Mark Kern posted this on his X feed:
Archive link: https://archive.is/WNiDl
Original link: https://nichegamer.com/dlsite-temporarily-blocks-major-western-payment-processors/
DLSite, a website which sells doujinsoft manga, video games, and more has seemingly been forced to refuse major western payment processors Visa and Mastercard.
The article goes on to report that American Express has been added to their blocked policy.
Visa and Mastercard strike again. What was done to Gab in 2018, and others since then, is spreading overseas, to other places.
I'll add another thing, something that Sundance at CTH has posted about several times.
The economic sanctions regime levelled at Russia is not designed to erect a wall against Russia, it is designed to erect a wall around US. It is designed to keep us from escaping their control. You are watching the mechanisms for that be put in place as we speak.
It was either block Mastercard / Visa, or submit to US laws regarding content distribution and payment. It's exactly the same choking that was done to Pixiv last year, as well as Patreon early last year. DLSite makes a good chunk of their money off hosting a lot R18/porn content, so they weren't going to bend the knee like Pixiv did.
This has been going on for a few years now, but basically anyone operating within the United States has to abide by US laws across the entire company anywhere in the world. So in regards to MC/Visa, that means they have to block purchases in jurisdictions outside the United States if they aren't legal under US law.
I have no fucking clue how this is legal internationally or even allowed by the WTO, but somehow the payment processors are abiding by it, potentially committing slowburn economic suicide doing so.(Actually I do remember the excuses they made for this, see below "activist" comment)When it comes to pornographic content, it's supposedly "not legal" under US Federal Law (because you know, fuck states rights) to profit off of depictions of sexual violence, sexual interactions of the underage, rape, etc, regardless if the characters are fictional or not. Such depictions in the fictional realm are 100% legal in Japan, so as it stands right now, MC/Visa are trying to choke off Japanese porn content by drying up anyone's incentive to make it. Believe me, these artists don't make hentai for free.
Honestly, the right way forward would be for Japan, and many other nations, to pull out of Visa/Mastercard entirely. Kick them out of their nations and choke them instead by denying them a customer base. Make these PPs lobby Congress to remove the bullshit laws.
Huh, I didn't know that. Must be "mUH CrosSeD sTaTE LINES!" again.
Actually, I might have fudged my memory on the "fictional or not" bit. My current recollection of how it happened is that it started with activist groups (orgs like RAINN) threatening these places like Patreon and Pixiv, and then they brought it to the attention of Mastercard/Visa, citing "federal laws". I'm not sure it's 100% the case that there are federal "obscenity" laws, but it seems to be that said groups are conflating fictional material (nebulous) with physical material (absolutely? illegal), similar to the retards that conflated Senran Kagura with pedophilia/CP years ago. This conflation is the excuse that the payment processors are using along with the newer "across the company" law, ergo, by applying US Fed law to foreign purchases in this manner, fictional works are getting attacked. Sites that caved to keep MC/Visa are obviously patrolling their paywalls to find "illicit content" because I do see stuff get taken down.
Meanwhile OnlyFans and twitch sexploitation continues unabated.
Visa/Mastercard and visa are a monopoly (duopoly). I wonder how Russia/China avoid these scamming parasitical companies imposing their agenda?