It sounds like they got hit by people who were unaware of what FetLife is following due diligence in processing card transactions. As far as I can discern, it's just a social network with a darker focus, which led to an overreaction from a card network.
Why haven't you embraced Bitcoin to get away from the restrictions of the banks / credit card companies? - @Eibon
Answer:
We used to accept bitcoins through Coinbase. They dropped us a year ago because we are a kinky site. No joke.
If a Bitcoin site wants to accept credit cards, then they have to adhere to rules set forth by the credit card companies.
Yes, there are other options, and we are going to look into them, but options like Bitcoin are a nice to have and not currently a viable replacement for being able to accept credit and debit cards on FetLife, no matter how much one might want to believe otherwise.
When we offered Bitcoin as an option, it was responsible for less than 0.1% of our daily transactions.
In particular, I think Verotel does Bitcoin processing for adult merchants.
So it looks like any use of a cryptocurrency has to be completely decoupled from the credit card world.
This is really one of those issues that cuts across party (in the US 2 party system) lines. We've seen the crackdown on gun shops, marijuana merchants, and adult industry companies. I don't think I've heard questions asked my the big media to candidates about their feelings toward these type of laws.
I might not like some of these businesses, but every legal business should be able to get paid. I am not comfortable with a politician's beliefs affecting the banking of a legal business.
Normally, I would like the market to handle this but as the article points out, this is not really a free market. "The banks maintain a shared list that contains all merchant account closings." makes sense from a fraud point of view, but it is a process without appeal. Second, banks have a history of legislation requiring fairness of lending. It is probably time to look at the credit card companies with the same eye.
Step two: Get in power
Step three: Make refusing credit transactions to patrons on grounds of "morality" illegal.
edit: I got this mixed up with F-List, which is similar in function with a narrower focus.
Honest question: do we need better enforcement for the First Amendment rights in the current digital era? Shop owners cannot decide who enters in their shop, should digital service providers be allowed to discriminate?
The same happens when someone is banned from Facebook and Twitter: of course there are other options, but he won't be able to reach 95% of the Internet audience.
Edit: maybe should've spoken about a "different, active enforcement" rather than "better enforcement".
Which is just the tip of the iceberg as to why the idea of a cashless society is so terrifying.
Shop owners cannot decide who enters in their shop, should digital service providers be allowed to discriminate?
Oddly enough, if you belong to a group or political faction that is highly reviled, they certainly can.
Remember when a Wal-Mart refused to provide a birthday cake for a child whose name was "Adolph Hitler Campbell"?
These boundaries don't appear to have anything to do with the First Amendment.
1) It explicitly constrains the US Government. 2) It implicitly constrains anyone who approximates the coercive power of the US government.
#1 is self-explanatory.
#2 implies that, in the US, anyone who attempts to use overwhelming coercive power of any form to silence speech tends to get looked on poorly by the law.
If Fetlife has a fraud rate that approaches normal and the banks cut them off anyway, it would be an interesting court fight.
In my opinion they have a lot to do with the First Amendment.
When a few big players can effectively and arbitrarily put someone out of business, that's quite a problem in my opinion.
When a few big players can effectively silence a voice, that's a free speech problem, in my opinion.
As our lives move from physical places to the Internet, I would like to see the same liberties maintained.
No. What we need is a bill of rights to protect us from corporations that would censor us and otherwise work with the government to oppress our rights.
Plain and simple, all big business needs to be regulated at this point. They've proven themselves unworthy of being given free-roam.
It's virtually impossible to set up any kind of online shop without accepting one or more of PayPal, MasterCard, Visa or AmEx. As soon as you accept money for anything one of these FOUR(!) financial behemoths objects to, you're out of luck. You'll be forced to stop using them, and as soon as you do you'll see your revenue drop dramatically.
And why? All because a couple of old men in suits think that they know what's "acceptable". Nevermind the legalities. PayPal makes it impossible to sell pornography, which is perfectly legal in large parts of the civilized world.
As someone who works at a company where we literally have thieves testing cards on our site on a daily basis, any site that accepts credit cards has a high rate of frauds as thieves test cards. Somehow, we manage not to pass these cards to credit card processors (and no, I don't mean we use Stripe. I mean we have our own in-house anti-fraud process since we deal with the processors through a merchant account at a major bank like FL does). Porn companies have filtering in place as well for the same reason.
It would be a solid metric instead of "morality" if the cause was what you believe it to be.
Maybe some of the smaller guys don't have the resources to manage an account with the extra complexity. But EVERY company giving up a juicy profit opportunity? No way. The answer they're giving is the correct one: they simply aren't allowed to process payments from adult websites.
IIRC cannabis merchants can't even open bank accounts, much less accept credit cards. The only way that they can be annoyed further is by restricting the amount of cash they can hold in the store - which actually would make sense, given that a pot stop filled to the brim with cash is a prime target for gangsters.
FetLife acts more like a porn/escort site than a social network in many respects. Its unfortunate since a sex positive kink community would be a great boon but they all seem to get seedy when they allow RL nudity/discussions.
I wonder if a no RL rule outside of things like clubs, etc. that are larger organized group activities with physical presences and business licenses would have been the "real" solution.
I think the objection today has mostly to do with the fact that they want to tell us what we do in our bedrooms.
Yeah we already see the first signs with Trump defunding abortion organizations. However I don't believe Trump to be behind this, much more Mike Pence.
And I'm really, really afraid that someone will either successfully impeach, maim or kill Trump - because then Mike Pence will succeed him, without anyone to check his powers, given that he'll have the entire extremist religious people in the GOP behind him.
This is part of a broad effort to moralize what we are allowed to buy and sell online.
Edit: FetLife is based in Canada. Are checks a thing there? (honest question from a European who has never even seen a check)
It's not a porn site, or at least not primarily a porn site. The UX is a lot closer to that of Facebook but specifically for kinky people. If you go to a kink conference and meet someone, they will likely ask for your FL name to connect with you (incidentally Twitter is the other popular mechanism for communicating with fellow kinksters).
FL has a subscription model, and the main benefit you get out of that is the ability to view other members' posted media better. There is a section of the site called Kinky & Popular which is similar to Reddit's front page. Since people can Love (e.g. like/heart/etc.) their friends' pictures and videos, some become popular and land on this front page. Viewing more than the top 200 or watching the videos requires a subscription of $5/month. This section is dominated by media of pretty, skinny, submissive women, and can be seen as having porn-like content. Note that what ends up here is purely moderated by the community and is not promoted by the FL staff. The people whose media ends up here do not get paid for it.
FL until recently has had a very loose content policy. Things like blood play, consensual non-consent, rape fantasies were all allowed. Illegal things were not: no underage media, no snuff, etc. But people were free to discuss their fantasies, their kinks, etc. without much restriction. Whether you agree or disagree with stuff that gets someone off, you were free to discuss what you want and fantasize about what you want, as long as what you are posting violates no US laws.
FL serves an important purpose to our community: it is a place to share events and local community knowledge, to keep up with people, and importantly to identify abusers. This is the main benefit I see in it and it would be the biggest loss if FL went under.
These latest developments have obviously put a damper on things at FL. They have contacted several groups that are able to advocate for them and give advice, and even the EFL at one point was involved. However, the outlook is bleak. Sadly, the community is not united in supporting FL due to seemingly arbitrary content restrictions, and FL is unable to provide a reasonable level of service without those. If someone knows a way to help this community, please post it here and I'll do my best to point it out to the powers that be there. I am not affiliated with the FL staff, just a user, but they do talk to the community freely and frequently.
Visa, Mastercard, and AmEx are doing this on behalf of their own internal policies. Welcome to the free market.
As an aside, it's fun to watch a bunch of old, technically-illiterate and conservative financiers unknowingly sow yet another little seed of their own destruction. I guess being at the top of the heap can make one feel invulnerable...
I'm glad to get more of the story.
