sixpillarsofgenesis

[sixpillarsofgenesis]

I do not AI WRITE, I do not AI DRAW, I do not listen to AI MUSIC, I consume HUMAN MEDIA, and if it isn’t created by someone IT IS NOT ART.

[sixpillarsofgenesis]

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!

[sixpillarsofgenesis]

I'm so sick of defending shit I don't even like. I hate porn. I think gender and sexuality are boring. I've never taken an illegal drug and have no interest in doing so. But people won't back the fuck off and let people live their lives so here we still are, still on the front lines with this shit. "You guys make everything about" I'D REALLY LOVE NOT TO, MATE, BUT WE'RE NOT THE ONES CREATING PROBLEMS HERE. Stop trying to control people's lives and we'll all get a chance to shut up about it, but unfortunately the Moral Police are out here endangering lives and livelihoods so here we still are. Forever.

[sixpillarsofgenesis]

Actually one of my favorite things is when proshippers are bullied out of specific fandom spaces and then you get to watch that fandom cave in on itself and burn to death or become this sad little cesspit of the same 15 people regurgitating the same repetitive, bland content while scream-crying about how their fandom is dying or how their content gets 0 engagement.

Like buddy. You harassed the seasoning out of the soup. Now you just have water. Enjoy.

[sixpillarsofgenesis]

i know most leftists agree that everybody should have a right to food, water, shelter, and healthcare but i think a vitally important fifth pillar is privacy. people should not be compelled to be tracked, monitored, or to share personal space with others to access their other essential rights

[sixpillarsofgenesis]

it’s necessary to fight back against adult content bans obviously because it leads to queer bans, but also, you cannot forget that we must fight back against these bans because adults have the right to make and enjoy adult content. no credit card company has the right to censor what we look at. yes, this includes the “problematic kinks” and stuff you think is gross and bad. just as we deserve to be openly queer online, we deserve to enjoy adult content without fear of total censorship, and it’s absurd how few places there are to do that online nowadays

[sixpillarsofgenesis]

Tens of thousands of notes on a post claiming a bill introduced by the Republicans will make credit card companies support NSFW content, and only a handful going "hey maybe don't support this".

Let's look into how the bill is being reported elsewhere - in fact, from the Senator who introduced the Senate version of the Fair Access to Banking Act

"In recent years, prominent American banks have engaged in a discriminatory practice, referred to as debanking. Banks and financial institutions use their economic standing to categorically exclude law-abiding, legal industries by refusing to lend or provide services to them."

Hmm. What industries could he mean?

"This includes industries such as firearms, ammunition, crypto, federal prison contractors, as well as energy producers."

Wow. Who could've guessed that's what he meant

“When progressives failed at banning these entire industries, what they did instead is they turned to weaponizing banks as sort of a backdoor to carry out their activist goals..."

So it is, in fact, a bill around trying to stop left-wing activists from, say, going after oil and gas companies or private prisons or the arms industry

But - surely it would include NSFW bans too, right? It would overturn them, right? If you read the text of the bill, which is deliberately vague as you'd expect, it explicitly allows banks to deny payment based on "quantitative, impartial risk-based standards" - it only bans it for "political" or "reputational risk" considerations. And claims that the adult media industry is "high risk" is why payment processors drop it

But let's see who supports it!

"The Fair Access to Banking Act is endorsed by several organizations, including the National Shooting Sports Foundation, National Rifle Association, North Dakota Petroleum Council, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, The Digital Chamber, Blockchain Association, Independent Petroleum Association of America, Online Lenders Alliance, Day 1 Alliance, GEO Group, Lignite Energy Council, National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, National Mining Association, CoreCivic, and the National ATM Council."

Private prison companies, fossil fuel companies, blockchain companies, and the NRA. But surely...? SURELY a bill we're explicitly told again and again is about preventing left-wing activism against private industry, that's co-sponsored by fucking Lindsey Graham, and that certainly seems to include a carve-out specifically to let payment processors continue to deny adult content, but not deny conservative political causes...would secretly be pro-NSFW content?

This bill is all over the internet now, with viral pleas to GET IT PASSED and shutdowns of any criticism of a bill whose real intent is extremely overt. All of this is a simple search away and straight from the horse's mouth, and nobody wants to do even that modicum of research because they would prefer to take someone's word for it that a magic panacea is just a few phone calls away. If you make phone calls asking for this to pass, you're being played: tricked into supporting a bill crafted by the people leading the moral panic that harassed Itch into oblivion that would do nothing to help that, but that would ban any activism against payments for destructive fossil fuel extraction or gun lobbying. The guy who made it just told everyone that's what it's for! Does no one care to look? To read the bill? You can be the one to read it and say it's bad (being the only person to actually read an odious bill is called "Russ Feingold-ing")

Looking up the talk about this bill one theme I saw a lot was people dismissing anyone pointing out a Republican introduced it by saying "I don't care who introduced it! AS LONG AS SOMEBODY DOES SOMETHING!!!!" But you know what? If you saw that a Republican introduced the bill, and your reaction was to go "wow, so a Republican introduced a bill to protect adult content?" without even a pang of skepticism...I have no words tbh

[sixpillarsofgenesis]

I hate to go through this all over again. Last night, Itch.io, one of the most popular platforms for hosting queer and adult independent media, went through a large-scale crackdown on adult content.

This was primarily aimed at games, but novels and comics were hit in the process. Most adult content has been de-listed from the site's search, but some creators were banned without warning, and any funds they have not been paid are currently being withheld by Itch.io.

This crackdown was done, as it always is, because of payment processors like Mastercard and Visa threatening to pull their services.

The payment processors caved to an influence campaign by Australian extremist anti-pornography group Collective Shout, who have been inundating Visa and Mastercard with calls to force video game platforms to stop hosting adult content - which, of course, includes anything queer.

Collective Shout claim to have sent in 1000 emails to get this result, but there are a WAY more than a thousand of us. We need as many people as possible to make as much noise as we can!

Below the cut are numbers and scripts, all you need to do is follow the step by step guide!

Info compiled by voiddebris on Bluesky, also available collected in a handy document:

Paypal:

Phone (US): 1-888-221-1161

Phone (outside US): 1-402-935-2050

Hours: 6am - 6pm PT

Mastercard:

Phone (US): 1-800-627-8372

Phone (outside US): 1-636-722-7111

Online form

Visa:

Phone (US): 1-800-847-2911

Non-US numbers

Online form

Script:

Customer Complaint Dept, This message is to lodge an official complaint about the ongoing rampant restrictions your company has placed on legal sales made by legitimate businesses. These restrictions are not only counter to the concept of freedom of speech and expression, but they harm consumers, businesses, and they harm your company’s bottom line. The following actions are absolutely necessary to protect the freedoms of your client base and the sustainability of legitimate business practices: 1. Remove from your Terms of Service any mention barring the use of your service for sale and purchase of legal products. 2. Contact Steam (Valve), Itch.io, and any other company you have previously put pressure on to retract your content restrictions. Put in place protections to prevent such restrictions from being put in place in the future without ample warning and time to contest them. If these changes aren't made then I, along with many others will be forced to seek other options for processing payments. Sincerely, A Concerned Customer

***

OTHER THINGS YOU CAN DO

Sign this petition from the ACLU:

Americans - contact your representatives about payment processors acting as censors! You can find their contact information on 5calls.org.

Script, from here:

Hello Representative/Senator [LAST NAME], -or- Hello office of Representative/Senator [LAST NAME], My name is [YOUR FIRST NAME/SCREEN NAME] and I am one of your constituents. I am calling today to express my concerns with technological censorship. Legal and legitimate adult entertainment is being banned in this country. These bans are not by legislators, but by payment processors like Mastercard and Visa. Mastercard and Visa are improperly creating legislation online through their user and merchant policies. They are banning creator and user access to content that is legal and legitimate. They are inciting fear and panic to encourage censorship. Please take a stand against this impermissible censorship. This is a direct attack on an adult's right to legal content. No one but the legislative branch should be allowed to create legislation. Please support the Federal Trade Commission in their stand against technological censorship to protect the first amendment. Thank you for taking the time to listen today.

[sixpillarsofgenesis]

Everyone: Please please please don't write your books in Google Docs. Frankly don't use Google Drive for personal stuff.

Their terms of service say they take down stuff like content related to terrorism and trafficking, but this Google Sheet was literally a list of movies I'd watched this year and books I'd read.

[sixpillarsofgenesis]

Big fan of characters realizing they don't get to die. They have to live. And grow. And be a person. And deal with shit they thought they'd never have to. And be fucked up about it. I would like more of this. Enough dying for honor or as redemption. It ain't. You're just a corpse. There is no moral value in dirt time.

[sixpillarsofgenesis]

[sixpillarsofgenesis]

Haven’t seen many people talking about this. One of the groups behind pressuring steam to remove adult content is a TERF group backed by conservative Christian groups. Once again the root behind a lot of anti-porn talking points is transphobia/transmisogyny and the idea that being trans is a social contagion caused by porn/‘pervertedness’

Now, the group is claiming responsibility for Steam’s new payment processor policies, with its co-founder calling impacted gamers “porn sick” and “brain rotted.” In one case, the organization even retweeted a notoriously anti-trans feminist who declared that “pervert nerds are responsible for most of society’s ills.” The retweeted feminist, a self-described “trans-exclusionary radical feminist,” proceeded to write under her post, “Evidence #1: trans.”

[sixpillarsofgenesis]

[sixpillarsofgenesis]

Well fucks? Get to it!

[sixpillarsofgenesis]

I hate having to post political posts like this nut he we are again. Anybody from the UK wanna sign this. Folks from outside the UK maybe share it?

[sixpillarsofgenesis]

Fun fact: Having Solitaire on the Legatus wasn't actually in the original Japanese translation. Jin is cut off before he can talk about it in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.

As such, Solitaire may not be canon in the Astral Chain universe.

[sixpillarsofgenesis]

Rent firing gunshots:

I love dark and problematic themes in fiction

Somebody’s taste in fiction says nothing about them morally

There is no wrong reason to enjoy dark fiction, and a person’s reasons for liking dark fiction is their business, not yours, mine, or anyone else’s

Requiring someone to show their trauma card before you can absolve them of their alleged thought crimes is cop behavior