The future of CHYOA (or at least the funding)

[Durzan]

I’d suggest setting up multiple methods of donations, and that would include payment providers. Subscribestar definitely is a good start, but it’d probably be wise not to put all our eggs in one basket so to speak.

 

[Friedman]

New week, new insights.

SubscribeStar
I received feedback from SubscribeStar today. They have allowed us to set up a SubscribeStar page for CHYOA, with conditions.

As we are a subscription service, rather than a tip-jar or donation
one (unlike Ko-fi or Kickstarter), we require our Stars to publish
some valuable content regularly. Can you do that? We envision you
being able to post just a paragraph of your choice from every aspiring
or established author every week, just once per week. These excerpts
would be linked directly to your platform.

If and when the complaints concerning your profile on our platform
are received, we will take actions that may result in pausing or
otherwise interrupting your profile performance.

Contrary to popular belief, SubscribeStar does not allow incest or non-consent, as confirmed by support.

To be safe, please, do not include anything reminiscent to the aforementioned topics to your posts on our platform. As you can imagine, these topics are very toxic in nature, so please keep them at bay.

This means that SubscribeStar tolerates issues such as incest and non-consent outside of their platform, but removes the SubscribeStar page should complaints come from others.

I registered CHYOA on SubscribeStar now (our profile is under review).

Payment Provider
Furthermore, the violating terms list is from the credit card companies and not the payment provider.

so this list is from the card schemes, not ours.
I have talked to Risk and they reckon that prohibited wording out of context will not make a big difference.
Random checks through means of a spider bot are common and those are not hyper intelligent: they find what they need to, regardless of context and flag you to the card schemes.

We have the same issue with hentai and erotic cartoons in general and there's no way around it, unfortunately.

My understanding is that we can only accept credit cards with the themes tolerated by Mastercard/Visa. Categories such as incest, non-consent and mind control are only possible in the long term by accepting cryptocurrencies, since no matter which payment provider or service we use, we can't get around the credit card companies.

 

[elmerstories]

This means that SubscribeStar tolerates issues such as incest and non-consent outside of their platform, but removes the SubscribeStar page should complaints come from others.

Yeah, I wouldn't even attempt to set up a page yet. It's still too risky, even if they're more tolerant because it's not a matter of IF, but WHEN someone decides to lodge a complaint because they can.

Having a separate site still seems the way to go with connections to either the payment processor, SubscribeStar, or any alternative. I would offer cryptocurrency address to send to as an option if one was comfortable to try it. If accepted in this way, then rewards could apply perhaps to both sites in terms of badges, highlights (Depending on story, of course), etc.

Still, beyond the violating genres, the larger violating term list could also be a problem on the new site with even relatively safe stories. If SubscribeStar tolerates some of those terms better under a safer context, even with complaint (Or helps with the appeal with underlying card companies), then they might still be a good choice for the new site instead.

 

[Dissonant Soundtrack]

Insertnamehere posted the payment processor for Kink.com, which hosts explicitly incestuous and non con content. Is the issue just that they are larger?

 

[Friedman]

Insertnamehere posted the payment processor for Kink.com, which hosts explicitly incestuous and non con content. Is the issue just that they are larger?

I don't see any content related to incest or non-consent on Kink.com. Additionally, Kink.com has precautionary interview clips with the models, where they confirm on camera that they have consented to this.

 

[Dissonant Soundtrack]

I don't see any content related to incest or non-consent on Kink.com. Additionally, Kink.com has precautionary interview clips with the models, where they confirm on camera that they have consented to this.

They have an Incest channel here: https://www.kink.com/channel/families-tied

And yeah, they have interviews to confirm that it is simulated NC, but CHYOA are literal text files so its obviously simulated. I'm not seeing a meaningful difference.

I'd be happy to add a disclaimer to my NC stories explaining that this is all fiction, don't do it in real life or whatever if that's the kind of ass-covering the processors want.

 

[Friedman]

They have an Incest channel here: https://www.kink.com/channel/families-tied

And yeah, they have interviews to confirm that it is simulated NC, but CHYOA are literal text files so its obviously simulated. I'm not seeing a meaningful difference.

I'd be happy to add a disclaimer to my NC stories explaining that this is all fiction, don't do it in real life or whatever if that's the kind of ass-covering the processors want.

I can't give you a definitive answer, but I'm happy to check with the payment provider.

As I understand it, these "family scenes" are not incest, since they are always step-relationships (step-daughter, step-mother, ...). By incest, the law means biological offspring.

 

[Dissonant Soundtrack]

Did they cite a specific law they are concerned about?

 

[grimbous]

Contrary to popular belief, SubscribeStar does not allow incest or non-consent, as confirmed by support.

See, right here is the uncertainty we have to deal with. I was told the opposite, that with my content there were no issues at all, and now you're being told taboo is to be avoided. Ugh. I really ought to start looking at going vanilla.

Edit: Are you sure you're dealing with the .adult side of things and not the .com side? They seem to deal them as distinct things from what I can tell.

 

[Friedman]

Did they cite a specific law they are concerned about?

Not directly the payment provider. However, incest is illegal: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/incest

When I spoke to a lawyer friend of mine at the time, he also advised me not to include categories like incest or non-consent. Likewise, no distinction is made between video, image and literature, i.e. fiction or fantasy in literature is legally equated with video. However, literature is not prosecuted as the authorities are busy with video and image.

See, right here is the uncertainty we have to deal with. I was told the opposite, that with my content there were no issues at all, and now you're being told taboo is to be avoided. Ugh. I really ought to start looking at going vanilla.

Edit: Are you sure you're dealing with the .adult side of things and not the .com side? They seem to deal them as distinct things from what I can tell.

Yes, just checked again. The support replies came from .adult.

 

[grimbous]

Good to know. I am sending a clarification request and I'll see what comes back. My SS experiment looks like it might be very brief. lol

 

[Dissonant Soundtrack]

Not directly the payment provider. However, incest is illegal: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/incest

When I spoke to a lawyer friend of mine at the time, he also advised me not to include categories like incest or non-consent. Likewise, no distinction is made between video, image and literature, i.e. fiction or fantasy in literature is legally equated with video. However, literature is not prosecuted as the authorities are busy with video and image

Actual incest is illegal, but it's not generally illegal to create fiction containing criminal acts. House of the Dragon has a nine figure budget and it's central to the plot.

If payment processors don't want to be associated with that, sure that's their prerogative. But what obscenity law are they supposedly worried about?

 

[Friedman]

Actual incest is illegal, but it's not generally illegal to create fiction containing criminal acts. House of the Dragon has a nine figure budget and it's central to the plot.

If payment processors don't want to be associated with that, sure that's their prerogative. But what obscenity law are they supposedly worried about?

I don't want to ruin the party, and I'll admit that I originally came to Literotica/CHYOO to read incest stories, among other things.

However, the law looks at these two things differently. One is seen as art, while adult literature touches on criminal law with explicit scenes and possibly positive portrayals. It's a gray area.

I wish it was different. I'm just passing on my knowledge here.

 

[Friedman]

I want to clarify.

Just because you write stories that portray crime in a positive light is not necessarily a reason to be sued. However, if a crime takes place in real life and the defendant says he did it because he read it in story X or on platform Y, there is a possibility that you as an author or platform operator will be involved in this lawsuit. It is particularly critical as a platform operator, since the lawyers prefer to sue people where they think the money is.

Edit: This is a scenario given to me by my lawyer friend. I can also imagine that this can be extended to credit card companies. We saw something similar at MindGeek/PornHub and Mastercard/Visa. I think while it may seem a little off-topic it may help in understanding why Mastercard/Visa excludes these things.

 

[insertnamehere]

House of the Dragon has a nine figure budget and it's central to the plot.

HBO's legal department is a bit larger than CHYOA's. (Also, pornography simply receives harsher legal treatment.)

 

[raziel83]

I am again wondering, how is it that Literotica deals with the same issues. Do they just get so much more traffic and ad money?

 

[Friedman]

Feedback from the payment provider regarding incest that isn't incest:

For some terms, there are ways to go around, like it's the case of step-[...] - that is weirdly acceptable but it is (because no blood lineage is intended).

Furthermore, I don't see that kink.com offers non-consent. Instead, I see a certain level of violence in their BDSM scenes.

Yeah, I wouldn't even attempt to set up a page yet. It's still too risky, even if they're more tolerant because it's not a matter of IF, but WHEN someone decides to lodge a complaint because they can.

Having a separate site still seems the way to go with connections to either the payment processor, SubscribeStar, or any alternative. I would offer cryptocurrency address to send to as an option if one was comfortable to try it. If accepted in this way, then rewards could apply perhaps to both sites in terms of badges, highlights (Depending on story, of course), etc.

Yes, SubscribeStar for CHYOA would only be a temporary solution. I agree with that.

I think it still makes sense to set up a separate website.

 

[grimbous]

Ah yes, that magical little word "step".

 

[merkros]

Ah yes, that magical little word "step".

Spoiler

 

[Dissonant Soundtrack]

Furthermore, I don't see that kink.com offers non-consent. Instead, I see a certain level of violence in their BDSM scenes.

The context of many scenes is non-consensual sex. The performers themselves are consenting (er. Usually. James Deen has a bad reputation now.) but the scene elements are NC as much as anything here.