United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 7 which could have an impact on the ongoing censorship implemented by payment processors.
The executive order titled: “Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans” addresses the ability of payment processors to punish individuals for “constitutionally or statutorily protected beliefs, affiliations, or political views”. Additionally, the bill calls for an end to clauses regarding “reputation risk” on the part of the payment processors. Payment processors like Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and PayPal regularly claim that objectionable speech represents a “reputation risk” and attempts to financially disenfranchise content creators.
Within 180 days of the date of this order, each appropriate Federal banking regulator shall, to the greatest extent permitted by law, remove the use of reputation risk or equivalent concepts that could result in politicized or unlawful debanking, as well as any other considerations that could be used to engage in such debanking, from their guidance documents, manuals, and other materials (other than existing regulations or other materials requiring notice-and-comment rulemaking) used to regulate or examine financial institutions over which they have jurisdiction. The removal of such concepts shall be made clear by each appropriate Federal banking regulator through formal guidance to their examiners. The Federal banking regulators shall also consider rescinding or amending existing regulations, consistent with applicable law, to eliminate or amend any regulations that could result in politicized or unlawful debanking and to ensure that any regulated firm’s or individual’s reputation is considered for regulatory, supervisory, banking, or enforcement purposes solely to the extent necessary to reach a reasonable and apolitical risk-based assessment.
Early in the executive order, Trump gives examples of surveillance targeting potentially conservative citizens as the reason for his intervention. So it seems that the blow to adult content censorship may just be incidental.
For those who don’t know, payment processors have become de facto censors of online platforms. Sites such as Pixiv, Patreon, Fansly, and more have been compelled to change their moderation practices under the threat that payment processors may scuttle their ability to do business. Most recently Steam and Itch.io were forced to make changes, directly naming Mastercard, PayPal, and Stripe as the source of the censorship.
There’s an active Change.org petition to draw attention to the issue which you can check out here.
