RunawayDanish

So, I don't call it "Generative AI" because Intelligence really isn't involved in current systems that are creating funny pictures of Obama dabbing infront of a burning Reichstag. The capacity of algorithmic decision trees and weighted neural networks is impressive, but that human operator element is required to steer the software into an acceptable result. What has been happening is not that operator inputs are less needed, but rather, the threshold of understanding operators need to have for the technology is getting lower.

Short comment, but it's long enough to need the read-more.

I really undersold the importance of MasterCard's shift in policy. I've not even had a chance to set up my laptop yet and since leaving Tucson to travel to Canada the situation has continued to escalate. To give you an idea of the problem, Visa and MasterCard are internationally speaking nearly absolute-authorities for bank funds interacting with E-Commerce platforms of any kind. If Visa banned all erotic and adult work from being paid for, no one would have any source of retaliation. The ACLU allegedly has been contacted to start looking at a case against MasterCard but we're talking about a Civil Suite that I doubt will get far. I don't think the ACLU could make a case here as in US Law circles it's a matter of private business. Internationally speaking, it's a matter of international law that the UN supported the minimization of payment processor options as part of anti-laundering operations.

The laws that handle this are why Crypto Exchanges are a failure, investigators can use the token data available on your typical Crypto Blockchain to identify end-users in transactions that attempt to cash out, making it poor for privacy. This also is why in the U.S. you can really only get pre-paid Visa's in Walmart (and some other stores, like Walgreens or Target) to use on Paypal as an alternative to having a bank account. Even then, Paypal may require you to have a bank account anyway if you want to take cash out of the account and it could just as easily deny you any payment if there's no identifiable information such as a phone # or other significant ID element. The Internet has gradually become entangled in the progressive and pervasive creep of making everyone [Named Persons], which adds accountability and liability to you in exchange for literally nothing but the privilege to do business. Anonymity has been dead, but this is sort of a final and chilling set of nails being hammered into the coffin.

*Note: I'm having a hard time finding some old articles I think my desktop at home has saved as bookmarks. Here is a 2010 FATF report that you might find relevant, it predates the policy changes that effectively secured Visa and MasterCard's Duopoly status (people will also note American Express is in the market, I wouldn't give that much debunk power given the state of affairs).

Ignore the warning signs at your own peril.

Here's my buddy's running list of porn-friendly and unfriendly payment processors and hosting websites.

Edit: Helpful or adjacently relevant citations included as Hyperlinks, click on underlined text to see the citation for yourself. Turns out searching the internet in Canada is a little bit wonky, I can barely find useful information :/

🎙️ If it kinda seems like we're harping on about this Patreon and kink art situation, you need to understand it's because systemic platform-level purges like this don't happen to take out a few bad actors. It's that the bad actors(if they even exist) are the rhetorical justification to execute the purge, not the other way around.

You do not fix an issue with a theoretical missing stair by tearing down the entire fucking house. This kind of neopuritanism around queer sexuality is used to excuse acts of open systemic violence against queer people, always, always, always always always always always. Please look at your queer history and understand that none of the gains we've made were won by being 'respectable' or 'polishing up our image' or 'getting rid of the bad apples' before you decide you care more about the nonexistent agency of fictional fucking characters than you do about the actual living, breathing people around you.