Mastercard’s ties to the esports world have led to more evidence of censorship. A source leaked messages from the Riot Games sponsor to livestream channels during the Valorant Champions Tour. The payment processor asked moderators to delete messages accusing it of forcing the ban of Steam games.
Looks like Vice can’t be trusted as a reliable source of information if they’re willing to fire journalists after a little outside pressure is put on them.
This also goes to an entire new level. Before it was “only” censoring digital products and events. Now it is directly censoring media outlets.
This screams for an antitrust lawsuit, if a company has this kind of power.
Megacorp be megacorping.
We should always fight giants like this.
And think to not feed them indirectly.
(Not to mention that such basic infrastructure should never be for-profit.)
Best answer.
We are currently enjoying living through the period that most dystopian cyberpunk fiction just kinda glosses over, the antedystopian period where the transition to full blown megacorporatacracy and neu fascism.
The time when the transition underneath already happened but it’s not formalised bcs the people could still snap it all back.
https://www.theverge.com/24094310/vice-media-layoffs-bankruptcy-shane-smith
they havn’t been trustworthy since 2023