Can Visa and MasterCard be sued for this censorship debacle?
Like, maybe not because of censorship per se, but maybe for abusing their power as an oligopoly or going against the desire of their users?
The complaints against their existence go back more than a decade.
But since money is speech, they’ve lobbied against all regulation against them or the creation of public alternatives
The First Amendment is about government censorship. The Bill of Rights is more like a Bill of government restrictions.
So no private company can be held accountable for censorship? That's pretty messed up.
This is one of those “technically true but functionally useless” arguments, and I hate arguing the other side here… Valve always has the option to stop using Visa and, I don’t know, have customers write out and physically mail checks or money orders.
Obviously the number of customers who would do this is microscopic. It’s not a real thing anytime would ever do. But because the option exists, they aren’t technically making the content impossible to sell.
maybe [sue] for abusing their power as an oligopoly or going against the desire of their users?
You can't just sue for [bad thing], at least not successfully. You can sue for [illegal* thing] or [thing that caused harm to you]. Lawsuits are designed to make you "whole" after suffering "damages" - sometimes you have to work really hard to prove the value of your damages if it's not directly money-related (for example, emotional distress or pain and suffering)
The things you mention are also quite vague. What exactly constitutes an oligopoly? Laws have to give some definition to that when making something illegal or whatever, otherwise a court can essentially throw the whole law out for being so vague it can't really be followed.
What's more, when you talk about censorship or going against the desire of their users - what about the freedom for a business (any business) to conduct themselves as they want? If my customers all want chocolate cake, but one day I decide I can't support my cocoa suppliers anymore and can't afford ones that operate more ethically, should they be able to sue me for taking that off my menu?
even illegal is kind of split into different areas, civil and criminal. You can sue if your landlord withheld your security deposit without giving an itemized list, because the law requires it in some states. You can't sue someone for using a fake ID to buy a beer, because that's not a civil matter and as a regular person you have no skin in the game
You can sue for [illegal* thing] or [thing that caused harm to you].
So the devs who've had their games forcefully delisted should sue as a class action. Shouldn't be hard at all to prove they've been financially harmed.
Ehhhh. There is a little more nuance to "thing that caused harm to you" - if my grocery store decides to stop selling some company's granola bar due to poor sales, they're probably not obligated to continue stocking it even if discontinuing it would cause harm to the granola bar producer. I would imagine there's something in Valve's terms that doesn't obligate them to be a dev's retailer any more than that developer is required to let Valve sell their product. And there is probably some clause in the contract between Valve and the payment processors.
As for the devs going against the payment processors... I have a hard time seeing a legal avenue there. It's harder when there's no direct relationship between the devs and payment processors and each party was likely exercising their rights under their individual agreements.
My bigger point is that suing for going against the desires of the users isn't really a thing while trying not to get too deep into the weeds.
if people lost access to something they paid for on Steam or Itch, I would expect a class action lawsuit would be viable, but there would be legal arguments made by Visa and MasterCard that Steam and Itch should be the defendents.
And it would be a good argument, because they wouldn't be wrong.
Yep. Basically, to bring suit you have to be able to show that their actions injured you.
If you made a game that was delisted, you might have grounds, but given the nature of the games that were delisted you might have some issues bringing suit since it will put you under scrutiny.
That and you better have a damn good case or a shit ton of money and a willingness to fight for a decade over it.
IIRC, BRICS were trying to establish/have already made a international paying system like VISA/MC. Maybe they'll reach the West. Up until then, our hands are tied.
In Indonesia, there are localised payment system, called "Gerbang Pembayaran Nasional" (GPN) (in English: "National Payment Gateway"), and already applied and start to be commonly used since 2018.
From Indonesian wiki:
GPN localizes the banking payment system in Indonesia, which was previously present in international payment products such as Visa and Mastercard.
I heard, atleast a Japanese online stores is also start to accepting Indonesian payment system/method too.
I think, there are similar system in Russia too, since what I know, Visa & Mastercard cease its operation on there due to the ongoing conflicts.
The US has used the financial system as a weapon for decades. Freedom of Money is the only way out.
If something is already a monopoly/duopoly, that means it's managed to manipulate the government/legal system. Even in capitalist legal systems there are "supposed" to be regulations against that. So if they're circumventing them and/or the government never enforced them to begin with, they're not playing by the rules in the first place and there is very little you can do within the system to stop it.
So the part that I see repeatedly missed is that a "no porn think of the children" group out of AUS has been hammering these payment processors as part of a new campaign. It's not something Visa, or MasterCard just decided to take the "high ground" on, they have been hounded.
So really if everyone wants erotic games back on Steam and other things affected by this group someone is going to need to create a counter campaign.
For my part, I have seen several people highlight the role of Collective Shout in the whole mess (at least in Spanish-speaking sites). But you're right, in situations like this, fire is fought with fire.
Visa and MasterCard probably want government intervention at this point. Regardless of the approach they take now, their phone lines will be clogged up by opposing views voicing their concerns.
By giving in they have promoted this sort of behaviour as effective which means:
If the US gov (or the AUS/UK whomever is housing these lunatics gov) decided to make this illegal IE: payment providers cannot prevent legal business based on their own morality or something like that, then visa & MC could hold their hands up and say "sorry dudes take it up with your elected rep" and wash their hands of the situation altogether.
Campaigns like this have always been effective. And this is what the Right does, they complain en masse about everything that offends their hypocritical views. They are the ones that believe 110% in "cancel culture", and then turn around and call the Left out when we block Nazis.
Also, MC and Visa are well within their rights to tell groups like this to go pound rocks, but groups like this also know if they grind down resources they usually win. The only way to prevent it is to ban the protesting of corporations, but then when they do the bad shit they love to do we'll be without any recourse. It's a bit of a double-edge sword.