Yep, and their motivation was different (the opinion that banning these types of games reduces domestic violence) to Visa/Mastercard, but the goals align.
Honestly though, Visa and MC would take porn in a heartbeat if the dispute rates weren't so high. Like, they were definitely burned by the Mindgeek stuff a few years back, but at it's heart this is a commercial decision because disputes cost them lots and lots of money.
Trump is in favor of giving more power to US corporations and letting money speak ("deals", or bribery depending on your POV).
He's a very good defense against politicians with stronger ideologies, especially those more aligned with international values which tend to smooth out specific cultural gripes.
Despite the down votes I think this is right. The reason the "conservative" side has voted for Trump is more voting against the other side. With maybe a Mitt Romney type and an actual primary, the religious right would go that way. Many conservatives do not like trump, but consider him better than the alternative.
I'm grateful my parents, who were life long conservatives, haven't lived to see the tragedy of what passes for Republicans these days.
> Visa/Mastercard banning porn has been a consistent and steady policy for years now.
Yeah, because they got sued for processing payments on some porn sites that weren't taking down revenge porn. They're not puritans, they're concerned about their bottom line, and the lawsuits threatened them with losing lots of money.
They don't need to. I'm saying that we've seen the same pattern for a while now, and puritan groups have enough money/influence to dictate a lot of how the online world looks like now.
I'd argue Visa/Mastercard could deal with the issue if they really wanted to, but as you point out they're following the money, and I wouldn't expect them to do otherwise either. I still think they share the blame (being opportunistic doesn't mean being above criticism), but you're right that more or it lays on other shoulders.
can you please list some puritan groups you refer to? maybe explain with an example what theyve done before to shape the internet atm? i have zero idea what is going on.
Maybe this time it was triggered by this specific group, but it comes in a line of events that all went into that direction for years and years.
American puritanism is neither a flash in the pan nor a fringe movement of people that just need to be told how it is, IMHO.