Business Steam rules updated to prohibit content that violates rules set forth by payment processors and banks - Valve's rules regarding what developers "shouldn't publish on Steam" have a new clause regarding standards set forth by payment processors.

https://automaton-media.com/en/news/steam-rules-updated-to-prohibit-content-that-violates-rules-set-forth-by-payment-processors-and-banks/

https://archive.ph/NXq04

Valve's rules regarding what developers "shouldn't publish on Steam" have a new clause regarding standards set forth by payment processors.

2025-07-16 17:17
Amber V



Valve has updated its rules regarding content that developers aren’t allowed to publish on Steam (as reported by Game*Spark [archive]). The “Rules and Guidelines” section of Steamworks Documentation now has an extra clause, and it suggests that publishers are required to comply with rules and standards set forth by various third parties involved in processing electronic payments. The rule seems to be predominantly related to adult content.

What you shouldn’t publish on Steam:
15. Content that may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors and related card networks and banks, or internet network providers. In particular, certain kinds of adult only content.

Prior to the update, the list included 14 clauses, prohibiting things like hate speech, malware, sexual content depicting real people and any form of exploitation of children. The new 15th clause suggests that Steam may additionally have to crack down on specific types of adult content in response to the requirements of payment processors and banks. There are currently no specific examples of what this may entail.

Update (2025/07/15 at 18:30 JST): According to SteamDB [wayback], a large number of games has been removed from the platform in the past 16 hours. Judging rom the list, it appears “sex simulator” type games with keywords such as “incest” and “slavery” make up the majority. There are some confusing cases like the removal of the Ace Attorney-inspired investigation game Trails of Innocence, although this could be a coincidental deletion.

On a related note, various video game and manga hosting platforms in Japan have in recent years run into trouble with payment processors and credit card networks. Due to certain content on the platforms going against the (often undisclosed) rules and standards of third parties handling payments, the platforms ended up without support for credit card payment. This has led to loss of revenue and even the closure of platforms like Manga Library Z. It is possible that Steam’s new rule is a means to prevent such complications from arising, however, as the specific “rules and standards” of the payment processors are also unclear, publishers might need to be extra cautious with releasing their games on the platform.

Related articles: “It’s a security hole that endangers democracy itself.” NieR creator speaks out against payment processors pressuring Japanese adult content platforms

Visa Japan’s CEO says disabling card payment for legal adult content is “necessary to protect the brand”

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Niche Gamer: Steam updates rules to comply with payment processor censorship (archive)
Wccftech: Steam Publishing Guidelines Updated With Clause Prohibiting Content That Violates Payment Processor and Bank Rules (archive)

Rock Paper Shotgun: Valve change Steam's rules to let banks and credit card firms prohibit "certain kinds of adult only content" (archive)

In particular, this could lead to a stifling of games that are in any way non-conforming, particularly given the current climate of repression in Valve's home country, the USA. I know about the rule change thanks to Youtuber and self-described former game developer NoahFuel Gaming, who has posted on Bluesky about the potential fallout for projects the banks and financial corporations consider "adult" because they deviate from reactionary framings of sex and gender. As the Youtuber writes: "Queer content gets flagged as 'explicit' even when it's PG. A trans dev making a personal story? 'Too controversial.' A surreal queer VN? 'Sexualized.' Financial deplatforming in action."

GamesRadar: Steam now prohibits games that violate the "rules and standards" of payment processors, banks, and more, and users are worried it might affect more than just "certain kinds of adult-only content" (archive)

"Yeah... this is something that looks innocuous at first glance but it's a trojan horse," another believes. "LGBTQ+ has a habit of being mysteriously flagged as 'adult only.'" On ResetEra, similar points are being shared, as one writes: "Today it's porn games, tomorrow any game with LGBTQ+ content because it ends up labelled as 'adult.'"

Notebookcheck: Steam tightens adult content rules after pressure from payment giants (archive)

As spotted [archive] by TheGamer, this triggered a mini-purge according to the Steam Database, with many problematic games such as "Incest Tales", "Wolf on Rail", "Sex Village", "Slave of the Police Officer", and many more, being delisted from the storefront.

GamingOnLinux: Valve gets pressured by payment processors with a new rule for game devs and various adult games removed (archive)

 

[reactionary]

I think them debanking your country is absolutely based and I will stand by it. If you were a real country you'd be able to make your own payment processor.

Correct. We did.

 

[PixarsTedKennedy]

So why does OnlyFans get to continue to exist?

Serious answer? I would guess itch.io doesn't have any kind of age regulations, unlike onlyfans. You can download a free furry porn game but you need a CC to get anything out of onlyfans.

 

[Fcret]

Serious answer? I would guess itch.io doesn't have any kind of age regulations, unlike onlyfans. You can download a free furry porn game but you need a CC to get anything out of onlyfans.

itch.io is also basically ground zero for a lot of the shit that got banned on Steam. Most of the banned games on Steam were originally on itch.io.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

I'm archiving billions of news articles about itch.io. There's not much insight added in any of them, but I found this Indian crypto site funny:

https://www.analyticsinsight.net/ne...lt-content-after-steam-creators-left-in-limbo (archive)

 

[my penis is on fire]

I hope this causes a lolsuit between the payment processors and the porn industry. Unstoppable force meets immovable cow

 

[StillNotBlarg]

On one hand, I don't think that payment processors should dictate what you can/cannot spend your money on.

On the other hand, watching Redditors cry because their precious porn got taken away is really really funny.

 

[Jace on ice]

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

According to that uber-reliable site Twitter, Itchy-O or whatever the fuck it is called also deleted the games from people's libraries without refunding them.

You will own nothing and like it.

 

[April Ryan]

when patreon goes, then it's over. once it does, OnlyFans logically follows. but that's probably too optimistic. either way, patreon can't not be bent because many of its top earning projects are financial tugboat furry porn games that more than fit the criteria of obscenity, as well as bestiality and hypnosis.

What? Patreon cucked a decade ago. All the rules that just got imposed on steam are basically a copy paste of patreons rules that they implemented in I think 2016 or 17.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

Post in thread 'S.401 - Fair Access to Banking Act'

Yesterday at 1:34 PM

https://bsky.app/profile/g4evertv.xyz/post/3lupzmvmuzk2r (archive)

This post says that the Wayback archives have been pulled. This claim is TRUE. Internet Archive has pulled the specific archives, but allows archives of the "Not found" page:

Vice (Ana Valens): This Group Takes Responsibility for Steam’s Payment Processor Censorship Policies — They Just Implied ‘Pervert Nerds’ Cause Society’s Problems (archive) (ghost) (mega) (wayback) (A&N)

Vice (Ana Valens): Group Behind Steam Censorship Policies Have Powerful Allies —...

• The Mass Shooter Ron Soye

• 
• 

The Internet Archive has removed Wayback Machine archives for the two Vice articles, presumably following a DMCA request from Savage Ventures (Vice).

 

[i440BX]

Post in thread 'S.401 - Fair Access to Banking Act'

Yesterday at 1:34 PM

https://bsky.app/profile/g4evertv.xyz/post/3lupzmvmuzk2r (archive)

This post says that the Wayback archives have been pulled. This claim is TRUE. Internet Archive has pulled the specific archives, but allows archives of the "Not found" page:

Vice (Ana Valens): This Group Takes Responsibility for Steam’s Payment Processor Censorship Policies — They Just Implied ‘Pervert Nerds’ Cause Society’s Problems (archive) (ghost) (mega) (wayback) (A&N)

Vice (Ana Valens): Group Behind Steam Censorship Policies Have Powerful Allies —...

• The Mass Shooter Ron Soye

• 
• 

The Internet Archive has removed Wayback Machine archives for the two Vice articles, presumably following a DMCA request from Savage Ventures (Vice).

I stopped trusting Internet Archive and I mostly use Archive Today.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

I stopped trusting Internet Archive and I mostly use Archive Today.

You need to use everything at your disposal: Archive.today, Ghostarchive, Megalodon.jp, and Internet Archive/Wayback Machine all handle some webpages better than others. Since you can put Wayback archives into Archive.today, sometimes that's the only option available if a page was saved only to the Internet Archive before it was deleted.

If I find something to be critically important, I'll hit it with all four at the same time. Usually I'll do Archive.today only for news articles, and then use Ghostarchive or Megalodon if the result sucks. Ghostarchive is usually best for handling JavaScript popups and hidden elements that need to be clicked before the contents can be seen, but it usually doesn't capture images very well. Megalodon will unexpectedly work great on things that suck or take forever in the others, such as YouTube playlists and community posts. Other times it will slam into a Cloudflare brick wall or deliver a page scaled down for ants.

 

[Hiphopopotamus]

I hope this causes a lolsuit between the payment processors and the porn industry. Unstoppable force meets immovable cow

Here's my schizo (true and real) theory: porn games are bad to payment processors because it's not real people, places like pornhub have all the same kinds of pseudo rape and pseudo incest shit but it will never be taken down, turning real women into whores to turn real men into gooners that troon out is the goal.

 

[Terrifik]

• Here's my schizo (true and real) theory: porn games are bad to payment processors because it's not real people, places like pornhub have all the same kinds of pseudo rape and pseudo incest shit but it will never be taken down, turning real women into whores to turn real men into gooners that troon out is the goal.

patreon , -

https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/2017-10-23-patreon-moves-to-restrict-adult-content-on-its-crowdfunding-site.html?guccounter=1

2017-kek

NSFW Warning: This story may contain links to and descriptions or images of explicit sexual acts.

Patreon is a crowdfunding platform that enables people to receive subscription payments for the work that they do. It's a way of connecting individuals and small businesses with paying audiences, from news websites and YouTube channels through to activists and educators.

At the same time, the site has also enabled a variety of creators in the adult space to earn cash for the erotic material they've made. But a new change to the site's conduct policies, published October 17th, threatens to shut down many of those performers who rely upon the site for revenue.

Patreon has always been against pornography, but the site's previous content policy covered the matter in very broad-brush terms. Creators were asked to flag their content as not safe for work, but otherwise there was a wide latitude as to the material published. Patreon's corporate position was that the company recognized the need for art to depict "nudity and sexual expression."

The distinction it drew, at the time, was that it was happy to turn a blind eye to the sort of content you'd find in an R-rated movie, but not porn. Otherwise, it would only go after otherwise-illegal material, such as depictions of incest, bestiality, children and the suchlike. Of course, it's very hard to determine what is pornography and what is artistic, and the goalposts are shifting on a near-daily basis.

But the gray area that the company previously allowed has now been erased with a far more proscriptive policy. Users are now prohibited from selling "pornographic material," as a reward for their patrons. In addition, they cannot use cash from the site to "produce pornographic material, such as maintaining a website, funding [...] movies or providing a private webcam session."

Google "Patreon + Webcam Session" and you'll find plenty of adult content providers that offer such incentives to their users. It's not just webcams, as some offer access to, for instance, a private Snapchat account that may do a similar job. It's not clear how many performers are affected by the change, but it's likely that we'll be seeing the effects of the crackdown in the near future.

Patreon's legal head Colin Sullivan explained the difficulties of creating a policy that empowers creators without harming the site's "ability to be a home for all creators." Sullivan said that the platform is being more explicit on banning adult content concerning incest, bestiality, children and sexualized violence.

Sullivan also detailed, that rather than simply erasing offending profiles, Patreon's Trust and Safety team will work with creators to moderate their content. There will also be an appeals process, and users will have personal guidance from a Patreon employee to help them get their page reinstated.

What's not clear is why this crackdown has also blocked apparently legitimate activity like webcam sessions and subscription websites that do not include illegal content. We've reached out to Patreon to try and understand the broader meaning of the rule change and to clarify its position. For now, it appears as if the site has joined the network of online businesses that specifically exclude sex workers from their payments platform.

Update: A Patreon spokesperson has clarified that its stance hasn't changed, just the way it articulates the policy around pornography and other adult content. Which is to say that producers of pornography and sex workers more generally have always been "operating outside of the Community Guidelines." The decision will leave a number of sex workers looking for yet another way to secure payment for their labor.

onlyfans ,

A whistleblower complaint filed with the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Unit, or FinCEN, alleges that Mastercard and Visa failed to stop their payment networks from laundering funds from child sexual abuse material and sex trafficking on OnlyFans, according to Reuters.

The complaint, which Reuters reports was filed by a senior financial compliance expert, claims that the payment giants were aware that their networks were used to pay for illegal content on OnlyFans, a social media platform where fans pay to follow individuals who post photos and videos of themselves. The whistleblower accused the companies of "turning a blind eye to flows of illicit revenue," according to Reuters.

In a statement to CBS MoneyWatch, FinCen said it doesn't comment on submissions to its whistleblower program, "including whether FinCEN has received submissions regarding a specific financial institution." A spokesperson added, "FinCEN also does not comment on investigations, including to confirm whether one exists."

Visa told CBS News that "we explicitly and unequivocally prohibit illegal activity on our network and condemn all forms of sexual abuse." The company added, "We maintain robust compliance requirements for the financial institutions and merchants who submit transactions to the Visa network. Those unable to comply with our requirements will be terminated from our network."

Mastercard said in an email that it has "zero tolerance for illegal activity on our network."

"No evidence of current illegal activity has been provided to us," the company added.

OnlyFans didn't immediately respond to CBS News' request for comment.

According to Reuters, the whistleblower complaint was filed in January 2023 with FinCEN and the U.S. Justice and Homeland Security departments. The whistleblower and other anti-trafficking experts had also allegedly alerted Mastercard and Visa about unlawful content on OnlyFans in 2021 and 2022, the article said.

In 2021, OnlyFans said it would tamp down sexually explicit content after requests from banking partners and companies that handle financial transactions. But the company reversed that decision soon afterwards following an outcry from some of its creators and users.

pornhub
- recently fined

https://www.deseret.com/2022/8/7/23292938/credit-card-companies-cut-ties-with-porn-company-in-wake-of-lawsuit/

Visa and MasterCard announced Thursday that they will no longer allow their cards to be used to pay for ads on pornography websites hosted by MindGeek, which includes Pornhub.

This decision comes after a federal judge said last week that a case could continue against Visa and Pornhub for their profiting off videos portraying child pornography, rejecting a motion for dismissal.

Serena Fleites, the plaintiff in the case, sued MindGeek and Visa after her attempts to get Pornhub to remove an explicit video made of her when she was 13 years old, which her ex-boyfriend then uploaded to the website. Fleites said MindGeek was slow to remove the video even after she contacted them with proof that it contained child pornography. In that time, the video proliferated.

Fleites later attempted suicide and developed a drug addiction, according to her complaint.

In his decision, Judge Cormac Carney said the case was “simple.”

“Visa made the decision to continue to recognize MindGeek as a merchant, despite its alleged knowledge that MindGeek monetized child porn,” he wrote.

Despite the good news, Dawn Hawkins, CEO of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, said Visa and MasterCard still have work to do before her group will claim victory.

“The reality is that both of them are still processing payments for other sites where users can upload content,” she said.

The larger problem is that there are still no laws on the books requiring companies like Pornhub to get meaningful consent from potential victims before a video is posted, or a way for victims to hold businesses accountable if they are exploited, Hawkins said.

MindGeek told The Washington Post it had “zero tolerance for the posting of illegal content on its platforms.”

Visa released a statement Thursday saying that it disagreed with the judge’s decision to allow the case to continue, but that it also condemns “sex trafficking, sexual exploitation and child sexual abuse.”

“It is illegal, and Visa does not permit the use of our network for illegal activity,” the statement continues. “Our rules explicitly and unequivocally prohibit the use of our products to pay for content that depicts nonconsensual sexual behavior or child sexual abuse.”

In a statement to the Deseret News, a MasterCard spokesman said the company has “zero tolerance for illegal activity on our network.”

“We work closely with law enforcement and organizations like the National and International Center for Missing and Exploited Children to monitor, detect and prevent illegal transactions,” he said. “Beyond our own monitoring, when we receive referrals or allegations, we investigate the claims. If the claims are substantiated, we take immediate action.”

Hawkins said Visa and other credit card companies have not yet successfully stopped the use of their cards on pornography websites alleged to contain nonconsensual content. In a statement, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation called on Visa to cut ties with Pornhub’s competitors, who face allegations that they also allow users to upload videos of child sexual abuse and of individuals who have been filmed without their consent.

Visa, MasterCard and other financial services firms may continue to make decisions to cut ties with businesses like MindGeek voluntarily, especially as the spotlight on their involvement with the porn industry grows.

View Comments
Fleites’ case against Visa was highlighted last weekend by billionaire Bill Ackman, who said on CNBC that he was willing to fund lawsuits against Visa, saying his interest in the case comes from “having four daughters.”

Victims of sex trafficking have also filed lawsuits against technology companies like Twitter, who they say haven’t done enough to rid their platforms of images depicting child sexual abuse and nonconsenual pornography.

Hawkins said her group will continue to file lawsuits to try to protect children who have been exploited online.

“The pornography industry, child sexual abuse, sex trafficking, all merged online. They aren’t separate industries,” she said. “Many people think pornography is harmless, but this shows it is not harmless.

*** jeffery epstein****- recently fined

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65879833

JP Morgan has agreed to pay roughly $290m (£232m) to settle a lawsuit brought on behalf of alleged victims of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Attorneys for the bank said it was "in the best interests of all parties, especially the survivors who were the victims of Epstein's terrible abuse".

The lawsuit had alleged the largest US bank ignored warning signs about its client during a 15-year relationship.

The agreement is subject to court approval.

JPMorgan Chase will not admit liability in the case, but upon the settlement's approval the bank will put out a statement regretting its association with Epstein, David Boies, one of the victims' attorneys, told CNN.

"We all now understand that Epstein's behaviour was monstrous," lawyers for the bank said in a statement on Monday.

"Any association with him was a mistake and we regret it. We would never have continued to do business with him if we believed he was using our bank in any way to help commit heinous crimes."

The settlement follows weeks of embarrassing revelations about the extent of JP Morgan's relationship with the late financier.

Late last month, long-time chief executive Jamie Dimon provided a formal statement under oath for the case, in what turned out to be a day-long deposition from the bank's headquarters in New York.

Lawyers representing the unnamed accuser who filed the suit - identified only as Jane Doe 1 - asked a federal judge on Friday to allow them to take new testimony from Mr Dimon.

They also asked to reopen depositions for three other key witnesses in the case.

Another lawsuit filed against the bank late last year in federal court is still pending. That case was brought on behalf of the government of the US Virgin Islands, where Epstein owned a private island with a mansion.

The financier kept hundreds of millions of dollars in more than 50 accounts at JP Morgan between 1998 and 2013, five years after he pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution.

He was found dead at the age of 66 in a prison cell in 2019. New York City's medical examiner ruled the death a suicide.

The Jane Doe 1 lawsuit said that JP Morgan "knowingly facilitated, sustained and concealed" the frequent cash withdrawals Epstein made to pay the young women he trafficked, while profiting from the deals and clients that the financier brought in.

The bank, which earlier failed to dismiss the dual suits, has countered that any civil liability should rest with Jes Staley, a former top executive who befriended Epstein.

Mr Staley has said his former employer is trying to "deflect blame" for its own failures and sought to dismiss the claims, but the complaint against him remains active.

Last month, Deutsche Bank, where Epstein was a client after he left JP Morgan in 2013, settled for $75m with Epstein accusers.

To date, the Epstein estate has paid out more than $150m to more than 100 of his victims.

---

you looked & explained the abyss
didn't you ,blinked- dialog is good come back

 

[Silly Fella]

what stuff you fucking gooner, gta 6?, booze and fags from the supermarket? the strip club on fridays?

They did the same thing to the website you use stupid

 

[Terrifik]

Post in thread 'S.401 - Fair Access to Banking Act'

Yesterday at 1:34 PM

https://bsky.app/profile/g4evertv.xyz/post/3lupzmvmuzk2r (archive)

This post says that the Wayback archives have been pulled. This claim is TRUE. Internet Archive has pulled the specific archives, but allows archives of the "Not found" page:

Vice (Ana Valens): This Group Takes Responsibility for Steam’s Payment Processor Censorship Policies — They Just Implied ‘Pervert Nerds’ Cause Society’s Problems (archive) (ghost) (mega) (wayback) (A&N)

Vice (Ana Valens): Group Behind Steam Censorship Policies Have Powerful Allies —...

• The Mass Shooter Ron Soye

• 
• 

The Internet Archive has removed Wayback Machine archives for the two Vice articles, presumably following a DMCA request from Savage Ventures (Vice).

Cross posting next power move
before blueskyhttps://x.com/Pirat_Nation/status/1948433263841660953
should be old- February 13, 2025

 

[Urgunt]

I'm kind of surprised at the opposition here to Collective Shout, not necessarily agreeing with the policy of outlawing any explicit content but it's kind of a "even a stopped clock is right once a day." I thought Kiwis would be unanimously for suppressing degenerate EPI incest fetish games and pedophilia propaganda.

Edit: nvm i understand it now, they're aussies. Total koalafucker death

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

I'm kind of surprised at the opposition here to Collective Shout, not necessarily agreeing with the policy of outlawing any explicit content but it's kind of a "even a stopped clock is right once a day." I thought Kiwis would be unanimously for suppressing degenerate EPI incest fetish games and pedophilia propaganda.

Edit: nvm i understand it now, they're aussies. Total koalafucker death

Null and Kiwi Farms have been fucked over by the payment processors many times. Remember when a woman called a niglet "nigger" and got $750k on GiveSendGo? Kiwi Farms did like a 24 hour fundraiser on GiveSendGo a week or two later, and barely got the money out before GiveSendGo was instructed that no business was to be done with the evil Kiwi Farms.

And that nice chunk of cash is why we're enjoying the recent server upgrades.

Post in thread 'GiveSendGo paid Null.'

Jun 13, 2025

Josh just said he got an email from GiveSendGo that said a payment processor threatened to shut them down if they ever facilitate a Kiwi Farms campaign again. I hope that email makes its way to the FTC or whoever.

• The Mass Shooter Ron Soye

• 
• 

That's just one of the more recent examples.

 

[MrJokerRager]

What does globohomo hope to achieve by banning Western and Japanese made porn games?

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

What does globohomo hope to achieve by banning Western and Japanese made porn games?

A higher birthrate? Demoralization? Greater control over a more narrow sex industry with less competition? Or they are hypersensitive about how the laws on the books apply to them, and actually believe the content could be illegal.