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The News

Steam admits that its payment providers decide what games are on its platforms

Steam has started removing games from its platform because of pressure from payment providers (Automation). The massive gaming platform updated its T&Cs to say that it won’t allow content that “may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors” and started removing a large number of explicit games with incest/slavery themes (SteamDB) following a campaign targeting PayPal(The Australian, $)

The Sizzle: I get things like “incest sex simulators” aren’t exactly the most popular thing to defend, but I feel uneasy about companies being forced to censor legal art and culture because financial companies like Paypal don’t want to be associated with it. My understanding is that Steam hides adult content, so why should a third party step in to stop adults indulging in (admittedly taboo and what many would consider distasteful) fantasies? As always, this is a reminder that the most powerful content moderators on the internet are the payment providers.

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WeTransfer removes vague ‘machine learning’ terms after outcry

WeTransfer has walked back user terms saying it could use files uploaded to its service to train “machine learning models” after a public backlash (BBC). The file sharing platform changed its terms of use, then shortly afterwards changed them again to rule out training AI on user content and selling data to third parties.

The Sizzle: WeTransfer said it was hoping to use machine learning technology to improve its content moderation — which, to me, is a reasonable use of the technology. But the fact that WeTransfer has explicitly ruled out training AI models for sale is a good thing. I don’t think it’s much ado about nothing to make companies be more specific about what they do, rather than broad terms which give them latitude to do whatever.

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Global public transport impersonation Facebook scam targets Australia

Australia is among the 60 countries targeted by a global scam impersonating public transport services on Facebook (Maldita). The operation, which predominantly uses Russian web providers and appears to have people mostly in Vietnam, uses Facebook pages and advertisements purporting to be for a local transport organisation to funnel people to pay for a fake discounted travel card.

The Sizzle: Despite the fact that many of the offending pages and advertisements were reported to Meta, the company hadn’t done anything to most of them after a week. Poking around Facebook these days, it really feels like the platform has become so big — and the company’s attention to it so small — that it’s become this lawless, ungovernable digital wild, wild west.

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Leftovers

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Oh, Also

Retro gaming YouTuber could go to Italian jail because of his reviews

A retro gaming YouTuber is facing potential jail time for possessing an emulator device seized by Italian police (YouTube). According to YouTuber Once Were Nerd, Italian police raided his house and seized devices including handheld consoles created by Chinese company ANBERNIC after he uploaded a review of the device. Apparently, the guy is facing up to 3 years in jail or thousands of dollars in fines for copyright violation because the ANBERNIC devices contain copyrighted ROMs (Android Authority). I mean, I’m all for the state cracking down on gaming, but even I think this is a bit ridiculous.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Bargains

Electrical & electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

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