The new rules

Collective Shout is a shadow government.

I hadn't heard of them, or if I had I'd filed them with a host of activist Groups who push to Change Society. They are not grifters - they're not, oh, Sweet Baby or - dating myself here - Rainbow/PUSH. They're not, as far as I know, in this game to get their friends positions in Human Resources or in some quasigovernmental quango. They are, so far, what they say they are: they accept donations, they pay staff, the staff puts out communiques which the rest of us take or leave.

They got on my radar for pushing Mastercard and VISA to threaten to yank their services from Steam. Steam is a game platform; and is considered a very independent and reputable platform for what they do. Disclosure: I was just on Steam a week or two ago to purchase the game Faster Than Light (2012). Which has its own philosophical Problematics.

What was Steam doing which got them collectively shouted at? Let's read the Shout's own words: Since our launch in 2010, we have achieved many wins: billboards objectifying women pulled down, sexualised childrens clothing withdrawn from sale, sexually violent games banned, Andrew Tate’s pimping courses removed from Spotify, and an age verification trial underway to help protect kids from exposure to porn. Last year saw a record 34 wins.

The idea of forcing corporations on the scale of Mastercard to debank others, I consider, on principle, as paragovernmental. Mastercard and other banks have been too-easily swayed to ban conservative and/or traditional content over the past five years. Well now they're banning the opposite.

Suppose gamers, a libertarian bunch to put it politely, decide to be less libertarian? Lots of gamers dislike LGBT content, and that content gets sold in Triple Ayayayyy games. What's the difference between that and the CSAM which just got #cancelled?

"Consenting Adults!" - yeah, but the games aren't solely sold to those adults...