Mastercard and visa have reported to a couple news outlets that they are currently being swamped with calls and complaints. Keep up the pressure and try to (politely) insist that you leave a complaint via phone instead of letting the rep direct you to emails. It’s way easier to be overwhelmed by a much smaller number of calls so each one counts for a bit more!
This blsky thread has scripts and hotlines so if you wanna reblog this version instead that would be appreciated!!
for scrolling to the bottom and ‘contacting’ there, if email is more your thing.
Call script because phone calls are harder to ignore than emails:
“Hi, I’m calling to tell you that the reports you received of sexually abusive content on Steam and itch.io are fraudulent and were made by religious extremist groups.
As a [insert company] customer I’m expressing my discontent and requesting that you rescind your demands to these platforms.”
Steam, Itch.io and the banning of explicit and LGBT+ Content. What can we do?
[All images in this post have alt/id text if you need it or want to copy paste anything]
With no warning, Itch.io, a site where many host their indie games, comics, books and more, has started purging and shadowbanning explicit and LGBT+ works. Creators got no warning. And if they were still owed payouts from these works, Itch.io is saying they won’t give them their money as they ‘broke the rules’. Rules that were only just set in place, with no warning, and therefore no way for creators to try and draw out their money or delete these 'offending’ works before they got banned under the new rules.
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So Itch.io has been the most recent to fall to the demands of a group that’s been contacting Visa and Mastercard and convincing them to threaten sites/businesses with 'stop selling what we consider to be explicit content on your sites of we’ll stop allowing your site to have transactions with Visa and Mastercard’. Steam folded, and now Itchio has too. And a reminder earlier this year Gumroad also stopped allowing explicit content, further back than that Patreon banned some kinks and fetishes even if it’s depicted in fiction not real life, and I don’t have to explain to you guys the great Tumblr explicit content ban of 2018.
And as always remember this doesn’t stop with sexually explicit work as LGBT+ stories and people are often labelled as explicit and already we’re seeing works being taken off Itch.io that are about LGBT+ and especially trans stories. Other non-sexually explicit works I’ve seen already getting shadowbanned, delisted or deleted are SFW games featuring furries/anthros, SFW dress up games (because when you take the clothes the model is nude), and the aforementioned SFW games that include LGBT+ characters and stories.
I’m compiling here information I’ve seen around various social medias, mostly Bluesky, because I haven’t seen all these things shared over here.
I don’t personally have explicit content on itch, but I had been considering one day selling things on there and I do currently have explicit content on my Patreon, my main source of income, and am terrified that Patreon is going to fold next (if anyone knows alterative for hosting audio content behind a paid subscription service please let me know so I can start maybe making a back-up in case the worst happens). Because for me personally if Patreon goes next, it’s not like I can go out and easily get another job. Not only because in general finding and getting a job is difficult enough, but I’m autistic and have chronic pain and have been constantly getting sick or new pains over the last few years and don’t feel safe being trans in the UK right now and all of that combined rules me out of a lot of jobs and makes me feel unsafe to apply to any. I’m so grateful I’ve been able to make a community around my work, but if Patreon caves next and I just leave my SFW posts on Patreon… 10% of my Patreons are signed up to the SFW tier, 90% are signed up to the explicit tier… I know if Patreon caves I will go from someone living comfortably who’s searching to move out of my parents so I can live in a safer environment to someone who can no longer even afford the rent I pay to my parents. I’ll try and get an alterative found and set up in case that happens and I can only hope you guys will follow me to whatever other site I have to set up… but it feels unlikely that people will get a whole new account on a whole new payment provider just to support me on a website they might never have heard of…
But what can we do right now?
A petition you can sign (international but you do have to give your name, email, and postal/zip code):
Don’t know what to say on the phone? Here’s a script written by timidtanuki:
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Creators have had their work removed off Itch.io with no warning and since it’s been removed for 'breaking the rules’ (rules that were suddenly in place with no warning) they aren’t entitled to get their payouts. Just like other sites such as Youtube and Twitch and Etsy, Itch.io hold onto money from their users in a wallet and then give them payouts. So there is money creators have made, are owed, that Itch.io is not giving to them.
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People are recommending that if you still have works on Itch.io to turn down the revenue sharing to 0% so that Itch.io no longer takes a cut or your money if you no longer want to support Itchi.io finically but don’t want to remove your works from their platform. X
Other Bluesky posts and calls to action I’ve seen:
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radiantg.bsky.social is asking for anyone on Itch.io who got their game deindexed, removed , or payouts turned off to reach out to them (espeically if you make explicit and/or LGBT+ games) for a piece of journalism about what is happening.
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sleepyhart.bsky.social is making a threat of all the games that Itch.io has censored/removed from their site search function. Obviously be aware this will include 18+ only games, games with sexual content and other dark or heavy themes.
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thetransfemininereview.com wants you to reach out to them if you’re a trans creator on Itch.io who is being affected by this so they can make an accurate report. they say 'authors’ in their post and I’m unsure if they also want game devs to reach out.
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dropdownbear.bsky.com wants you to reach out if you have purchased things on Itch.io that you can now no longer access because of this ban. they can include them in a report being filed with the Australian Consumer Commission as this may be a violation of Australian Consumer rights. If you are Australian you can no longer access things you purchased of Itch.io you can report directly with this guide.
It’s a scary time for adult creators and sex workers. It’s a scary time to be trans. Support creators. And if anyone knows of any alternate payment providers that allow explicit work, and/or alternate websites to Itch (and in case things get worse, also give me Patreon alternates please) where people can host, sell and/or offer paid subscriptions to writing, images, videos, audios, games and more please leave them in the replies. And please help share this post, the posts I’m linking too, and any other resources you can find.
Minors DNI. Ageless blogs DNI. I want resources and help but I don’t reply to this post or follow this blog if you’re under 18, this is an explicit blog and not for anyone under 18.
things I would do if you’re a nsfw/kink creative now because I’ve been eerily prescient about every single wave:
a) get a personal site with your own domain you own. now. not a carrd or third party squarespace. not next week. now. get it online with ugly-ass html but get your links there.
partly because they’re actively fighting this, partly because they have members-only Lawyers You Might Need. Hint. Hint. Canary.
c) Write Down Those Lawyer Contact Numbers in meatspace. phone number of a real human being especially on paper, On You.
I have been in contact with lawyers for a few months now as my doujin circle knows. this should be telling you Many Things.
d) www.ecrater.com is where i’m going to be tentatively testing a shop because i like the fact you can *not* have payment processes and order digital/physical products via purely mail order.
(… be prepared for this to fall through too in the next 1-6 months.)
e) friends and followers of nsfw artists who earn most of their income through it: now’s the time to support them. they’re going to need the grace and financial flexibility especially mental health wise. domain/shop transfer/refund/therapy bills ain’t free.
check in on them, and often.
f) get a VPN, use it daily to acclimatize, have them on your hard drive, several VPN’s preferable. this is for the age verification laws coming. Start reading up on secure, privacy-focused infrastructure (prioritize email > website > shop in that order).
g) prepare for discord and tumblr to be hit in the next wave. have alternatives *and actively start using them* if they’re mission critical platforms for you.
I’ve played with matrix though I quite fancy IRC. if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I say these things not to fearmonger but to give yourself the maximum amount of time to prepare. the pendulum *will* swing back. it did with the 80’s moral panic. it will for this too.
Just to clarify, there’s a bill that would STOP credit card companies from controlling who’s allowed to spend money on porn or “risque” (read: queer) content. If you don’t think big business should be able to tell you what to spend your own damn money on, call your senators and reps to let them know! It’s the Fair Access to Banking Act, H.R.987 in the House, S.410 in the Senate.
Banks and credit cards should not be in the business of making moral judgments about what their customers spend their money on. Their job is to facilitate transactions, period. If it’s not illegal, then they should have no say on who buys guns or porn or junk food or any other thing somebody might decide is objectionable.
this is an american bill about american companies that, as usual, effects people worldwide. if you’re statesian, here’s a chance to make something decent of it- put pressure on your politicians to pass this bill and protect queer porn and art, especially transfeminine porn and art!
Good US news because I think we all could use some of it:
The Marines are to be withdrawn from LA. The extreme escalation many of us feared did not happen thanks to the people of LA and the soldiers themselves who said “no”.
The “Good Trouble Lives On” protests may not have been as big as the previous “Hands Off” and “No Kings” protests (likely due to heat + being planned on a weekday), but still 1.6k protests were held across the USA with thousands joining in with the peaceful protest.
Don’t let anyone tell you that there isn’t hope, that there aren’t people fighting and working and just as scared and angry as you are. You are not alone. Peaceful protests, contacting reps, and simple non-cooperation is how we sustainably and successfully push back against authoritarianism.
“We’re cooked” is the devil talking. Giving up, rolling over, and perpetuating the idea that we’ve already failed is exactly what MAGA wants. Don’t give them the satisfaction. Don’t make it easy. Continue to look after each other and support your communities where you can. Keep protesting, keep calling, keep writing, keep loving. The heart is a muscle the size of your fist; we can get through this as long as we continue to stand up and say “no”.
Minimum wage is fro ma 2021 study. This number is partially correct. This study proposed a $15 min wage and asked whether respondents supported this. 62% were completely in favour. 71% of the respondents who disagreed still support raising the minimum wage, just to less than $15. The total percentage of people in favour of raising minimum wage was therefore 89%.
I have no grander ambitions in life I simply want to live with people I love, play videod Game, and sink my teeth into all the kinds of eatery on this earth
if you’re wondering why spellcheck and grammar check is worse now, it’s because they replaced it with AI! 🥰
now, instead of maintaining a comprehensive, nuanced, and human-maintained encyclopedia by which to check your document, they have switched to an AI that just compares what you’ve written to what other people write in, say, Google Docs, and use the most commonly used iteration.
ever have it change something like “all intents and purposes” to “all intensive purposes” or “should’ve” to “should of”? that’s why!
people make the same spelling and grammar mistakes so often, AI thinks that’s the way you say it because it is a PATTERN DETECTOR and cannot THINK let alone use language.
i think we should talk about degendering more as a very real form of transphobia. you should not be calling a trans woman “they” when she’s explained her pronouns to you. you should not be calling her a “person” instead of a woman. she’s not too gnc, she’s not too androgynous, you’re not “confused” about her identity, you’re degendering her. I fear we’ve gotten to a point we’ve forgotten the very basics of this movement is “trans women are women” and “trans men are men”, and not just “trans people are someone who’s pronouns you have to memorize so you don’t offend them.” you see her as a man in a dress and it pisses me off
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