from Hacker News

Payment processors' bar on Japanese adult content endangers democracy (2024)

by thisislife2 on 7/20/25, 6:22 PM with 116 comments

by numpad0 on 7/20/25, 7:21 PM
I don't buy that the attack on Steam was just some Australian cult activist groups. This isn't one off event anyway. They're just a distraction.
What's urgently needed is payment neutrality, like net neutrality. It's absurd that the net was discussed more heavily and way earlier than cash.
by LorenPechtel on 7/20/25, 7:40 PM
No.
Democracy is endangered by the fact that the government likes to use payment processors to stomp on stuff near the edges.
The dogs on the right rallies around when the government tries to pressure gunmakers, the cats on the left don't rally around such threats very well.
by tptacek on 7/20/25, 7:16 PM
We just had a thread on this; probably don't need to recycle 2024 stories for it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44606184
by xterminator on 7/20/25, 7:17 PM
Each country central bank should have its own national payment processing system. Why is this not a thing? Spain has Bizum, for example.
by atleastoptimal on 7/20/25, 9:42 PM
Other's have said this but it isn't a moral crusade by the payment processors', but rather their capitulation to various moralizing advocacy groups.
by draxter65 on 7/20/25, 9:04 PM
The same payment companies are very happy to take payments on porn sites. This manufactured outrage makes no sense. It's scary what a rather small activist group can accomplish.
by hsuduebc2 on 7/20/25, 10:18 PM
A handful of US companies take a cut from nearly every payment on the planet, and now they’re caving to pressure from Twitter mobs and puritan lobbies, censoring global content just to avoid upsetting shareholders.
Visa and Mastercard haven’t brought anything new in years. Their infrastructure still dominates out of habit, not merit. Meanwhile, alternatives like stablecoins and European systems like EPI or the digital euro are gaining ground.
Their boldness is honestly surprising, especially now that real competition is finally emerging.
by hnpolicestate on 7/20/25, 8:32 PM
You will have better luck getting people to adopt Monero than to get legislatures to pass payment neutrality. Same with enforcement. The trend in Western democracies is less freedom, more control, more surveillance etc.
Mind you, both odds are negligible.
by ur-whale on 7/20/25, 7:13 PM
The only thing that endangers freedom here is the fact that there are centralized payment processors in the first place.
There's an existing cure for that particular disease: Bitcoin.
by r33b33 on 7/20/25, 9:53 PM
Just use bitcoin
by gjsman-1000 on 7/20/25, 7:15 PM
People seem to forget that most countries aren’t down with “adult content.” Japan famously has censorship; while it’s outright illegal and censored online in India, Russia, China, and no shortage of other countries. It’s illegal on both sides of conflicts - like Russia and Ukraine (possession in Ukraine by itself is grounds for up to 3 years in prison). Some countries like Australia permit it, but “extreme” content (aka anything not “vanilla”) is technically illegal regardless of the age of the viewer. This is also not necessarily based on religion: China is officially atheist, Vietnam is as well, but both will put you in prison for importing it. Ironically, it is post-Christian countries that are most tolerant.
From the global stage, America is not some overly puritanical country while everyone else goes along without religious purity concerns. The big view is that the majority of countries censor it or ban it, even democratic ones, with no religious motive required. The Western world is the exception, but that’s changing in the UK, Australia, and now the US with age gating, payment processor refusal, or other restrictions.
by kkfx on 7/20/25, 6:32 PM
The fact we have PSPs endanger Democracy, because we could technically exchange eCash P2P, there is exactly ZERO reasons to keep up the banking systems, and banksters knows that well, https://web.archive.org/web/20240213185758/https://www.cimb.... unfortunately people seems to be unaware of that...
by Telemakhos on 7/20/25, 6:50 PM
How is this a danger to "democracy?" The centralization of payment processing under a surveillance-friendly network that can debank people for socially unacceptable behavior was never on any ballot. Instead, surveillance capability is a regulatory requirement promulgated by governments that despise privacy, regardless of which party holds office. The mistake here is in thinking that there's "democracy" left to save.