Because payment processors are a utility, and Valve has no choice but to comply with all demands if it wants to remain a viable business.

Utilities aren't allowed to deny service based on moral considerations. Pretty much every single country with functional rule of law has clauses enforcing this.

Originally posted by Shotgun:

Because payment processors are a utility, and Valve has no choice but to comply with all demands if it wants to remain a viable business.

Utilities aren't allowed to deny service based on moral considerations. Pretty much every single country with functional rule of law has clauses enforcing this.

Isn't VAC a utility? Most of these games can be played online without VAC, but people want the utility of playing without cheaters.

And for clarity, all the payment providers have rules like this. It's not just visa and mastercard.

Utility means an essential commercial service, such as electricity. Visa and Mastercard have an effective monopoly and function as a cartel, and the service they provide is effectively a requirement for normal life. They are functioning as a utility in that regard. Utilities can't deny services on subjective moral considerations (e.g. a power company can't refuse to send electricity to a house in which a convicted child sex offender lives).

Originally posted by Shotgun:

Utility means an essential commercial service, such as electricity. Visa and Mastercard have an effective monopoly and function as a cartel, and the service they provide is effectively a requirement for normal life. They are functioning as a utility in that regard. Utilities can't deny services on subjective moral considerations (e.g. a power company can't refuse to send electricity to a house in which a convicted child sex offender lives).

As said before, this is not just visa and mastercard. All the payment processors have rules about this kind of stuff. Not just the american ones either.

Originally posted by Chronocide:

Originally posted by Shotgun:

Utility means an essential commercial service, such as electricity. Visa and Mastercard have an effective monopoly and function as a cartel, and the service they provide is effectively a requirement for normal life. They are functioning as a utility in that regard. Utilities can't deny services on subjective moral considerations (e.g. a power company can't refuse to send electricity to a house in which a convicted child sex offender lives).

As said before, this is not just visa and mastercard. All the payment processors have rules about this kind of stuff. Not just the american ones either.

The rules of corporations don't supersede the laws of the nations in which they do business.

Originally posted by Shotgun:

. Utilities can't deny services on subjective moral considerations (e.g. a power company can't refuse to send electricity to a house in which a convicted child sex offender lives).

So if I want to buy a child for sex via your child prostitution service, you think it's visa pushing their morality on me, that they don't want to be the middleman for the payment?

I think they want to stay away from this criminal act as much as possible. I don't think they care about the morality of it, they don't want to be an accomplice to a crime.

Originally posted by Chronocide:

Originally posted by Shotgun:

. Utilities can't deny services on subjective moral considerations (e.g. a power company can't refuse to send electricity to a house in which a convicted child sex offender lives).

So if I want to buy a child for sex via your child prostitution service, you think it's visa pushing their morality on me, that they don't want to be the middleman for the payment?

I think they want to stay away from this criminal act as much as possible. I don't think they care about the morality of it, they don't want to be an accomplice to a crime.

Correct, they're under no obligation to provide their services for the purpose of conducting criminal activity. What's your point?

Originally posted by Shotgun:

Originally posted by Chronocide:

So if I want to buy a child for sex via your child prostitution service, you think it's visa pushing their morality on me, that they don't want to be the middleman for the payment?

I think they want to stay away from this criminal act as much as possible. I don't think they care about the morality of it, they don't want to be an accomplice to a crime.

Correct, they're under no obligation to provide their services for the purpose of conducting criminal activity. What's your point?

My point is that steam agreed to not sell or trade any product that:

In relation to, or for the purchase or trade of, photographs, video imagery, computer-generated images, cartoons, simulation, or any other media or activities including, but not limited to, any of the following:
–Child sexual abuse materials
–Incest
–Bestiality
–Rape (or any other non-consensual sexual behavior)
–Non-consensual mutilation of a person or body part

And that's just visa.

Just like, I as a steam user, agreed to follow the VAC rules on when playing on a VAC server.

I have already explained this to you above.

Visa/Mastercard are providing essential services without which it is impossible to conduct business in the modern world. They also operate as an effective cartel, meaning that there are no viable alternatives to their services. As such, they are effectively functioning utilities.

Whatever rules these companies have internally do not supersede national law, and they shouldn't be able to selectively deny service based on moral considerations. They haven't been challenged in court on this yet, but the legal precedent is very clear.

The categories of content you listed above aren't illegal in the US when they're represented in video games. Video games have been ruled as art via the Supreme Court. Artistic adult content isn't regulated by the government in the US. There's one specific caveat with regard to child sexual abuse materials (CSAM), and that is that artistic representations of such aren't allowed to be modeled on any real-life victims of child abuse. But since Valve voluntarily never allowed any representations of child abuse on Steam, this was never a point of contention to begin with.

All of this has been discussed and explained in the dozens of other threads we have on this topic.

Edit: responding to Chronocide

Your point requires people to accept that utilities have the right to enforce moral standards in excess of the law, which they either do not or should not.

The power company does not get to shut the lights off in a building where a furry convention is happening, because they disapprove morally of furries.

It doesn’t matter if the building signed an agreement with the power company that says they can do that; that has no legal standing if the law says they can’t do that.

I don’t think however, at least in my country, that payment processors are currently treated as utilities/common carriers. They definitely should be; phone companies are after all.

VAC bans have set exact actions which are clearly defined, defined by the company the customer is directly doing business with, and has formal proof behind it. Yeah Valve support may be moronic lying fools but that's a matter of the customer service side of enforcement not a problem with VAC on a technical level.

What subseciotn 15 is, is Valve declaring that buying from its local grocery store means your subject to their landlords rules, which they wont even tell you the name of, the rules of any bank they ever take money from, and the operating standards of supply companies they get goods from, whom they wont let you contact.

Originally posted by Sciencemile:

I don’t think however, at least in my country, that payment processors are currently treated as utilities/common carriers. They definitely should be; phone companies are after all.

Yeah, they aren't anywhere, yet. They've been slipping by and getting away with a lot of terrible behavior, and now they finally went too far out of their lane and made people notice.

I wouldn't be surprised if that industry's landscape doesn't change drastically over the next decade. They might get broken up or severely regulated because of the fallout from this scandall they started.

Originally posted by Shotgun:

Originally posted by Sciencemile:

I don’t think however, at least in my country, that payment processors are currently treated as utilities/common carriers. They definitely should be; phone companies are after all.

Yeah, they aren't anywhere, yet. They've been slipping by and getting away with a lot of terrible behavior, and now they finally went too far out of their lane and made people notice.

I wouldn't be surprised if that industry's landscape doesn't change drastically over the next decade. They might get broken up or severely regulated because of the fallout from this scandall they started.

Agreed, frankly we need to stop letting people demand right of freedom of association in business. We already dont allow it on the small business side, business in fact can not reserve the right to refuse service to anyone without reasoning, but we've let the financial side do as it pleases for a while now(partially due to depending on old Tort laws to cover for it)

https://youtu.be/AlDkL3DndtM

Originally posted by Chronocide:

As said before, this is not just visa and mastercard. All the payment processors have rules about this kind of stuff. Not just the american ones either.

That is where you are wrong, not all payment processors have these limitations.