> "This was first reported by Waypoint, which has since pulled its two articles on the subject without explanation. The articles' author, Ana Valens, has alleged that Vice's parent company, Savage Ventures, removed the articles due to concerns over their controversial content rather than any error in the reporting."
"Vice" shut down last year[0]; its brand was recently purchased and is now run by a hedge fund based in Nashville. I think this incident very clearly sums up the difference between what's news journalism, and what's a vapid content farm operated by financebros.
Man, having “GTA 5” and “No Mercy” as targets in the same conversation is strange. GTA5 is IMO really mild for a game, while I do think No Mercy probably crossed the line.
But I haven’t played a GTA game in a decade so maybe I’m misremembering..
People like to give America shit for anti-porn activism and laws but it really seems like America is just trailing behind the rest of the anglosphere. This case for instance, of Australians imposing their prudish values on American companies that were content to tolerate these naughty games. And those porn ID laws that Texas/etc get flack for are just on the path already trail blazed by the UK.
I can say as an Australia our governments have always been very enthusiastic about controlling what we can read, see, and hear. It was true 60 years ago with our movie rating scheme ("not given a rating" was the newspeak for "banned"), 30 years ago with games, and lots of books.
The internet has more or less rendered these efforts moot in recent times. This was highlighted when they tried to impose a rating system on games a couple of decades ago. I asked a school kid about the effect on him. He said it didn't effect him, as he downloaded his games from the internet. It all fell apart about then. Consequently we had the opportunity to see seen the flood of porn would do to society, and noticed nothing of consequence. The flood of conspiracy theories for life hacks on the other hand was completely unanticipated and it's impact badly underestimated.
Collective Shout is an excellent illustration of the effect. It's effectively a one girl band, yet her shouting on the internet about her desire to force her Baptist pro-life maternal morals down everyones throats has now been heard across the world.
An interesting article I saw today in Portuguese language, is speculating that the real reason USA is threatening to tariff Brazil in 50% is because the invention of "Pix Parcelado" that is supposed to go online soon, will reduce the popularity of Mastercard and Visa, and thus remove an important tool of censorship from US government hands.
Lula also himself accused the USA of putting tariffs because of credit card companies.
It seems like we need two things. First, some type of universal standard to id the country of legal residence of a user. Second, some type of way to know what laws a company needs to comply with to operate in a jurisdiction.
There are too many laws across different jurisdictions that makes it really challenging for companies to offer goods and services.
Is there anything that can be done with the weaponization of the payment system? Cryptocurrency as obviously failed, but is there really no possible recourse when every traditional payment method seemingly colludes to not take the business for whatever reason?
If only we had some kind of purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash that would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.
> All these porn sick brain rotted pedo gamer fetishists so desperate to get their hands on rape-my-little-sister incest games they’re now exchanging clues on how to find them so that they don’t all die overnight," Collective Shout co-founder Melinda Tankard Reist tweeted on July 18th.
Which begs the question: Is it true, that there are such games? And how would one defend its availability to the public? Is w#nking off to such content considered free speech?
One of the reasons that credit card companies have an incentive to keep this stuff off people's statements is that they sell your credit card histories on the data market, and would not want you to have a strong reason to want to stop them.
> This is likely far from over: Collective Shout is no doubt feeling emboldened by a second public success in its efforts to police content on Steam specifically. The games I saw removed from Steam in this wave all featured risible content and suspect quality, but Collective Shout has a broader anti-pornography, even anti-expression remit that it has demonstrated in the past.
Yes indeed, a huge success like this will give them a big boost in motivation and funding for many, many years to come. IMHO we need to regulate away the credit card processing companies ability to discriminate like this, and while we're at it we should stop letting them heavily tax the entire economy
Am I the only one who thinks this is a good thing? Pornography and obscenity should not be protected speech. It’s violence against human dignity akin to hate speech.
How does these types of Australian anti-vice groups have so much global sway, and yet Australia leads the world in gambling addiction and accessibility? Presumably they'd be interested in both vices, but seem to only wield power over one. *edited for clarity of question
Create an app/website called FakeMoney. Put a big ass disclaimer up front saying that it's not real money, and you can't buy anything with it, but let people buy FakeMoney with in-app purchases. Pretend it's a game.
The app just shows a number and lets you send some of it to other FakeMoney accounts.
That's it.
If there were "endpoints", people who gave you "real" cash in exchange for FakeMoney, could something like that eventually replace "real" money?
25 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 45.8 ms ] thread"Vice" shut down last year[0]; its brand was recently purchased and is now run by a hedge fund based in Nashville. I think this incident very clearly sums up the difference between what's news journalism, and what's a vapid content farm operated by financebros.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39476074 ("Vice website is shutting down (writing.exchange)"—459 comments)
But I haven’t played a GTA game in a decade so maybe I’m misremembering..
The internet has more or less rendered these efforts moot in recent times. This was highlighted when they tried to impose a rating system on games a couple of decades ago. I asked a school kid about the effect on him. He said it didn't effect him, as he downloaded his games from the internet. It all fell apart about then. Consequently we had the opportunity to see seen the flood of porn would do to society, and noticed nothing of consequence. The flood of conspiracy theories for life hacks on the other hand was completely unanticipated and it's impact badly underestimated.
Collective Shout is an excellent illustration of the effect. It's effectively a one girl band, yet her shouting on the internet about her desire to force her Baptist pro-life maternal morals down everyones throats has now been heard across the world.
Lula also himself accused the USA of putting tariffs because of credit card companies.
There are too many laws across different jurisdictions that makes it really challenging for companies to offer goods and services.
Group Behind Steam Censorship Policies Have Powerful Allies
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44625681
Which begs the question: Is it true, that there are such games? And how would one defend its availability to the public? Is w#nking off to such content considered free speech?
Yes indeed, a huge success like this will give them a big boost in motivation and funding for many, many years to come. IMHO we need to regulate away the credit card processing companies ability to discriminate like this, and while we're at it we should stop letting them heavily tax the entire economy
You can't just call things violence. We need to stop doing this. If nobody is getting physically harmed, it's not violence.
And no, your stupid bullshit about harming one's soul doesn't count. I mean leg chopped off type of thing. Then, you can call it violent.
Otherwise, you're just dishonest and manipulative.
O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from these turbulent prigs?
Create an app/website called FakeMoney. Put a big ass disclaimer up front saying that it's not real money, and you can't buy anything with it, but let people buy FakeMoney with in-app purchases. Pretend it's a game.
The app just shows a number and lets you send some of it to other FakeMoney accounts.
That's it.
If there were "endpoints", people who gave you "real" cash in exchange for FakeMoney, could something like that eventually replace "real" money?