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A comment on Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web.

Re:Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of th... by throwawaysea on Monday October 11, 2021 @03:24AM (#28825723)
Payments should be treated like a public utility services, so that they cannot deny customers or uses that are legal. It is a bad idea to let any private service that is so widespread and fundamental to function as a proxy regulator of speech.

This problem was very apparent when Wikileaks faced a payment blockade a decade back (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2012/07/18/wikileaks-break...). We are overdue to reign in Visa and MasterCard, just as we are with giant social media common carriers.

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Re:Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of th... by vineyardmike on Monday October 11, 2021 @03:41AM (#28825821)
> they cannot deny customers or uses that are legal

What about services that are maybe-legal? As I understand, a lot of the sex-related industry (porn, etc) have some issues related to revenge porn, consent, exploitation, etc. Its hard for the payment processor to trust that every transaction is legal. Especially when occasional illegal content slips in.

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Re:Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of th... by foxfluff on Monday October 11, 2021 @06:37AM (#28826791)
It shouldn't be their job, and blanket bans on specific subjects because "someone may do something illegal" is prejudice with a lot of collateral.

If someone is doing something illegal, it should be the authorities job to deal with it.

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Re:Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of th... by shartacct on Monday October 11, 2021 @11:20AM (#28829345)
No they shouldn't. There are high-risk payment processors that will serve foreign intelligence operations like wikileaks, fascist political donation services, fraud-heavy industries like fiat to crypto onramps and socially regressive businesses like porn. There's no need to regulate low-risk payment processors as the industry is not monopolized in any way and it's trivial to find one that will take your money.
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