@leafo - I am curious now that Executive Order 14331, "Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans," is currently effective and the payment processors have complied, can we get NSFW relisted? You never brought up more about it since your post way back in August and you should have no more issues with the censorious payment processors, so we can get relisted? My sells are down about 80-90% from what they were.
What Ratsnake Games said.
The site owner’s side of all this is a mystery. The government side is more transparent.
I read the executive order, the FCC’s letter, statements made by Trump officials, and international news that relates to all this. Look at the EO again. The intention is to force banks to allow the convicted criminals and suspected fraudsters to use financial services again.
That push puts everyone at risk, but the Trump Org family (convicted of criminal fraud) and their business partners are all about grift. The current US regime doesn’t have any reason to protect indie creators or adults-only businesses that aren’t a part of its own (suspected) dealings. That would go against the Trumped-up Project.
I’m sorry. The letter I referred to was from the FTC. (The FCC and FTC are similar when it comes to digital tech, and they collaborate. But it was a typo.)
Looking at the letter again, I realized the intention seems obvious to me only because I’ve read so much that relates the issue.
Like, Trump Org fought with at three major banks, two in the US and one in Europe, when it was investigated for the financial fraud that eventually led to convictions that banned Donald Trump and some of his kids from doing business in New York for a set number of years. This is separate from the 30+ felony convictions of the current PotUS for falsifying business records to hide his hiring of a sex worker. It’s separate from all the lawsuits from the Trumps not paying their bills and misappropriating government funds.
There’s the history of arguably illegal campaign fundraising and trade deals, too.
Financial institutions have plenty of reasons to avoid dealings with Trump or any business he’s associated with.
With the FTC, the GOP-held Congress, the Supreme Court with its unethical behavior, there’s high levels of pandering to the Trumps’ self interests and even more of a push to follow through on Project 2025, which is extremely threatening towards everything deemed “pornographic” (including entire demographics of citizens).
The current FTC is considered loyal to this GOP.
Payment processors and banks were refusing to handle fundraisers for Jan 6th rioters and other “political” endeavors associated with criminal activity. The White House insists the courts are wrong, saying Trump’s supporters don’t do anything illegal. Do financial institutions have a right to deny anyone services without a court order? Who knows at this point.
It all looks too complicated to me for a vague letter coming from someone taking away healthcare in line with the same document that says Americans who make or are anything pornographic to be hopeful. Not as long as the government is run like this.
That’s not even considering the Epstein financial schemes, with Trump and people he’s close to being listed some thousands of times in the FBI’s Epstein Files.
Thinking about this today… I have a small amount of sympathy for Leafo and others who are hosting sites. But it’s hard to know when there’s not regular, open, honest communication about the decisions.
It definitely seems that Itch has completely wiped their hands of us. There's no way to take their decision at this point other than a simple moralist stance against our content, even though we earned them tons of money and visibility in their early days, they have no appreciation for what we did and are simply telling us to get lost.
Not really, no. The policy helps ensure people and businesses can access banking services, but it doesn’t address the cost of wire transfers. Wire fees are tied to infrastructure and payment systems, not access rules. So it wouldn’t suddenly make wires a low-cost payment option.
It's about preventing banks from denying service based on “reputation risk”. Ensuring lawful businesses can access banking, like Itch and Steam. And stopping financial institutions from “debanking” certain industries, such as MINE. So they stay out of legal porn. Nothing to do with wire transfers.
