1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

Don't let Mastercard and Visa censor content! Payment processors like Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal exert tremendous power over what people are able to access and purchase online -- were currently seeing exactly how this amounts to censorship in the cases of gaming platforms Steam and Itch.io. In July an Australian based advocacy organization that pushes for restrictive content moderation called for payment processors to drop the platforms for hosting games they deemed inappropriate; days later the platforms banned content and removed games. In response Steam and Itch.io said this was done in response to pressure from payment platforms. People should choose what content they want to access with their own money, and not allow payment processors to decide. Censorship like this disproportionately impacts vulnerable groups as LGBT creators have been deplatformed due to this.