Financial censorship

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Financial censorship is the practice of major payment processors refusing to process transactions for individuals or entities that do not align with their values. Although some banks and processors must comply with the law by avoiding known criminal activity, some institutions take a heavy-handed approach in this regard, leading to the censorship of legal adult content, medical marijuana advocacy, and other incidents. Companies like PayPal have a long history of censorship; although, when major payment processors such as Visa and Mastercard censor individuals or business entities, they effectively ban those people from engaging in payment transactions at all. This is due to their dominant position in global finance with no widely-adopted alternative.

Why it is a problem

• This could allow payment processors to censor media they do not like, by refusing to process payments for that specific type of media.
• Very anti-consumer, not allowing you to purchase the legal media that you want.

Notable incidents

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Steam

Main article: Valve allows financial censorship of Steam games

In July 2025, Steam, an online platform and digital marketplace for video games and related computer software and assets, added a new rule to their publishing guidelines against "in particular, certain kinds of adult only content", and proceeded to withdraw hundreds of titles from sale on the platform. This was due to a demand from payment processors Visa Inc. and Mastercard after multiple complaints from a group called Collective Shout

Itch.io

In July 2025, Itch.io, a platform for many indie games, delisted "all adult NSFW content" from their storefront. Later that month, they restored all NSFW games, as long as they're free. Currently, they are in negotiations with payment processors to start restoring some paid titles, but they have acknowledged that this will see some titles permanently removed from the platform.

Wikileaks, 2011

Famous whistleblower Julian Assange was censored in what he called a "financial blockade."

"Visa and MasterCard stopped processing donations for WikiLeaks in December 2010 after the United States criticized the organization's release of thousands of sensitive U.S. diplomatic cables from its embassies all over the world."

From Visa, Mastercard, Bank of America, PayPal, and Western Union.

Possible Solutions

• Cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or Monero
• Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)
• GNU Taler is open source and allows for payments that are anonymous for the payer but not the entity receiving the money

External links

• https://www.eff.org/issues/financial-censorship
• https://www.change.org/p/stop-payment-processors-from-dictating-legal-purchases
• https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/987/text