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.
Australian religious zealots are the ones taking credit for the steam & itch.io censorship.
The hypothesis I’ve heard is that the zealots have deep enough ties to the Australian government to be pains in the ass for MasterCard and Visa. Though I can’t imagine Australia is a big enough demographic to really matter meaningfully, also if you are any type of international entity you should have Australia marked as fuck ass stupid place is the Idaho of the Anglosphere shitty government but with lots of decent folks about.
Straight up its like the shithole of western countries.
Although UK and USA are catching up
*TERFs