If you’ve been on social media over the past week, then you’re probably familiar with the backlash against MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, and Stripe. A ragtag movement of gamers, artists, adult content creators, sex workers and queer activists are uniting to resist payment processor-based censorship targeting Steam and itch.io. Thousands have taken to Twitter and Bluesky to express their outrage and share ways to fight back against the third-party policing of “acceptable” content on gaming stores by directly contacting support staff at card networks and payment gateways.
Game devs, queer artists, and adult illustrators are some of the most broadly recognized creative figures sounding the alarm against payment processor censorship. But there’s another group of creators taking on MasterCard and Visa: VTubers. More specifically, VTubers who develop adult content. Called AVTubers, or “lewdtubers,” this group has mobilized fans to spread the word, using their platforms to identify a larger pattern of online censorship targeting NSFW artists everywhere, from Steam to Fansly.
“You wanna call the payment processors who took this away from you”
Adult voice artist and lewdtuber Lucky Cat Kira drew attention to online censorship in an eye-catching way. On Twitter, she shared a video of her VTuber model nude, privates covered with Twitter labels for content blocked due to the U.K.’s Online Safety Act. Behind her are various screengrabs related to contemporary online censorship issues, from the U.S.’s KOSA bill to a Bluesky post about consumers calling MasterCard.
“OOOOOO you wanna call the payment processors who took this away from you,” Kira tweeted, “you wanna call them so badly OOOOOOOO.” In a reply, she shared phone numbers to call Stripe, MasterCard, Visa, and PayPal, as well as an infographic posted by this reporter.
Speaking with Kotaku, Kira described the MasterCard/Visa anti-censorship push as “the largest group movement” she’s seen since public backlash against OnlyFans’ NSFW ban attempt.
“There’s a lot of overlap between all the communities this affects I believe,” Kira told Kotaku. “VTubers rely heavily on game creators, 2D and 3D artists, voice actors, IRL sex workers and lewdtubers. We commission each other, stream with each other, and need every community in order to exist. Lots of us are in multiple of these communities as well, participating in or hosting the things on both Steam and itch.io. I’ve seen people in each of these groups react, and give a call to action.”
There’s good reason lewdtubers feel Steam and itch.io’s censorship issue affects them too, especially given how the two fields so frequently interact. Podgekinn, a goblin lewdtuber and adult voice actor, saw Steam and itch.io’s policy changes as part of a larger pattern. When they spoke with Kotaku, they directly pointed to Fansly’s Terms of Service update from late June, which effectively banned furry content. At the time, Fansly said its guidelines were changed “to closely comply with our payment processors.”
“I don’t think VTubers are uniquely at risk, but we do definitely face some additional challenges,” Podgekinn told Kotaku. “For example, many creators using furry or furry-adjacent avatars have now had to re-design their models for adult content on Fansly, as well as delete all of their previous content using those models, or risk being banned.”
Kira mentioned the “overlap” between lewdtubers and various other fields. For example, some lewdtubers perform voice work for adult video games–Podgekinn included–and their work was hit in the latest payment processor-based censorship wave.
“I voice for some of the games that have been impacted and it has put a lot of fear and uncertainty into my career both as a voice actor and an 18+ creator,” they said. “The Fansly ban is the same payment processor issue that Steam and Itch are facing, and that pressure is impacting every adult creator to re-assess what we do, and in some cases completely shift gears on our content.”
For VTubers, a sense of solidarity
Many VTubers are internet denizens of yore who are intimately familiar with online censorship. To them, Steam and itch.io are the latest casualties in a very lengthy war. One VTuber we spoke to referenced the Tumblr NSFW ban in a statement to Kotaku. Another lewdtuber, who originally began as an adult voice actor, described MasterCard and Visa as having “really strict and vague guidelines” that creators have had to manage “for years.” That lewdtuber, who asked to remain anonymous, also mentioned the wider issue of VTuber censorship on platforms like Twitch and YouTube, drawing a throughline between payment processor restrictions and ongoing censorship against VTubing as a medium.
“I think lewdtubers are especially vulnerable because they’re at the intersection of several groups that get treated the most harshly by restrictions online,” that lewdtuber told Kotaku. “VTubers are often censored and treated as inherently sexual on platforms like Twitch and YouTube, even if they don’t make NSFW content, so lewdtubers often get flack from both platforms and fellow VTubers. Payment processors are also quite weird about lewdtuber content and anime porn in general. There’s a lot of weird animosity between lewdtubers and IRL camgirls, too—Projekt Melody for instance received a lot of negative backlash when she started streaming on Chaturbate and got super popular. Needless to say, it’s pretty rough out here.”
YouTube and Twitch are notorious for taking punitive action toward VTubers. ASMR VTubers commonly face warnings or strikes for their content on YouTube, even though their material follows the platform expectations. Meanwhile, Twitch bans often provide little context for VTubers to understand why they have been temporarily pulled from streaming. Yuna, an adult voice actor and lewdtuber, stressed that creators across all content forms will increasingly have to ask themselves, “Will what I make be acceptable in the eyes of the platform?”
“A point that I’d like to see more in posts is that this affects more than just NSFW content,” Yuna told Kotaku. “Thinking ahead in the future, I’m worried that these companies (not just payment processors) will pressure us to conform to their ideals. I don’t want that, nor should you.”
The entire adult VTubing space is under increased pressure at the moment. Yet the feeling in the air among lewdtubers is one of unity and collective activism. Podgekinn encourages VTuber fans to speak with their wallet and get in touch with their local representatives. Yuna suggests others should “let the payment processors know what you think” and discuss online deplatforming “with friends or your platform no matter the size.”
Payment processor censorship is awful–remote, financial corporations dictating what can and cannot be sold or hosted on independent platforms goes nowhere good. But if consumers rise up and fight on behalf of their favorite content creators, be they game developers, lewdtubers, or something else, then change just might occur.
“I think for the fans, their power lies in their number,” Kira told Kotaku. “We can challenge the payment processors if we make them know how much of a concern this is for us, through sheer volume of calls asking for change.”
(Disclosure: Podgekinn has provided voice work for Shady Corner Games, a studio for which reporter Ana Valens is an affiliate. Lucky Cat Kira and Podgekinn also serve as affiliates for Shady Corner Games. )
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