J-List Censorship

Visual Novel Community Off Topic
#21
quote:
Originally posted by SCDawg:
I guess my question then is, can someone that I am paying to provide a service tell me how to run my business if I desire to continue to have the honor of paying them to provide the service? That is very different then refusing service is it not?
I'm not sure whether it's J-List or the cc company that's paying the go-between, but to answer your question - yes, a service provider can terminate or threaten to terminate business with a client for any number of reasons. There is probably a page of fine print in the business contract listing escape clauses that relieves the provider of any liability.

This falls in the realm of contract law. It's not a matter involving Constitutional rights. There are very few instances where a plaintiff could win such a suit against a business based on such claims. Individuals may claim civil rights, but corporations may not.

#22

Again, sadly, it usually boils down to the concept of, “if you don’t like the terms of our contract, then take your business elsewhere.” Fortunately, America’s free enterprise system, and the ban on monopolies means that there is usually someplace else to go if a business puts you into a contractual situation that you aren’t happy with. What we would have to worry about is if all the banks suddenly said, “We won’t process the credit of anyone making adult purchases.” Fortunately, for as much noise as the Religious Right makes, for every one of them, there is usually a Moderate and a Liberal who disagree with their opinion. The pendulum often swings back and forth. Taking my home of Sacramento as an example: it used to be that there were a couple of bars that had strippers. Certain people got offended, and laws were passed that prevented a) places that served alcohol from having unclad ladies in them, and b) places that had unclad ladies in them being within the incorporated city limits. So the two strip bars shut down. But now there are at least three or four times as many “juice bars” with a greater degree of nudity than either of the old bars had that have sprung up just outside the city limits. So who won? Conservatives will always be attacking the things that offend their delicate moral sensiblities, but as long as there are people like you and me, who aren’t offended by “adult” material, it is unlikely that, in America, at any rate, it will be completely squashed.

#23

I can see that if the banks or credit card companies indeed decide to refuse adult product processings, adult companies will join forces and make their own.

#24

What I still don’t understand is this rather hypocritical stance most credit card companies take against “adult products” and not all of them either. I am sure you could put most of your trip to Vegas on a Visa, Master Card, Discover, American Express, etc. without any problems; yet what is Vegas other then an adult mecca of almost every or perhaps every “adult vice” ever conceived of, despite how Vegas is now trying to portray itself with “family friendly” shows, attractions, and the like?

Yet a web site that has pictures on it and legally sells these products is suddenly “black-listed” in the eyes of a processing company that probably has no qualms about processing orders for other adult material or for the income the purchases might provide to the processing company for the work they do?

The whole thing is hypocritical as has been said before and that irks me as much as the idea of the censorship itself, they will happily take the money from processing of the purchase of these products but must have a moral stand against the pictures being on the site these products are sold.

#25

For credit card companies keeping their fraud percentage low is a priority. A lot of adult services and goods end up being claimed as fraudulent by the holder of the card. There are people who steal numbers and cards and charge them to pornographic websites, people who demand a refund/chargeback even though they enjoyed every bit and harvested an adult website, or someone caught by their spouse on their cc bill and cover up by calling in those legit charges as fraud. That’s part of the problem, too.

#26
quote:
Originally posted by Llilithe:
For credit card companies keeping their fraud percentage low is a priority. A lot of adult services and goods end up being claimed as fraudulent by the holder of the card. There are people who steal numbers and cards and charge them to pornographic websites, people who demand a refund/chargeback even though they enjoyed every bit and harvested an adult website, or someone caught by their spouse on their cc bill and cover up by calling in those legit charges as fraud. That's part of the problem, too.

There's just one tiny problem here. This would make perfect sense if the company had given J-list the boot. They didn't. They told J-list to censor their pictures. This has nothing to do with fraud rates, I'm reasonably certain.

#27

Isn’t a good reason why they would want to toughen up their policy for their customers who carry adult items? A kind of “We don’t want your kind of business anymore.” move without telling you outright.

[This message has been edited by Llilithe (edited 06-22-2004).]

#28
quote:
Originally posted by Llilithe:
Isn't a good reason why they would want to toughen up their policy for their customers who carry adult items? A kind of "We don't want your kind of business anymore." move without telling you outright.

[This message has been edited by Llilithe (edited 06-22-2004).]

However, they do want the adult item business since it is a multi-billion dollar a year industry. You honestly think they do not want a piece of that multi-billion dollar pie from legal suppliers of adult items and products?

Also how is restriction of freedom ever a way to truly help someone? I cannot see how having these pictures censored would stop fraud, since people could still buy the products then claim fraud about the purchase with or without censored pictures. Censorship is never the answer, never has been and never will be so far as I am concerned.

[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 06-22-2004).]

#29

I guess hanging out at vch forums makes me a little depressed. Business is pretty bad lately and everyone is talking about why we’ve been seeing so many refunds/chargebacks lately and posting about credit cards not wanting to do business with us anymore.

#30
quote:
Originally posted by Llilithe:
I guess hanging out at vch forums makes me a little depressed. Business is pretty bad lately and everyone is talking about why we've been seeing so many refunds/chargebacks lately and posting about credit cards not wanting to do business with us anymore.


VCH?

There is fraud most places these days but even with it I don't think these companies would risk shooting their goose that lays the golden egg. Just my guess but I have a feeling the more restrictive society becomes about these products and items the better these places might actually do meaning more money for the processing companies. Yes perhaps more fraud but more money too, so why mess with it in a way that does nothing but tick people off?

#31

Video Chat Host
I used to be able to sell a lot of costumes to the hosts but now no one wants to buy them because no one wants to visit them or the vistor asks for refunds from the vistor’s credit card company. vicious cycle

I know it’s a huge business sometimes it’s just little things happening in ones own world making it feel like it is something that happens everywhere. I know they upped censoring a lot of pictures and are much stricter lately over the littlest of things on the sites where a lot of video chat hosts work. Which I know isn’t all the cc companies doing, just feels like part of it.
And now I’m rambling about another part of the industry that probably doesn’t have any effect on J-list again.

Sorry, at the time I thought I was being relevant. Wish, I could delete my posts instead of editing them.

#32

I think you brought up some good reasons why these companies will claim they are doing it. Perhaps it is their justification for doing it in other cases and perhaps here if pressed or part of their justification.

These companies are in a what they must see as a tough place. They cannot risk ticking off places like J-List or as happened they will be replaced but they would love to get the money while censoring images to “sooth” the worries of people who complain about pictures and such with far too much time and not enough common sense on their hands to understand that they don’t have to look at if these pictures if they don’t want to look at them.

[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 06-22-2004).]

#33

There’s any number of reasons that a credit card company might have decided to get “strict” with J-List. I personally don’t think any of them are valid excuses, but I’m sure they are in the minds of those that make the decisions. They can range from personal opionions (someone in charge may have litterally “got religion,” and decided that he/she had to take a stand. Kudos to them, I suppose, but it’s bad business, and don’t force your opinion on me). The company itself may have been feeling pressure from an outside source and felt that they had to take action (who knows, maybe some idiot decided that their kid could say “I’m over 18” and go to the adult section, and decided to raise a stink). It’s probable that J-List wasn’t singled out in that censoring action, and in the end, it probably cost them a lot of business. Morally, they might be feeling pretty good (pat yourselves on the backs, guys…), but at what price (…all the way to the poor house)?

#34
quote:
Originally posted by Llilithe:
Sorry, at the time I thought I was being relevant. Wish, I could delete my posts instead of editing them.

I think I may have implied something I didn't intend to. Don't worry about it. Discussion is always welcome here, and (like most relatively frequented BBS's, I suppose) going off topic is not really that bad. It was quite interesting to know that this is happening all over the place and not just to J-list. All I meant was, if the CC companies claim they're combating fraud by requiring these pictures - they're lying.

#35

And going off topic is not uncommon, either, if one follows any of the lengthy posts

#36
quote:
Originally posted by Wolfson:
(...) (who knows, maybe some idiot decided that their kid could say "I'm over 18" and go to the adult section, and decided to raise a stink). (...)

Yes but this goes back to the simple solution of having parents monitor their child's activities rather then sit doing whatever they are doing, suddenly realize what is happening and demand someone else enforce "the rules" which are then universally applied which is wrong.

True they cannot monitor it all the time, but randomly dropping in on their kids might catch some of it and make the kids more on edge thus stop other times without having the rest of us see their rules enforced. Are parents that lazy (since I think if they wanted the time they could make the time for the most part) that they complain to such companies to enforce their idea of what is morally wholesome instead of enforcing it only within their own family themselves?

[This message has been edited by SCDawg (edited 06-24-2004).]

#37

Parents nowadays don’t know how to raise children.

#38

I agree in principle with both of you. Parents these days, in general, just don’t seem to put any effort into raising their children, and children are reared with no sense of respect for anything–including rules. A lot of the problem also stems from the fact that some parents’ hands are litteraly tied. The old adage “spare the rod and spoil the child” can no longer apply, since spanking a child now constitutes child abuse. Too bad… it gave me a sense of consequenses when I was growing up that I don’t think that a “time out” really does. So many children grow up with the attitude of “What does it matter? The worst that will happen is that I get a talking to, and have to stay in my room for a while, or I can’t do something for a few days. Whatever.” Of course, that’s assuming they get caught, which goes back to what you guys were saying…

#39


quote:
Originally posted by Wolfson:
I agree in principle with both of you. Parents these days, in general, just don’t seem to put any effort into raising their children, and children are reared with no sense of respect for anything–including rules. A lot of the problem also stems from the fact that some parents’ hands are litteraly tied. The old adage “spare the rod and spoil the child” can no longer apply, since spanking a child now constitutes child abuse. Too bad… it gave me a sense of consequenses when I was growing up that I don’t think that a “time out” really does. So many children grow up with the attitude of “What does it matter? The worst that will happen is that I get a talking to, and have to stay in my room for a while, or I can’t do something for a few days. Whatever.” Of course, that’s assuming they get caught, which goes back to what you guys were saying…

But some parents have turned to a form of psychological warfare against their children instead of spanking. While this might indeed be worse then spanking, it is still technically allowed, since they call it something else a nice comfortable euphemism like “child re-education to proper attitudes” or something.

Still there are other ways to punish, simplest way might still be to restrict television, computer, and phone time. Since most have these in there room these days, it might be necessary for the parents to confiscate the televisions, computers and cell phones from their child’s room only returning the cell phone when the kid leaves the house or maybe not even their own phone but one that only dials emergency numbers or something. This enforcement though takes a lot of effort it is not wrong since no real physical or psychological harm is coming to the child, and is one way to show that families are not always democracies but at times monarchies with the kids as the peasants. That is a quick way to teach kids “what does it matter”. If they violate the rules under the parents roof they lose some of their rights under the same roof. It might be cruel and drastic but it is one way to do it that does not involve spanking and does not involve having someone outside the family enforce the families ideas of what the rules must be upon everyone else that might stumble across the web site, in this case.

#40
quote:
Originally posted by SCDawg:
Still there are other ways to punish, simplest way might still be to restrict television, computer, and phone time...This enforcement though takes a lot of effort it is not wrong since no real physical or psychological harm is coming to the child, and is one way to show that families are not always democracies but at times monarchies with the kids as the peasants. That is a quick way to teach kids "what does it matter". If they violate the rules under the parents roof they lose some of their rights under the same roof. It might be cruel and drastic but it is one way to do it that does not involve spanking and does not involve having someone outside the family enforce the families ideas of what the rules must be upon everyone else that might stumble across the web site, in this case.

The two problems with this method of punishment are that a) it is difficult to enforce, and children often try to find methods to "beat" the punishment, and b) psychology shows us that the best forms of psychological training are for immediate reward or punishment so that the individual learning the response can associate the behavior with the reward. Protracted punishments, such as removing computer, TV, or cell phone priveleges lose their immediacy, and only serve to foster resentment in the child over a period of time, rather than having the child reflect on his or her "crime."