Itch.io games site taken down
Bluesky Post (this was also posted on twitter)
I was hoping to find a statement from the aggressor, but it seems to be too early.
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Holy fuck
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I like the joke, but does this situation really warrant a death sentence?
she also led fulfillment by amazon lol
okay lemme grab my coat
okay lemme grab my
coathoodie
Wow wow wow. Who said anything about death? This clearly calls for a broken leg at most.
But it we take into account the amount of trash they generate…
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Of course not. But do people really get to make shitty decisions that impact other people while hiding behind the veil of corporate structure without being directly named and shamed for their decisions?
My only comment here is that I run a small business and decisions can occur that I don’t always see up front and with which they negatively impact employees or customers. I also know many large clients where the leadership delegates decisions down to sometimes stupid or misguided staff. The balance here comes to how a leader reacts when they learn of the hurtful actions and is there an opportunity for change.
I think that from your standpoint, the small business owner, it makes sense to do this.
I think the corporate demons pulling the strings of these massive companies love, and I mean love, when people look at them like you.
Comment removed or am i dumb? What did it say?
FYI: you can just look it up.
It was a picture of the CEO of Funko captioned with a death threat.
Well, fair enough.
Cynthia “Philip Morris” Williams
Sorry, obviously the public awareness of the people making these decisions is dangerous information.
DAMN YOU ANTHROPOMORPHIZED COMPANY RUN BY NOBODY WHO THEREFORE CAN MAKE SHITTY DECISIONS HIDING BEHIND CAPITALISM!!!
Thank your glorious mods for protecting our corporate overlords.
I’m with you about not anthropomorphizing faceless companies as the bad actors here, but also I really doubt the CEO was the one who enacted this decision. It probably came from some middle manger who clicked “yes” on some report they didn’t actually read.
At first I was like “WTF does an indie games site have to do with Funko?” then I Googled it…
Looks like they hosted a BUNCH of infringing games, so Funko, instead of doing the righteous thing and sending them a takedown request, just nuked the whole domain…
So from what I’ve heard at least some of those are just fan pages that just link to the official site.
Sounds about right for funko lol.
( though tbh, listing all games that taken the funko brand would be a massive task lol ).Still, this one hell of a messy shit i wouldnt want to touch legally haha
though tbh, listing all games that taken the funko brand would be a massive task lol
That’s what the brandshield “AI” was supposed to automate. Hell, I could possibly cobble some python script to crawl through itch and create a list of infriging games/devs, something that wouldn’t take more than 1 day.
Sure, but for a lawsuit you should also validate that list to make sure there were no mistakes. Same should have happened with the ai bot. But nooooo, too many people takes scripts and ai output as facts -_-
You say it like it’s okay to do if you are not fucking massive.
Obviously that’s not what I meant. Be charitable.
There’s been an aggressive push against gaming recently. Check all the recent Steam news.
I haven’t seen anything like that. What steam news specifically are you referring to?
They are probably referring to this: https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/millions-examples-extremist-and-antisemitic-content-found-steam-new and this: https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/steam-is-an-unsafe-place-for-teens-and-young-adults-us-senator-warns-gabe-newell-of-more-intense-scrutiny-from-the-government-if-valve-doesnt-take-action-against-extremist-content/
Oh yeah those reports where they count pepe the frog as extremists content.
It’s it anti video games to point out something that is actually happening? Just because you love the company doesn’t mean that any bad news is an attack against the industry. Valve doesn’t want to moderate their forums, it was bound to happen.
Valve doesn’t want to moderate their forums, it was bound to happen.
Of course! Big government needs to save us from our 1st amendment rights. Thanks so much. I don’t think I’d have figured it out without your help.
1st amendment applies to public spaces, not a forum owned by a private company.
if it’s the government that is doing the censoring, against the will of both the users and the private company, how does it not apply here then?
The 1st is there so the government doesn’t step in and create laws prohibiting speech. It’s there to stop the gov from stifling free speech. It’s not there to give you a location to use free speech.
Seems to me it’s quite public because anyone can access their space by simply creating a free account. You’ve seemingly equated the letter of the law to the spirit.
edit: What the above poster isn’t legally understanding is quasi-public spaces. Ethically, they’re simply failing entirely.
I am a big GOG enjoyer myself, but when I need to use steam for anything, I have never encountered such content. Perhaps there is such content in private or otherwise not very visible spaces (such as user profiles), where they will not get reported, but that is true for any site with user content. I call BS on this being an issue.
I am a big GOG enjoyer myself, but when I need to use steam for anything, I have never encountered such content.
You’ve never seen a Pepe meme on Steam? I’m not kidding there either - if you dig into that ADL link and follow it to the research, they have a list of top extremist and hateful symbols on Steam and the swastika is number 2 at 9 percent of detected symbols. #1, representing something like 55% of extremist and hateful symbols their automated detector found on Steam was Pepe.
Perhaps there is such content in private or otherwise not very visible spaces (such as user profiles), where they will not get reported, but that is true for any site with user content. I call BS on this being an issue.
If you dig into their research, it’s mostly private user groups and profiles. Game discussion pages are moderated by their respective devs or whoever the devs appoint but user groups are moderated by their owner/appointees and user profile pages aren’t really moderated at all unless you’re doing something actually illegal in the US.
So unless you go looking at the user profile pages of white supremacists, or go searching for white supremacist user groups you won’t run into much of it.
So unless you go looking at the user profile pages of white supremacists, or go searching for white supremacist user groups you won’t run into much of it.
Yeah, that is my point. How can people be radicalized by something they don’t see?
Also, as non American, I find it mental that pepe memes are considered hate symbols now.
Pepe isn’t hate speech. It was re-co opted by the creator and I often see it in queer friendly gamer spaces. If your threshold for hate speech is a cartoon frog, you may need to recalibrate. Most people do not see it as such and do not use it as such.
All you need to do is join a Rust server and then look at some profiles.
If you only check the forums for technical questions then you’ll dodge it, if you look at the non tech sections for certain games (with diversity or ambiguous message like Hell Divers) then it’s something else.
Care to provide a link? I just skimmed Helldivers 2 discussions a bit and found nothing extremist.
Edit: The worst I found so far is this, which is pretty dumb but not really at the level of “dangerous”, or where it obviously needed to be removed.
Really? Because in my experience you have to wade through racist, homo- and transphobic, and misogynistic shit the second you foolishly open the discussions page on any game that features black or brown, LGBTQIA, and/or female characters.
As I said, I have never seen anything I would consider extremist myself. Though from your reply, I get the feeling the issue could be an unreasonably broad definition of extremist content on your side. That or I just happen to not visit games with such discussions.
Much of that is just bots and if you spend any measurable time on the internet you start to ignore stuff with variable capital letter words and emoji spam so it’s not outside of the realm of possibility that the person you’re responding to, doesn’t see that stuff. I don’t really either. My brain auto filters paragraphs of anti woke/racist rhetoric like pop-up ads.
Valve doesn’t want to moderate their forums
Devs and publishers are mods of their forums, if it’s too much for them they can add community mods or lock their forums (like some do).
And ultimately they’re still Valve’s responsibility. If you provide a platform, you’re responsible for what people do on it.
Actually this is the purpose of section 230, to remove the responsibility of the provider in terms of content. The steam discussion forums would be a form of social media and therefore steam as a whole under at least US law would not be responsible for the content that’s posted on it.
Please note that this doesn’t mean that they can’t moderate their forums, section 230 does allow the owner of the platform to dictate what they want on the forums as long as they’re acting in good faith.
In my opinion section 230 is healthy for an environment, because it’s primary purpose was to prevent an individual from being able to sue the company as a whole for Content that someone else posted, which in my opinion is fair. If someone produced libel against someone, that’s something they need to handle with the person who posted it. It doesn’t make logical sense for the person to go after the platform that held the content as they wern’t involved in that process.
This is what manufacturing consent looks like. This increasing barrage of news about a topic, most of which is based on nuggets of truth but stretched so thin you can see your hand on the other side. The idea is to make you believe something needs to be done just with the sheer volume of time spent talking about something.
The reality is that the ADL is a Zionist front that is full of shit even on their best day, and they want control over Valve the same way they have the CEOs or owners of Reddit, Meta, and even smaller players like Bumble under their thumb. You watch, they will pressure the government to act and then when the squeeze is coming, offer Valve an easy out by joining their special advisory board on tech.
So instead we should let racists, misogynists and lgbtphobes make people believe that something needs to be done to protect white men from oppression?
What are you even talking about?
They’re not really all that massive, just a medium-large fish in a small pond. If this had been about Microsoft or Sony or some other brand that any random non-gamer you stop in the street will have heard of, they might have gotten special treatment from the registrar, but itch.io? Not even nearly big enough. gog wouldn’t be either. Steam might just pass the minimum threshold.
So if you’re a small pond how do you treat your medium-large fish this way of not even listening to their response?
The registrar probably treats all their customers shoddily when problems arise, and itch may not be that large a customer—do we know how many domains itch actually had with them? Probably not enough to form a significant percentage of the registrar’s income, and either that or the possibility of Rabid Attack Lawyers (which the big companies like Microsoft have on retainer) would be required to get special treatment from many companies.
I’m not saying that the registrar is in the right. They messed up, and it would serve them right to go under for this (although they probably won’t). I’m just saying that it’s unsurprising that itch was mistreated by a corporate bureaucracy.
There is no way in hell that steam would have this happen, the amount of money they have behind them combined with the name alone, no registrar would dare disable their domain without being damn sure what was happening was actually happening.
Stream would seek the registar for restitution/compensation, and if you take the yearly Revenue and divide that by the hours in a year they are approaching the $1,000 an hour mark. Of course this number would be different if they actually took it to court. But due to this alone I highly doubt their domain Handler(Mark Monitor) would touch that claim with a 10-ft pole without doing some pretty intensive research
That’s fucking crazy. Anyone notice how AI has only made everything shittier?
Why develop and create something in a vacuum when you can beta test it on everyone.
yes, maybe AI winter was a good thing
AI is a great tool. But tools need to still be handled by humans. AI should compile a list of sites “infringing” and this list should be checked by a human. There always should be a human filter with all AI uses. Cool, let your stuff be written by AI but check what is written and fix weird or wrong shit. Have the meat be done by AI and the details by humans.
If a copyright bot makes false DMCA notices, the programmers should be held responsible as if they sent out the notices. That’s how we’d handle it for any other crime.
It’s really just the DMCA.
This kind of faultless takedown shouldn’t be legal, but the DMCA carved it out decades ago.
It’s automating the enshittification. A large language model doesn’t need to sleep and doesn’t have a conscience.
AI as we know it now is, in a nut shell, the automation of “I was just following orders”. Or a digital factory line of evil. Either way, this is about removing the human element from as many decisions as possible.
It would be tricky, unethical, and in some cases illegal to get people to do the sort of things the owner class and fascists want to do to society. But it’s easy to let an AI program go nuts. The cruelty is the point in the case of the fascists. And in the case of the owner class it clears out anyone who couldn’t afford a lawyer.
I’d bet these fan projects lead to more sales of their garbage products, but these corporations don’t see that because they want that licensing money now. Or they’re just spiteful and vindictive like Nintendo.
On one level, I sympathize with companies like Nintendo, I don’t want to, BUT companies are supposed to make efforts to protect their IP or they run the risk of losing those exclusive protections when it matters later on (abandonment). So if they want to continue their IP rights, they’re supposed to defend it against anything that comes along. I still don’t like it, but I kind of understand why they have to do it.
Granted, I think they could come up with some sort of licensing terms that would made it easy for solo developers to still develop small-time projects to encourage people to create these one-off labors of love, similar to what alot of TTRPG developers do, but for whatever reason, they go the hardball approach, which just creates bad feelings in the community.
https://www.themyerslg.com/blog/what-happens-if-you-dont-defend-your-ip/
They have to defend their trademark. They don’t have to defend copyright, and most of Nintendo’s reputation comes from copyright claims. Someone streaming a let’s play isn’t selling a counterfeit Mario game, they’re just showing you things in a real Mario game, so there’s no trademark claim.
They’re also big abusers of the fact that most of the people they make copyright claims against can’t afford to defend themselves against such a behemoth. Even if you’re sure you’ve not violated their copyright and your lawyer’s sure, too, it’ll be much cheaper to roll over than get the legal system to agree with you.
I don’t want to, BUT companies are supposed to make efforts to protect their IP or they run the risk of losing those exclusive protections when it matters later on (abandonment).
My understanding is that 1.- they are not forced to defend against every possible case of trademark usage 2.- they are not obligated by law to be jerks about it and 3.- this applies to trademark only, not copyright or patents.
Huh, so I’ve always disliked funkopoops but just because I didn’t like the mass production design and they were made in China with no evidence trying not to be made with slave labor.
Now I have a new reason
If lawmakers would simply make the entity responsible for the operation of these AI powered tools be fully liable for every decision that it makes, right or wrong, this kind of nonsense would vanish overnight.
I hope the people running itch.io have great lawyers, because I would be trying to take Funko to court for punitive damages over something like this.
Also, while we’re at it, reform the DMCA to disallow automated copyright related takedown requests without some sort of human reviewing it at the other end. It’s been abused to hell and back by big business.
If lawmakers would simply make the entity responsible for the operation of these AI powered tools be fully liable for every decision that it makes, right or wrong, this kind of nonsense would vanish overnight.
They are? AI isn’t some autonomous entity with its own legal rights and responsibilities.
The problem is that these actions aren’t illegal. This is all a civil issue, and yeah, hopefully itch.io puts a hurt on Brand Shield but I doubt it.
Also, while we’re at it, reform the DMCA to disallow automated copyright related takedown requests without some sort of human reviewing it at the other end. It’s been abused to hell and back by big business.
Itch.io shared on hackernews that they apparently sent a report for fraud and phishing, not copyright infringement. So sounds like funko was abusing the system even if automated copyright claims weren’t a thing.
If you think about it, until now there’s been an u spoken, automatic limit on all government activity because some person has to actually implement all government activity.
That’s been, through all of history, at least some kind of filter on the actions government would take.
(I’m using the term “government” ultra loosely, since in this case it’s a private entity implementing policy; “government” as in an authority who can halt a person’s operations as they see fit. “Government” in the same way management or command structure or the principal’s office is like a “government” in its little realm of operation).
Up until now, government has to be done by people. But AI makes it easy to do tons of activity, which can have a larger disruptive impact.
Most appropriately named domain registrar ever? They should have just gone ahead and named it iwantmynamebackgoddammit.
I wish to avoid any and all companies which do not have actual customer service, but I don’t know if this is possible without spending a lot of extra money.
unfortunately we’ve entered an era where not wanting to condone/support/endorse/encourage shitty corporate behavior requires the sacrifice of not getting to enjoy most products and conveniences that are available. theyre often enjoyed by many other folks who just shrug and say “everyone else is doing it”
I find most companies that undercut their competitors’ prices are cutting corners somewhere I don’t want to be involved in. quality and customer service has a price. I try as hard as I can to pay that price, or just do without.
just try your best, pick your battles; it’s all anyone can do without going insane and/or full modernity-hermit
(reminds me of the cattle “rancher” in ‘king corn’ who says theyd love to go back to selling grass fed, grass finished beef, but all anyone wants to buy is cheapass, corn sileage-stuffed feed lot crap, so it’s either sell that, or go out of business. producers cant just choose their market; there has to be a demand for it.)
it’s not because i think it’s a protest. im not that stupid. i simply hate getting stuck in situations with goddann robots
Welcome to Web 3 I guess. Automated systems ignoring real actors
Web 3 was crypto scams, we’re up to web 6 or 7 by now
Web 3.0 was actually the Semantic Web originally, the cryptobros are bad at counting.
AI scams
Fucko pop should be forced to pay damages. It’s too easy for shitty companies to send out takedown notices and too difficult for those takedown notices to be contested by comparison.
That was the whole point of the DMCA, though. Prevent bad publicity by claiming copyright infringement and companiea have to take down the content before they investigate any response. Any time a company doesn’t do that they are risking their own necks. So usually they only ignore it if they know for sure it’s bogus which requires that they spend the resources on a person reviewing every notice before the required time expires.
the “oh our automated system did it oopsies please forgive us” excuse doesn’t make it any better either
It works for me now? Not sure how long ago this was, timewise, but at least they are back on.
Still doesn’t work for me.
That can be just your DNS server having it cached. The servers behind it still exist
Yup. 45.33.107.166 works.
AI will take our jobsAI will create more jobs because there will be dedicated staff who needs to handle the fallout when it does stupid shit
Yeah but it’s gonna be those slimy lawer-types
Turns out we can solve the unemployment crisis by just creating problems for ourselves! Let’s start throwing eggs at windows to get window cleaners more business.
This is surely what Reagan envisioned every Spring.
for some reason this post isn’t appearing on my profile and the community doesn’t appear in the search, weird
