Ana Valens / Anastasia Catherine Wythe / Phil Wythe / Philip Stephen Wythe / @SpaceDoctorPhD / @acvalens / @ac_valens - MtF transtrender extraordinaire, formerly a freelance "journalist" for The Daily Dot; but now works for Kotaku, SJW, professional liar and social rouser, CatParty's favorite blogger

[Stupid Sexy Flanders]

Not even the trannies are allowed to call out the payment processors, they're not familiar with this sort of pushback.

They can start their own payment processor if they don't like it.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

He's showing off having his incident added to Melinda Tankard Reist's Wikipedia article (archive):
https://bsky.app/profile/acvalens.net/post/3lug56dltms2r (archive)

The citations are to tweets, so this info should probably be removed according to Wikicuck rules.

Waypoint Managing Editor Dwayne Jenkins (archive) is not ready to leave just yet:
https://bsky.app/profile/lejenk603.bsky.social/post/3lug4fsvt4k2l (archive)


Disabled bro is going hungry:
https://bsky.app/profile/shauncichacki.bsky.social/post/3lug2qty7m227 (archive)


We MUST talk:
https://bsky.app/profile/jainagrey.bsky.social/post/3lug6jgpjik2q (archive)


The journalism greats... Jim Lehrer... Judy Woodruff... Ana Valens...
https://bsky.app/profile/ontheairortiz.bsky.social/post/3lug7kp3qas2a (archive)
Ortiz On: The Current State of Journalism from the POV of a Journalism Major. (archive)

Now as I'm writing this, another blow to the profession has hit the tower. Ana Valens, now former journalist over at Vice Media has walked after the parent company Savage Ventures demanded that Vice take down the pieces bringing the actions of Collective Shout to light & showcasing their goal of censoring games that they deem as “adult” by targeting payment processors such as Visa and Mastercard as well as gaming storefronts like Steam.

With everything going on, especially with how writing is being taken over by AI, it's hard to have faith of any kind for the future of the journalism profession.

#JournalistsStandTogether

 

[Not Yet Implemented]

#JournalistsStandTogether

To every journalist reading this: Bet you want ethics in journalism now, nigger.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

It's beggin' time

https://bsky.app/profile/acvalens.net/post/3luga4xbkfk2y (archive)


Oh, it was $30 an article, not $20:
https://bsky.app/profile/ashlikeadragon.bsky.social/post/3lugbe72iek25 (archive)

https://www.twitch.tv/acvalens/clip/InterestingInexpensiveTomatoMrDestructoid-Dv0okPOkNLregnAh

I downloaded the 3+ hour stream at 480p, but it's 2 gigabytes. Around 1:53:00 he says even chuds are saying "this is the one good Ana Valens article". He is shopping around for another outlet to write about the vtuber beat, because his vtuber career is not paying the bills (shocker).

Trying to upload MP3 (187 MB)

 

[psycho motor retard]

I'm happy that Phil has finally lost his platform to farm journalistic credibility with. I am smiling and content.

He's showing off having his incident added to Melinda Tankard Reist's Wikipedia article (archive):
https://bsky.app/profile/acvalens.net/post/3lug56dltms2r (archive)

I wonder who could be behind this edit...

Spoiler: Stop me if you've heard this one

The jokes really do write themselves.

 

[Nambona890]

I think it's deeply ironic the only piece of real journalism about a real problem this troglodyte ever wrote is what gets him fired. Everything else was acceptable.

It does annoy me that he got kicked out over the one singular thing he's actually right about.
Never easy to defend someone out of principle who you have a passionate hatred for.

 

[SNEED.EXE]

Made it about himself and his fetishes award

Business Post in thread 'Steam rules updated to prohibit content that violates rules set forth by payment processors and banks'

Jul 17, 2025

It's here.

Vice: This VTuber Just Raised Over $780 for the ACLU. After Steam’s New Content Policies? Her Anti-Censorship Message Is Urgent (archive) (ghost) (mega) (wayback)

Furries, Steam, VTubers, payment processors, and the ACLU. It’s all connected. Even if it doesn’t feel like it at first.

By Ana Valens - July 17, 2025



I’ve been thinking a lot today about Steam’s new changes to its Steamworks Documentation guidelines. According to reports published yesterday, Valve now suggests “certain kinds of adult only...

• The Mass Shooter Ron Soye

• 
• 
• 

Vice: This VTuber Just Raised Over $780 for the ACLU. After Steam’s New Content Policies? Her Anti-Censorship Message Is Urgent (archive) (ghost) (mega) (wayback) (A&N)

VICE in 2012:

VICE in 2025:


What the fuck?

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

What the fuck?

VICE in 2K25 is a brutal calculation: Is this gooner/schock/outrage clickbait worth the flat $30 rate we pay the writers, without getting us in legal trouble?

https://bsky.app/profile/acvalens.net/post/3luglbh3vq22f (archive)
https://bsky.app/profile/mikestabile.bsky.social/post/3luga4jap4k24 (archive)


The pay was nonagintated:
https://bsky.app/profile/acvalens.net/post/3lughwtzkbk24 (archive)

Another way to put it: after Vice was passed around like a hot potato, the contributor pay was cut 90%, but this was still enough to attract Ana Valens almost a decade later.

My Google News search got two hits. Writers from Notebookcheck and PC Gamer have come to Ana's defense:

Notebookcheck (Adam Corsetti): After payment processors prompt removal of Steam games, journalists investigating the censorship resign (archive)

PC Gamer (Ted Litchfield): Australian anti-porn group claims responsibility for Steam's new censorship rules in victory against 'porn sick brain rotted pedo gamer fetishists', and things only get weirder from there (archive)


I think Ted watched the Twitch stream, because Ana brought up the "Everyone hated that" meme during it.

Aftermath: Waypoint Writers Quit Over Removal Of Articles Related To New Steam Policy (archive)

Aftermath was mentioned on stream. I've never heard of it before today but I recognize some of the soyboys on there.

 

[Bucephalus]

I am conflicted.

I hate payment processors. I hate Ana Valens. I hate VICE. I hate rape and incest.

There is no such thing as a happy ending here. Only silver linings.

 

[JAKL II]

What a whirlwind it has been. The article that started it all:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/uh-oh-waypoint-hired-giantess-vtuber-ana-valens/ (archive)
View attachment 7668876

The first, and only, and hopefully also the last "giantess" games journalist VTumor.

3 and a half months from then until now. Seems like not only society, but companies too are just done with this shit. 15 years too late but still kinda refreshing.

 

[Bogan]

I hate payment processors. I hate Ana Valens. I hate VICE. I hate rape and incest.

I never understood why Valve allowed their platform to be flooded with these shitty porn games and asset flips. Segregating all the porn shit to its own hidden corner would be preferable to having the entire trending and new release tabs be filled with it.

PC Gamer (Ted Litchfield): Australian anti-porn group claims responsibility for Steam's new censorship rules in victory against 'porn sick brain rotted pedo gamer fetishists', and things only get weirder from there

I want to like Melinda Tankhard-Reist, even if she is from Melbourne and liked the film Cuties. But her one and only solution to everything is banning and censoring.

 

[Hff201]

It really is going to be interesting to see how this plays out. You've got the group who're considered a protected class who can do whatever they want 99% of the time (the trans activists) finally butting heads with the completely untouchable group who can do whatever they want 100% of the time (the payment processors). It's also going to get incredibly fucking annoying, because Valens is fighting on the right side (anti-censorship) for the wrong reasons; he obviously has no principles since he's previously tried to censor Kirsche, and he only ended up on the anti-censorship side by accident because the payment processors got in the way of him jerking off.

He does not have the awareness to realise that censorship is a slippery slope, so even if by some absolute miracle he manages to do what nobody else has ever done before and gets the payment processors to concede (he won't), he'll be right back to firing hitpieces at another weak link the next time some random vtuber makes fun of him.

 

[Judge Holden]

They can start their own payment processor if they don't like it.

Funny how literally everything these fucking specimens were warned about back 6-10 years ago when they started cheerleading hyperbolic censorship and morality policing has come to pass. I mean literally fucking everything they gleefully inflicted or tried to inflict on designated boogiemen and ever greater chunks of society deemed guilty by association is now happening to them and this shit is only just starting up.

I mean I am not exactly happy, after all we are seeing a perfect example of time being a flat circle with the new type of censor-happy moral puritans drenched in obvious hypocrisy engaging in competitive over-sensitivity while declaring anyone and everyone who questions them of being the vilest of degenerate monsters, but so long as I get to see the likes of "Ana" burn in the fire they fed I think I can live with it for a little while

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

What a fucking mess, I don't even know whose side to take lol

 

[mindlessobserver]

Valens challenged the Dark Lord of the Internet, the Null, claiming he was in the right. Heckin wholesome. Totally on the right side of history.

Deplatforming? Fine.
Debanking? Heckin wholesome.
IP Range banning? Necessary evils.

Valens was on the right side of history you see. He was fighting the evil Dark Lord. He was the hero of his story.
A funny thing happened though...

 

[behindyourightnow]

That's a lot of words Ana is using to say "My editor told me to STFU about my tranny vendettas and focus on the video games he's paying me $50 per article to write about"

Damn, I can't believe I overestimated Ana's pay by $20 per article.

Ortiz On: The Current State of Journalism from the POV of a Journalism Major. (archive)

A sample of Mr. Ortiz's Substack writing:

It feels like if we speak truth to power, we lose our funding or even worse our jobs. I mean as it now stands we might lose our jobs anyway due to the prevalence of AI in writing.​

Say what you will about AI, at least it knows how to use a fucking comma.

 

[Can of Bread]

I never understood why Valve allowed their platform to be flooded with these shitty porn games and asset flips. Segregating all the porn shit to its own hidden corner would be preferable to having the entire trending and new release tabs be filled with it.

Valve got a lot of backlash because they removed a game from their store due to lewd (not even full-blown pornographic content). I think it was Huniepop. And the ludicrous thing for most people was that it was done like 5 years after the fact.

There were also a few other similar incidents before that, but the retroactive ban on a game on the store for a half-decade was the spark that lit the powder keg. In response, Valve decided "fuck it, we'll just let anyone publish anything on the store as long as it's not malware (and sometimes even malware is cool)." It was basically just a kneejerk reaction that ended up making them a fuck ton of money, so they never reversed it.

What a fucking mess, I don't even know whose side to take lol

Why take a side? They're all awful. Take the opportunity to create more infighting between all the factions so that they have a higher likelihood of destroying each other.

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

What a fucking mess, I don't even know whose side to take lol

How about neither?

 

[Hff201]

Valve got a lot of backlash because they removed a game from their store due to lewd (not even full-blown pornographic content). I think it was Huniepop. And the ludicrous thing for most people was that it was done like 5 years after the fact.

There were also a few other similar incidents before that, but the retroactive ban on a game on the store for a half-decade was the spark that lit the powder keg. In response, Valve decided "fuck it, we'll just let anyone publish anything on the store as long as it's not malware (and sometimes even malware is cool)." It was basically just a kneejerk reaction that ended up making them a fuck ton of money, so they never reversed it.

It's also cheaper for them to just let anything go and only intervene when they get reports than it is to hire people to manually vet every new release. Moderation in itself is probably murky to handle since a lot of hugely-popular triple-A games have sex scenes too, and where you place the line between decency and indecency is subjective - which is an issue the payment processor rule also helps them avoid dealing with, since it basically boils down to "we'll delete stuff if we're told to" rather than having to define the boundaries themselves.

 

[HeyYou]

This situation is the definition of this image. I don't like Valens and he's only doing this because he doesn't want his goon games to disappear but it's always good when someone unmasks who is actually behind this nonsense. An Australian organization pressuring payment processors into censoring US legal games on a US storefront is absurd.