
all ridiculous and that nobody's making thisassociation anyway and it's essentially a lie
to help them do what that does that they wantto do vis a vis censorship.
To the activists, say get elected or get out.

(01:17:21):
Right?
Okay.
You wanna go and you wanna didn't make thesepolicy arguments.
You wanna say this particular research articlein Australia is more important than this other
research Australia that you might otherwise bebe found somewhere else, then get elected to
the representative role in your government,make the laws that you think need to be made,
convince your representatives if you'd prefer,convince the people around you to elect
representatives that you'd prefer, whatever itis that is democracy in your particular

(01:17:45):
jurisdiction or get out of here with thesearguments.
Right?
Get out of here with, okay, we're gonna goaround the horn.
We're gonna make Visa and Mastercard the defacto super government of the of the earth and
get out because even if you make a good point,you are not acting in democratic principles,
you aren't acting in the liberal democracy waythat we would see you act.

(01:18:06):
So do that for the activists.
And on the government side, let them know thatessential services are essential.
That what we're talking about here when we talkabout payment processing has for too long been
allowed to operate as a purely private companywith basically no other things to think about
and needs to be regulated as a common carrier.
Needs to be regulated like a utility, in orderto keep that function.

(01:18:30):
If you wanna have that role, Visa andMastercard.
If you wanna have that size and power, then youneed to treat everybody equally and we're not
going to abide by you deciding what is andisn't allowed when the government itself hasn't
made that determination.
Or continuing from there, if you really wannaget aggressive with the government side of
things and you're in The United States, talkabout know your customer rules, talk about

(01:18:50):
financial regulations, talk about anti moneylaundering laws, all of which permit, if not
encourage, financial institutions and peoplelike payment processors to look inside the
transactions in a way that is not onlyviolative of certain people's privacy, but also
leads to conversations like this one thatjeopardize the entirety of the media
infrastructure in The United States and beyond.

(01:19:12):
So don't negotiate with terrorists.
Your brand is moving money.
Get elected or get out.
Essential services are essential.
You can do all of these things.
You can have these stances.
You can communicate on this level.
And you can also tell Steam and itch.
If they continue down this path, then they'regonna be losing money anyway because you're not
gonna be willing to buy from them because theyaren't defending what's so important about what
they should be defending, the very platformsthat make them all the money that they have

(01:19:34):
today.
So think about those things.
Please do consider them and leave any commentsthat you can in the description or in the
comments to this video because every little bitalways helps.
But in this particular case, I think this is avery important video that we've made today.
I think YouTube is very likely to not not showit to so many people if it doesn't get those
comments from you, the upvotes, the otherthings that you can tell YouTube that you're

(01:19:56):
interested in this content.
And thank you so much for being here.
If you wanna support conversations like thisone, please do check out the Patreon.
I'm also regularly doing livestreams.
So consider joining as a member of the channel,having super chats in those livestreams, or
otherwise gifting those memberships.
Those are all fantastic ways to support thechannel.
Otherwise, as I said, just subscribing, tellingyour friends, leaving comments to videos like

(01:20:17):
this one, every little bit helps, and I verymuch appreciate you for doing any or all of
those steps.
Thank you so much.
Virtual legality is a YouTube video series withaudio podcast versions presented as commentary
and for education and entertainment purposesonly.
It does not constitute legal advice and doesnot create an attorney client relationship.

(01:20:41):
If you have legal questions about the topicsdiscussed, please consult your own legal
counsel.

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WE DO NOT ACCEPT | Stopping Payment Processors and the End of Freedom (VL)

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Crime Junkie

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}WE DO NOT ACCEPT | Stopping Payment Processors and the End of Freedom (VL)