While at the same time allowing for blowing up people to pieces on regular movies, because that is alright, no big problem.

This isn't censorship. This is VISA/MC saying "you can't pay for porn with our service" or more broadly, "you can't pay for things that we don't want to be associated with" which is their right.

They have a govt-supported duopoly in the States, which is generally speaking why some folks believe they lack the right to refuse service in this case.

Exactly. Your rights of association should be carefully weighted against the government-granted cartel you have been granted.

Why not ditch them and use crypto?

What about FedNow? They would be bound by 1st amendment.

Imo, using this argument in this context not just strains the credibility, it makes argument itself sound like fake excuse. VISA/MC would not be associated with porn at all if they did not pressured on steam to remove the games. That is simply not true and non existent threat. It is censorship, plain and simple in its true original meaning.

I do not think VISA/MC do care about freedom of speech or anything of the sort. Nor they ever claimed to do so. But we do not have to twist ourselves into pretzels to pretend this is not censorship just because censorship is ugly word.

>This is VISA/MC saying "you can't pay for porn with our service" or more broadly, "you can't pay for things that we don't want to be associated with" which is their right.

FALSE, they are not blocking customers buying adult games using their system, they are focing the stores to remove the adult content unless they will block all customers that would buy very christian products too.

Would make sense if you were telling the truth and VISA would refuse your money if you are not a religious extremist but the reality is they they force their duopoly to remove LEGAL products from market places.

They're in panic mode and nuke all mode because one payment facilitator in Europe under investigation.

The good old "we don't serve gays" argument.

The baker case I think was about the cake, thus having to produce "reprehensible" art. Editorial work (steam selecting what games to promote) is Sth I strongly think is their right to choose. But having a transaction run through your network? That's on the other side of the spectrum, way closer to the "no gay customer" situation. If they'd at least pretend it's because of, idk, higher card fraud rates...

What are the principles governing the exceptions you listed (slander, doxxing, incitement)?

1. Direct, obvious harm beyond "my feelings were upset."

2. Actually, this isn't illegal in a lot of places.

3. Direct, obvious harm beyond "my feelings were upset."

Should we ever consider broad societal harm, or just focus on individual harm? It's to me just short sighted to only consider the later.

Do you actually believe that the issue with porn is that it "upsets people's feelings"?

Mostly the principle that direct, tangible, and irreparable harm is being done by the speech. I called these "hairy" exactly because they are less clear-cut than most cases. The line between satire or speculation and slander, for example, can be kind of notoriously hard to draw, many "doxxing" incidents mostly involve finding already-public information, and incitement to violence is pretty difficult to demonstrate in a satisfying way

The reason I bring up these examples is that they are what I consider the edge cases of freedom of expression. There are genuinely difficult tradeoffs between values, but allowing stuff that bothers some people to be published is not one of them

> There are certainly hairy exceptions, like doxxing, slander, or incitement to violence

You seem to have chosen three hairy exceptions, why not four or five?

> stuff like this clearly doesn't fall in that category

Those categories?

Or are you saying that doxxing, slander and "incitement" to violence are three things that can put people into immediate danger, so the single category is "things that can put people in immediate danger"?

Are arguments that doxxing and slander are things that can put people into immediate danger any stronger than the arguments that pornography/obscenity and hate speech put people into immediate danger?

In fact, doxxing is usually extremely legal. The thing that should obviously be illegal is legal.

On the other hand, hate speech can aggravate criminal charges and obscenity is still actually illegal (while pornography isn't necessarily considered obscene any more.)

I guarantee you have a counterpart who thinks it's obvious to everyone that hate speech and pornography cause real harm, where doxxing and slander are journalism and incitement to violence is activism or self-defense.

I suppose I think what you've said - not specifically regarding itch, but I'm on board with some kinds of curbs on speech like hate speech.

I don't think it's a complex position though, I think free speech is good. But I think other things like people's ability to leave lives free from abuse is good as well.

Sometimes free speech can be in conflict with something else that's good. You don't have to agree on the specific, but I think it's at least a coherent non-crazy position.

More importantly people thought they could vote republican and ignore their rabid religious governing. Particularly people like peter theil

I think hate speech is a separate case from porn, honestly. Porn is not ideal but it's not ideal as letting people mount hate against minorities, which imho is unacceptable

censorship isn't bad