Itch.io DELISTED ALL NSFW GAMES!

yeah. One of two things would cause that: Payment processors making another pass with a more extreme demand (not exactly unlikely), or Itch decides it wants to increase revenue (which would also probably come with forcing everyone to accept payment, and therefore run afoul of the existing rules)

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neither of us support collective shout

More bad news…

Even if you somehow think this guy is political, at least watch the damn video.

Edit: those of you trying to say, “it was bad stuff that got removed, so it’s okay”, you need to start thinking about it like they do in “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”: there are two kinds of people in this world.
For this battle, there’re two kinds of people right now: those who value their freedom of speech and expression, and those who seek to control you. There is no room for “at leasts”, there is no room for “but this was already bad”, there is no room for “it won’t happen to me”. If any of your logic follows these lines, think very, very, very carefully, and even force yourself to consider how this crusade can affect you. Consider how any of it can go wrong.
Because if left alone, it will. We are nothing but peasants who must obey those that are starting this. If these problems get far enough that they might affect you, then by then it is already too late. By then, we are already someone vomiting from radiation sickness - seeing signs of poison when it’s already too late.

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yeah I saw that too. I’m a little less worried about that one going through, as a bill like that shows up all the time in US congress but it never goes anywhere.

Still though, with how fast and sudden everything else is, definitely keep an eye on it. Makes it all the more important the UK one is resisted as much as possible.

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The problem is that now there’s precedent. Texas apparently was able to pass a similar law sometime ago, despite it going against the constitution.

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It’s sad that the West is becoming authoritarian, wether it’s France, UK, EU… and now the US.

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Bro someone reported the fucking meme Lmaoo :skull:

This is linked in the article I was referring to, which contradicts what you said. They also claim they were not tagged NSFW and had no erotic content. People in the comments are saying the same happened to them. I mean, you can claim they’re lying if you’d like, though.

Edit: I misremembered, it’s linked in the comments of that article. Oops.

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Nothing, as far as I can tell, was actually “taken down”, nor does that post state or imply that any creators were permanently banned. They were delisted, same as anything else - the post you’re quoting offered no specific evidence that takedowns were happening, the one person in the replies who commented firsthand that their work was affected confirmed in another post that they had marked that content as adult and it was simply hidden from search, and a days-old comment asking specifically for confirmation that actual takedowns were happening was met with complete silence.

To be fair there IS some overlap on the Venn diagram between ‘queer creators’ and ‘creators who’ve had pages removed and/or payouts disabled due to the new ban on rape/incest content’, but again that’s not (yet) targeted at queer creators specifically. From what I can tell, payments being disabled is also on a per-title basis, not per-account, but there’s so much hysteria and misinformation being spread around that it’s difficult to find actual facts rather than hearsay.

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Oh, right.

I didn’t see anything else I could confirm except the one I was able to see myself. ExpandingUniverse’s game Hypnosis was taken down. Both the free version and a paid version are still listed on their page on Itch, but when you click them you’ll see a message about the page being suspended and the takedown notice:

And this is likely assumed based on the “new” rules for consent. Ignoring the fact that hypnosis requires ongoing consent from start to finish. But payment processors apparently either refuse to research that, or just don’t give a flying fuck. And considering this has been powered by right-wing anti-porn groups… it really could be either way.

Anyway, I don’t know about mass takedowns, I can’t find anything to definitely prove it beyond delisting, but content removal (well, suspensions) are definitely true.

Maybe that helps?

(Edit: I can still download them, as I bought these, since doing otherwise would likely violate some laws. But new purchases can’t be made etc, as you can see.)

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Im going to drop this here for those who may be interested, but Hoeg Law did a video with their analysis of the situation. He obviously feels very strongly on this issue, but I have always enjoyed his legal analysis and thought the video was well thought out with lots of good information.

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If you want to help, please Protect Queer Creators and Sex Workers - Tell Payment Processors to STOP (yellat.money)

Also I would like to remind you about Patreon’s Policy Page from March 12th, 2024.

Promoting, normalizing, providing instructional advice about, coordinating, or otherwise glorifying disordered eating, feederism, or related topics is prohibited on Patreon.

[…]

Examples of feederism works include, but are not limited to: force feeding (consensual or nonconsensual), using illegal or controlled substances to achieve weight gain, using devices to fill the stomach, and so forth.

That’s us! To anyone who was “oh this, that, and the other should be banned so this is good” it’s you! they are banning you!

First they create the circle around which is “good” content, and then they make the circle smaller and smaller. Patreon was able to either push back against this or get further clarification from their lawyers about what exactly payment processors are disallow so for now the above example was no longer applied.

But this does not change the fact that we were banned for a few months and someday, some way some moral concern group focusing on Eating Disorders is going to throw us out flat on our asses unless we protect free expression.

Money doesn’t get an opinion on how it is spent!

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“ Badly worded” is actually a bad sign. The more vague something is written, the more you gotta question what they’re not saying. Contracting and legal terms 101.

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I don’t care if you people hate this guy, or if you somehow think he’s of a political extreme, just watch this to get a full understanding of where everyone stands:

This is all news pertinent to us.

When I search google for itchio takedowns specifically because of recent changes, using unique language from the current takedown notice and using the search operator (site:itch.io/takedowns/), I can find 153 unique takedown notices.

But there are certainly more that haven’t indexed yet, and more works probably will probably be taken down as itchio works its way through their library

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to be fair to Itch, those may have been actually things that violated TOS. They are currently auditing and going through a review process at the moment. Very real chance that 153 actual TOS violating items could have been found during the last 4 days.

unless I’m misunderstanding this post

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I searched using an excerpt from this notice:

so I’m making the assumption that all of the takedowns were specifically because of the recent TOS changes, though I can’t say whether any specific game would have been violating itchio’s previous TOS.

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Echoing @2-36, and their takedown notices are identical, just a template applied, so they make the creator check the FAQ section linked to see what was violating the TOS

Just a quick update from a creator with 10 games listed on Itch… None of mine have been removed, but none of mine are listed under Adult tags still, so they’re still active but de-indexed.

I’m not sure how Itch is prioritizing their review of games, but some transparency to creators would be appreciated. That’s likely asking too much though - it could open them to lawsuits - so I get it, but am disappointed at it all the same.

I look forward to this all blowing over. I’m optimistic it will, but for now… :sob:

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