“BREAKING: We just filed a Federal Trade Commission complaint, calling for an investigation into Mastercard’s policies discriminating against online sex workers.”
Look, I don’t care what you think about porn - you should still be supporting the ACLU in this. Because it meant that EVERY WEBSITE had to make sure no one was selling art that ANYONE called sexy, or risk being unable to process credit cards.
And enforcement was completely haywire. One person might get their account blocked because a bra strap showed, while another person showed closeups of genatilia with no problem. No one has EVER came up with a way to moderate this in a cost-effective way, so it is all based on user complaints and AI - and both overwhelmingly target minority artists. It is pretty easy for male-female porn to sneak by unreported, but two guys kissing fully clothed? Or a black swimsuit model showing a bit more cleavage than some asshole thought was appropriate?
And of course big name movie and game companies could include all sorts of sexy content in mainstream media while even a hint of it got the little independent guys banned.
On top of that, a lot of EDUCATIONAL material got taken down. Want to know what different STDs look like? How to treat an injury to the groin?
A lot of ancient art got blocked too. A lot of cultures - including most of Europe for a long time! - don’t have the nudity taboos modern America has, and a lot of the best, most technically skilled and historically important art has - gasp! - nipples bared and cocks out. For most of history, that was not a big deal.
It is still extraordinarily easy to access porn, so the ban did nothing except make it harder for independent artists to survive, in every form of media, and make it more difficult for people to check the health of their bodies.
(Last but not least, I am of the opinion that it is very healthy for people to know what all sorts of different bodies look like, and sexual desire is perfectly natural and does not need to be hidden like it is shameful. I know that is controversial. But even if you think people should never see anyone naked except their wife or husband, it should still be very obvious that this policy did a lot of harm and zero good.)
And, if this kind of shit remains unchallenged, it’s not going to be long before online stores start getting shutdown for offering queer content– not adult content, just queer content.
