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Ruling classes purposefully starting a new culture war before our eyes?

I have seen a lot of stuff about how payment processors have been going after any mature content in video games. It seems to me like the ruling classes are doing this on purpose to get the "anti-woke" gamer crowd, and the TERF crowd to go to war against eachother. Which will inevitably pull more people into these groups, and radicalize both even more. While allowing them to silently censor other things, like leftist, and queer content, at the same time without most people noticing.

I'm already seeing the "gamer" types online throwing fits because "The feminists are trying to take titas out of my video game"

Because yes somehow some random non-profit that complained can force payment processors to stop processing certain payments. Like how do they not realize theyre being played.

Along with the piracy crackdowns, and crackdowns on VPN use in some countries this seems like an effort to start reigning in the internet in general, and using this culture war as a cover for doing so. If your not already on Linux, and running DNScrypt/DNS-over-HTTPS through a DNS provider that's less likely to go along with censorship you should consider doing so. And have the TOR browser downloaded pre-emptively just in case.

I'm going to add some links to news articles i think are all connected to this effort to control online traffic.

Italy poisoning DNS https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/italian-court-orders-google-to-block-iptv-pirate-sites-at-dns-level/

Youtube requiring ID https://leveluptalk.com/news/youtube-id-verification-us-2025/

Spotify requiring ID https://www.the-independent.com/tech/spotify-age-checks-verification-b2798937.html

UK Online "Safety" act https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2025/07/29/the-uks-new-tech-law-triggers-upheaval-00481803

US Online "Safety" act https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-slams-senate-passage-of-kids-online-safety-act-urges-house-to-protect-free-speech

Payment processors flexing their muscles https://www.theverge.com/games/715299/itchio-games-delisting-payment-processor-paypal

Italian Youtuber facing criminal charges for reviewing retro game console that had ROMs on it https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/handheld-gaming/retro-reviewer-could-face-up-to-three-years-in-jail-over-copyright-italian-authorities-investigate-creator-for-advertising-anbernic-handheld-game-consoles

To me all of these point to a concerted effort to control the internet, and what content is available on it. They'll start out on the easy PR ones like Piracy, and "Kids Safety", and then move on to political speech pretty quickly.

13 comments

  • That is an incidental and not unwelcome side effect as far as the ruling class is concerned but i don't think it's the main reason. The main reason is control, specifically the total control over payment systems which will allow them to monitor and shut down financial transactions at will for anyone who is deemed a threat to the ruling class and its narrative control. They are going after entertainment now because it offers a convenient pretext for normalizing and perfecting their methods of control but the real targets are going to be anti-imperialists, anti-capitalists, labor activists, (real) alternative media, anti-genocide protesters, etc.

    • I think its far deeper than just payments. They already can control payments theyre using it now as a lever to censor content indirectly. But theyre also doing things like in Italy blocking sites at the DNS level that are used for piracy and anything else they deem bad. And rolling out things like ID verification on online services. They want to track, and have full control over, all online traffic.

    • I edited in some articles to my main post outlining some of the other news stories i think are connected to this.

  • Luckily I've haven't been seeing that many pinning the blame of this censorship push on wokeism, just a metric ton of "We are becoming like China/North Korea".

  • When are the bourgeoisie not inventing new culture wars to keep proles fighting each other instead of them?

    • I think this one is interesting because its not your typical FOX news whining about something that eventually spread culture war. This is them purposefully going after something that will make certain people mad, and letting it happen organically. You can literally watch it happen in real time. It's weird.

  • To me all of these point to a concerted effort to control the internet, and what content is available on it. They’ll start out on the easy PR ones like Piracy, and “Kids Safety”, and then move on to political speech pretty quickly.

    Nah, they will allow piracy and porn and whatnot because it allows them to maintain the illusion that Westerners are free. What will happen is an absolute crackdown on browsing social media & and posting on one of the major networks without giving up your identity.

    The entire purpose is to preempt political thought. Commie YouTube video = "sorry not verified, please confirm your identity" Now to read posts by comrades, you will be forced to have your name register on an NSA server.

    Corporations will love this because it gives them another reason to roadblock their content behind a spyware auth paywall to prevent LLM scrapers from proxying their content.

  • it's pretty funny. the rightoids everywhere always throw the "china firewall is censorship" or "1984 big brother social credit!!" spooks, but at the same time, they tell everyone that we should be doing those things bc reasons

13 comments