We can't let the bastards win!

And I'll never give my driver's licence to ANY site. There was just another hack the other day.

Here here!

That first site looks really well composed.

I wish I knew how to do more with bothering gov officials, but I figure a great number of the republican reps here in america will just hear about "censorship and government control" and kick their little legs squealing with glee

Republican voters won't forgive them if that's the case. It's hard to get conservatives to vote for you if you openly support censorship and government control, since those are two of the biggest things they usually complain about. There's a reason why terms like "RINO" exist for those politicians.

What I find interesting about this situation in particular is how it's unifying people on both sides of the political aisle. I'm seeing people on the right and left having the same disdain for groups like Collective Shout, and it's awesome. It's so surreal to see big names from Gamergate and Anita Sarkeesian on the same wavelength for a change.

"It's hard to get conservatives to vote for you if you openly support censorship and government control"

They voted for and still support a president who actively does those things though?

Honestly, after how badly the Trump administration fumbled the ball with the Epstein files, I don't think even most Trump supporters trust Trump anymore. The morale for the MAGA movement is through the floor right now. Most conservatives I've talked to are basically done with Trump and just want to move on.

Yeah I wrote to my representative, but I'm not super optimistic about our government obviously.

« I wish I knew how to do more with bothering gov officials »

There is a French solution, and you have your 2nd amendment. You know, this one your NRA defends because something like that could happen. So, this "something like that" did happen, so use it.

It's worse than that. Australia, UK and now US are enabling a lot of censorship. Youtube wants to pass this AI shit that will determine your age automatically, and then hit you with "provide your ID to use our platform" shit if they decide arbitrary that you're underaged.

Some more repressive countries while ago forced companies operating in their contries to provide full access to user's private info to their serevices (meaning their FSB and equivalent stuff in other countries). Now it's coming to other parts of the world. Honest, insane situation. And obviously some people support that because "they're bannin content I don't like", yeah but 1st YOU control what YOU access to. Corpo and the gov shouldn't be the one filtering that for you. What is this, 1985? And then it starts with topics most people agree on.

But then drips down to stuff like LGBT in general. Because "they're making our children gay" and "gays are pedos" stuff. Again, this stuff already been done while ago in some places. So like, sad to see that now spreading.

Yeah the UK/Australia shit is insane.

We're in that escalotory part of the history. There was this soviet political scientist, I forget the name? His theory was that there are historical escalations, then it explodes into WW2 or some other major event, then it descalates, with people being tired and economies going down, and then we stagnate. Grow again and scalate. I feel like according to his theory we are escalating and eventually will peak with a lot of war and repressions. Europe just feels real bad and unsafe right now. Some parts more than the others. But I just don't really enjoy my life right now.

It's so frustrating how so many websites like Patreon and Itch always bend the knee to a vocal minority of activists who want to censor the Internet. It's always the same thing. "Think of the children" moral grandstanders, social justice warriors, or some other fringe group of loudmouths just barge in and demand that certain people be "deplatformed" while demanding the removal of a bunch of content that offends them, and the big sites always cave to their ridiculous demands. I've seen it happen so many times. I'm tired of it.

How many more times are we going to keep putting up with this? It started with angry keyboard warriors on Twitter going after political YouTubers whose opinions they didn't like, successfully getting Patreon to take their income away, and then they started doing the same thing to artists as well. They tried to convince everyone that it was just "problematic" people being affected, but that was obviously a lie. The rules keep getting stricter and stricter every year, affecting more and more people. At this point, you don't even need to be very controversial to be at risk of being censored.

Patreon is probably the most obvious example of how severe the escalation has gotten. If you've ever said something controversial (even on a different website), you're out of luck. If your characters look too young, you're out of luck. If your characters look too animalistic, you're out of luck. If you live in Russia, you're out of luck. The fact that they're now cracking down on any content that's "animal-related" should come as no surprise.

They're boiling the water, thinking we're frogs that won't notice, but what they don't realize is that it's backfiring on them. Patron, Itch, and other large websites are losing their customers in droves. By pandering to a censorious fringe, they're alienating everyone else. It's no wonder why so many people are jumping ship and moving over to competitors like Boosty and SubscribeStar. If Patreon and Itch don't want people to post content that might make certain other people uncomfortable, they'll just take their business elsewhere, which is exactly what we're seeing.

If you haven't already, I'd recommend boycotting Patreon and Itch. If they don't turn things around, they don't deserve your business anymore. SubscribeStar is the most popular alternative, as it's basically like Patreon without the ridiculous rules and censorship. The only problem is that a lot of payment processors don't work over there, as the keyboard warriors pressured them into dropping their integration several years ago, so only direct payments work.

There's a lot more wrong with subscribestar than that, their documentation and informational tools we have access to is pretty lacking compared to patreon. It also hasn't like, EVER UPDATED EVER, in the past several years. There's a lot wrong with that platform, and their customer service is abysmal. It's AN option, but it isn't a reliable one at all.

We're literally the small-version of bending the knee. We can't afford to ditch Patreon, and Itch was one of the first things that ever supported adult content. (I mean patreon too, they fought for this and won with Paypal.)

It's not fair to say these guys suck when this stuff happens. The reality is, if money is being threatened, people are going to do what they have to. It's food. It's shelter. It's survival to some extent. It gets worse when you're a bigger business because you're responsible for paying people. Not only your users in these cases, but the people who work for you. You can't be a martyr when people are depending on you financially.

The only thing I could be mad at all these companies for is their lack of communication. Keep us informed, keep us armed with the knowledge so we can try to help. But hey, better yet, if we don't have to have these pressures and changes from payment processors, than none of this would be an issue! So fight on!

Unfortunately, I can't recommend Boosty :c Many people may not have problems with it, but I personally encountered them.

Since I live in Russia and we essentially have no way to somehow pay for arts by foreign artists, I decided to try Boosty.

I ordered my first art around the beginning of last year. Everything went well. The money went to the artist's account, and then she was able to withdraw it to PayPal (this happens automatically at the end of each day)

Then, closer to autumn, I ordered another art from the same artist. The money went to her Boosty account but for some reason was not transferred to PayPal. As we later found out, Boosty simply removed PayPal and left only Yoomoney, which had an icon that looked very similar to PayPal... Then, she tried to link two of her bank cards, but the money was not transferred to either one.

So we suffered for about two months. Then, I found information from Boosty itself that I can cancel my payment at my payment system, because of which the money received by the artist will be frozen until Boosty finds out the reason.

But after such manipulations, my account was blocked! I fought with Boosty support for about two months. I explained that the artist cannot withdraw her money in any way. And she cannot return it back to me either. There is simply no such function. But they simply called me a scammer.

Even the artist sent a request to support, but she was not helped with this issue.

In the end, at the beginning of this year, I finally got my money back. But my account was never unblocked. All I learned during this time is that Boosty's rules are very tricky. I roughly remembered some of them:

- Boosty is not an intermediary between the sender and the recipient and does not interfere with the transfer of money and communication
- If the money has arrived to the Boosty account, then this operation is considered successfully completed. If you cannot withdraw it, then it is your problem
- In fact, you cannot cancel the transfer of money through the bank (although why then was it allowed in the rules, that is the question) Such an operation puts a mark of "scammer" on you and your account is blocked forever

I wish more of these things would link to the ACLU petition and not the completely useless Change.org petition. If it had as many valid signatures as that stupid thing did, it'd be over the threshold for action by now.

But I hope things are actually moving on this finally. We couldn't get any movement at all when they destroyed Gumroad's safety net. This is probably the only chance for change we have, while people are also up in arms over Stop Killing Games as well. >.<;; I don't have a lot of hope under the current political climate, but-- if we're going to see any traction, it's now or never.

We're genuinely running out of decent platforms to sell adult games and art without having to either self host or use obscure, niche hosts a lot of folk don't care to sign up for or don't trust. It sucks.
I don't really care for nsfw games but I have bought a few comics of it on itch and really appreciate the past freedom it had there to explore and offer such things. Everyone deserves that freedom as a creator and buyer.

I remember many years ago people saying not to mention furry and put your PayPal on any public furry pages because they would happily close any accounts linked to nsfw art. It's absolutely depressing how consenting adults don't have a full right in what they're able to buy or sell.

Collective Shout say they are a neutral group without any direct political or religious influence but they seem to have all the familiar "anti-sexual expression" vitriol going on that religious extremism can be associated with.

It's quite sad to see that average people still only focus on 'porn' (with statements like, 'it's just gooning games getting affected, why are you crying? Are you a gooner?') instead of actual issue of payment processors exerting this amount of power when they shouldn't be overstepping their boundaries. They forget that, groups like that of Collective Shout are just chipping away at the most fringe part with the least populous support first before they extend their grubby paws to whatever that displeases them. And I keep seeing 'if you don't support this, you are a 'insert terms for criminals here'?' as defense to keep up the smoke and mirror tactic. Really hope things change by fighting back.

Guess who went after art that they deemed degenerate

We all know where this will lead

Btw do you guys think moving to other payment platforms like boosty and independent sites that use them would work

We gotta switch to crypto.

No we the fuck do not; one society-spanning pyramid scheme is more than enough.

I mean... it IS a viable solution for payment. Outside of hype times, the gas fees are lower than paypal and the decentralization is exactly what we need. PP was not giving NSFW artists/customers protection anyways.

Which is the other pyramid scheme btw?
Banking is not a pyramid it is a duopol (monopoly with two at the top) and that's worse...

Stocks!

I agree that keeping it to like, USDC or USDT would be a legitimate viable option. (Anything backed by a USD and is as stable as possible) But the pushback is immediately alienating anyways.

It’s a great proof of concept that decentralized options is kinda what we need here. The rest comes down to convenience and if people are using it. That said, it only starts being used if more people use it! Probably worth looking into if there’s any more modern easy-to-use options these days.

Voluntarily, people will not switch, but if Visa and Co. actually shuts off the majority of revenue streams for NSFW creators, that essentially does become non voluntary anymore...

Would you call stocks really a pyramid scheme? I mean everyone who trades stock has the same percentual win/loss, meaning the absolute win/loss is only based on how much they invested.
The problem with pyramid schemes is that people higher up do earn disproportionally more on the same(!) investment.

Stocks on paper isn’t, but with enough money you could control the market. It’s not a traditional pyramid scheme for sure haha, but at the end of the day it’s shit that benefit the rich (or at least favor the rich) and its fucky.

Add in stuff like the GME shenanigans and how some stock brokers were handling it (Robinhood straight up disabled selling/buying of a stock for a significant amount of time) - having another layer of people being able to manipulate stuff.

Shits nuts lmao. But yeah on paper it’s ok! Just throw human nature into it and there’s gonna be shenanigans

Fair assessment!

Btw. not sure a crypto bound to USD would be my preference. The whole point is to be independent of the classic institutions, so why bind the value to it?
Things like dogecoin may be more volatile, but that evens out mid term if you convert a fixed sum for/from your commissions every month.

People’s livelihood needs consistency. They couldn’t afford if that didn’t work out, so the USD option at least addresses that issue.

The problem isn’t the dollar, just the hands involved to move it around

The stock market is like this: Money goes in the bottom, and more money comes out the top. That 'new money' comes from the value of time and labour from the masses of people who are actually contributing to the enterprise. This means that those who invested something real are subjected to government-sanctioned theft—and they're expected to be grateful for it.

The worth of crypto currency is extrinsic, founded completely on the groundless perception of value. Why do you buy crypto? You buy it because the value is seen to increase with time. Why does the value increase with time? It increases because people are willing to pay progressively higher prices for it. And why do people pay those higher prices? They do it because the value increases with time.....

And that is the definition of a pyramid scheme, even more literally so than the capitalist fleece is.

Oh bro, I spent my youth in Russia. In the childhood I saw the dawn of porn and bold music, but as I grew up, everything slowly turned into a dictatorship of censorship. People looked for loopholes, did underground parties. There was romance in this - "being a member of a secret club", "being outside the law". It's much more cozy and fun than full legality :)

So here's what I want to say - don't panic, liberty guys always finds a ways to break through!

Oh sure... DOX myself to "Protect the children"
What a fucken load of Bull..!!

If you want to put pressure on payment processors and also tell your representatives what you want them to do, tell both you fully support the Freedom in Banking Act that was introduced earlier this year;

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th.....ll/401/text/is

An anti-porn "Morality" religious group from the 90s rebranded as a "center for child exploitation organization"... Seriously... look it up... And have been pushing their anti-porn agenda that way by making their "morals group" sound more like some sort of official agency/think tank organization.

They are so dead set on banning porn specifically, that they would rather go after the 40-50 "reports" in a year from OnlyFans or pronhub than the 25MILLION from FACEBOOK!!

They also have a hand in funding the same type of groups in the UK and Australia.

This then goes along with the "CORPOS" and "Social Credit Score" pushers that want to track everything people do online and out in the world so your real life face or name can be attached to said score and EASILY SEARCHABLE to see if you are a "deviant" or "undesirable" or not while ALSO being a wet dream of "Targeted Advertisers".

Really is looking like we are heading towards a DYSTOPIA that's a mix of "Demolition Man" and "Idiocracy" at the same time. >.<

Always be wary of authoritarian/totalitarian laws being pushed under the guise of "Protecting The Children".

Do you mind if I repost this whole journal?

Sure!

I reposted a link to this journal and a link to the pertition under my latest journal as well which basically tackles MOSTLY the "save the children!" part from this whole thing.

In the core, i say, parents, for the most part, should just stop blaming others and do their jobs right and i say that very kindly unlike in my latest journal lol.

Thanks. Did everything here but contacting my state representative, will aim to do so tomorrow morning.

Word from the UK,

I've been hot on the case many laws here that criminalise merely being "offensive" for about a decade now... naturally that's led me to last weeks effects of the Online Safety Act being absolutely no surprise to me.

The only "defence" people in favour of it rush to is, "you want kids watching porn"; moral panic rabble expected to shut down all discussion on the actual problems, an outdated tactic - especially when we already have the means to prevent that (which should be utilised by every parent) and more importantly this law is designed to, and already attacking SO much more than porn... supposedly, even pizza deliveries.

To all Americans, don't ever think about sitting out any fight to defend for your 1st Amendment rights. Right now us in the UK are banking on some your lawyer-types currently planning to sue the UK government's broadcast regulator.

This is what i f***ken told for YEARS now! GRAB YOUR WEAPON OR YOU WILL END LIKE IN NORTH KOREA / TURKMENISTAN / RUSSIA etc...
They will F O R C E you (WITH VIOLENCE) to become slaves. There will be NO freedom. NOT AT ALL. EVERYTHING will be forbidden. You will work and reproduce to make new workers. That's it. Nothing more. IT'S NOT SOME STUPID 'prediction', it's not dark antiutopia or something. It already happens RIGHT NOW in other places on the earth, and now it reached you. I live in Russia, and we already LOST our right to be free. We're slaves now. And if you won't start acting- you will be next, there's nowhere to run, there's nothing you could do about it "in a cute and kind ways". Get a gun, get generator that could work on a bad fuels, get lighters, medical stuff, learn how to fix broken stuff- repairing is necessary skill. Stocking fresh water is useless- you will never have enough, even if you put tanker on your backyard. Better get filters and waterpump. Antibiotics is crucial too.
There's no place for panic, you have enough time to prepare, but you have no time for doubts.

Collective Shout was founded by a pro-life feminist, anti-porn activist....of course it was. Makes so much sense now. And they're based in Aussie-land. I would've thought this came from the USA

Someone else to look into is Russell Vought, currently acting director of The Office of Management and Budget and director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Oddly specific places for the Project 2025 co-author to be working, especially when they say things like this:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tfttuIwswbI

Literally just saying everything that's happening currently the world over OUT LOUD on hidden cam, and this was almost a year ago now. As much as people are dog piling on Collective Shout for being loud and easy to hate on, I think guys like this that openly say they're any% speedrunning the US to a Christian Nationalist nation and planning to ban porn by "starting with the kids" to win over the masses and push out the companies, users, etc are the one's you really need to be watching. Some obnoxious lobbyists/activists didn't get payment processors and entire foreign governments outside Australia out of to fold seemingly out of nowhere. Some things have definitely been creeping around in the background, but it's been a complete blitz on censorship damn near everywhere pretty much back to back. I'm not one for conspiracies, but frankly, this stinks.

And while Trump just signed an executive order barring de-banking, they apparently leave out the bad actors, in this case being VISA and Mastercard, which are ultimately the ones that decide whether a business lives or dies. I wish it was the huge W for gamers and free speech that people think it is.

https://reclaimthenet.org/trump-ord.....ent-processors

Also am I the only one that's noticed that the mainstream tv news has barely covered any of this at all? You'd think a government or government(s) completely overreaching their own rights and bullying marketplaces over legal content would make more waves outside of a few select gaming websites and Youtube gossip channels.

Feels more and more like you almost have to know a guy who knows a guy or hope you catch people yapping about it on YT before they get banned entirely for sudden magical bullshit claims on old videos that have been up, verified and monetized for months because they dared to speak up about censorship or YT's own ID/bio-metric age gating coming up on the 13th. And the whole "age gating porn, or even just average adult shows, YT content, etc behind forcing people to give them a name and face to tie it down to" is another sickening trend that's also been making the rounds for a little while now, and I'm sure folks in the UK, Australia, etc are aware.

In any case, I will just leave folks with this tweet here:

https://x.com/gelbooru/status/1951486311749038104


Censorship and Prohibition historically hasn't worked out well in the past, I'd like to think it's not about to start now, but the difference is, back then, you didn't have most 1st world countries working towards a seemingly similar goal and trying to tie your personal ID and face to every single aspect of your life from your location to shopping habits, or to your online messages among friends and family. Makes it a lot easier to just root out people or groups of them before they make too much noise or get too much traction in social media.

First off, where’s that anonymous telegram furry hacker group who hacked the government, when you need them; second, how hasn’t anyone sued collective shout yet (in the USA) for violating peoples freedom of speech and self expression.