Two of the largest Digital Games stores have ceased to sell thousands of titles following a coalition of anti-Porno defenders and the largest payments treatment companies in the world. This has already happened, will probably happen again and remove the creators of art, free expression and marginalized creators.
Last week, the independent game stages Indie Itch.io sent a sudden notice to the creators who use the site to sell their games, books, arts and other media; He had “uninstated” all the content with the NSFW tag (not without danger for work), which means that works with this tag would no longer present itself in the research Itch.io, which effectively made the way impossible to discover or buy them. Last week, Steam did the same way, removing a gang of games from his platform after having implemented more strict policies linked to the content of adults.
In his announcement, the founder of Itch.io Leaf Corcoran explained that the reason for this drastic action was an applied pressure to the company’s payment processors by collective Shout – an Australian non -profit organization which is described as “a basic campaign movement against the objectification of women and the sexualization of girls”.
“Due to a game entitled No pity, Who was temporarily available on ITCH.IO before being prohibited in April, the collective organization Shout launched a campaign against Steam and Itch.io, by putting concerns to our payment processors on the nature of certain content found on the two platforms, “said Corcoran. No pity Was described by Collective Shout as a “rape simulator”. His developer, Zerat Games, denied this, describing it as an “adult visual novel focused on 3D choice with a huge accent on blackmail and male domination”.
Following collective shout actions, in tandem with payment processors, more than 20,000 games, books, comics and other creative works – confirmed via Internet archives – have ceased to exist on the site (although the content purchased remains in user libraries as long as it does not violate the directives of ITCH.IO), jeopardizing the creators who depend on the sale of itch.io. In addition to the NSFW content, notable projects that did not have the label were also taken in the purge.
It is also to be feared that this uninindership event has a disproportionate impact on queer creators, and in the immediate consequences, there was a confusion as to the distinction between the content “NSFW” and “Adult”, with many stories and LGBTQ + games under the umbrella of the old. “My comic strip SFW SCI-FI which is not worse than a standard Marvel film was also united … But he had the LGBT tag,” wrote Yuki Clarke, a comic artist, on Bluesky.
Whenever a platform announces a general ban on the content of adults, LGBTQ + creators are almost always affected in a disproportionate way, harming queer artists and queer persons invariably. In 2021, Ebay’s elimination from its “Adult Only” section eliminated a popular showcase for LGBTQ +erotic artists and collectors. In 2022, Tumblr settled with the New York Human Rights Committee because its ban on “adult content” in 2018 had a discriminatory impact on queer creators.
Several ITCH.IO creators have said that their SFW content with the LGBT tag had been united. ITCH.IO responded to some of these statements on social networks, saying: “The depneration was determined by the way the creators classified their pages: in particular if the page was labeled as NSFW and as adult content.”
However, there have also been reports that the contents of the LGBT tag, but not the NSFW or adult labels were still notified, creating confusion on the type of work that Itch.io drew from his store and why. The penis contacted itch.io for clarification. On Bluesky, in response to a creator saying that their LGBT books have been struck off despite not having adult or NSFW tags, the Itch.io account replied: “We have a series of automated heuristics which can report the pages for examination according to the behavior of the accounts to help prevent abuse.” He also explained that LGBT or Queer labels would not affect this system.
Itch.io has recognized that creating the cover of all its adult content was not ideal and created its concerns among its users. But the threat of losing its payment processors required emergency action. “The situation developed quickly and we had to act urgently to protect the main payment infrastructure of the platform,” wrote Corcoran. As a rule, payment processors take measures like this to ensure that their products are not used to buy illegal content. In the case of Steam, he updated his guidelines to include a rule which prohibits publication equipment which “can violate the rules and standards set out by Steam’s payment processors”.
In an email, Casey Becker, spokesperson for Stripe, replied that it does not comment directly on the users, but “in general, we take measures when we conclude that users violate our conditions of use. We do not support adult content.” Payoneer, one of the other ITCH.io payment processors, refused to comment. The penis Also contacted Paypal, the last of the payment processors listed of ITCH.IO, to comment.
Payment processors have often been the reason for content prohibitions. Although the collective cry is the incentive agent, it is companies like Visa, Stripe and others that are responsible for this type of acts of mass censorship. In 2014, Paypal threatened to remove all of its Patreon services because the site has hosted content creators for adults. (Paypal would overthrow this decision two years later, but Patreon always makes it difficult for sex workers and porn creators to do business on the website.) In 2021, Only Fans, a website synonymous with porn, announced that it would prohibit all the sexually explicit content to “comply with requests for requests [the platform’s] banking partners and payment providers. Six days later, only the fans would overthrow the decision, citing the insurance of its banking partners.
These processors have enormous power over their customers, and this influence can be used to achieve objectives that have nothing to do with the choice or safety of consumers. ITCH.IO is forced to comply with their requests or to risk not working entirely. “To ensure that we can continue to operate and provide a market to all developers, we must prioritize our relationship with our payment partners and take immediate measures to compliance,” Corcoran wrote in the announcement of ITCH.IO.
Itch.io says it is examining and deleting the content NSFW and marked by adult which violates its service conditions, while updating these terms. “For the NSFW pages, this will include a new step where creators must confirm that their content is authorized under the policies of the respective payment processors linked to their account,” said the ad. He also updated his announcement of July 24 to include answers to commonly asked questions that circulated social media, demystifying rumors that Itch.io has retained payments and explaining why such radical measures should be taken with leave so disturbed. The company also claims that it is working in search of new payment processors.
ITCH.IO players are fighting, flood the Visa and Mastercard customer service lines with complaints. A database has been created where designers can list their deindexed work so that people can travel and buy on alternative sites. Some creators also suppress their work as Itch.io and threaten to leave it completely, because the NSFW Policy updates of ITCH.IO makes the prohibitions permanent and irreversible while explicitly threatening subversive art.
“Our policy is not an invitation to push the limits of what is acceptable. Violations that lead to administrative action are permanent without any chance of appeal,” said the FAQ des Créators. “All funds on the account will not be eligible for payment. There is no second chance.”
Correction, July 29: We initially reported that Consume me was struck off as part of the ITCH.IO’s uninbeately event, but Corcoran says that the game has been “never indexed since its 2018 publication” and “has not been affected by the audit of the NSFW”.
