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by jijosunny 2386 days ago
We hate to do this, but payment providers have clear terms around hosting adult content. I sincerely hope this will change one day.
1 comments

Thanks for the response and consideration - and my apologies for wrongly assigning the blame.

Several questions:

1. Which payment providers specifically?

2. What do you mean by "hosting", and what are the rules?

3. Do I understand it correctly that adult content creators can use your service as long as their actual buymeacoffee.com page does not show "adult content"

3a. If so, it would be better if you clarified this with a <see more> link after the "no adult content" blurb.

4. Since the restrictions come from payment providers, you would be better off telling what the restrictions are and where they come from to avoid confusion.

to answer #1

- stripe: https://stripe.com/restricted-businesses

"Pornography and other obscene materials (including literature, imagery and other media) depicting nudity or explicitly sexual acts; sites offering any sexually-related services such as prostitution, escorts, pay-per view, adult live chat features; sexually oriented items (e.g., adult toys); adult video stores and sexually oriented massage parlors; gentleman’s clubs, topless bars, and strip clubs; sexually oriented dating services"

- paypal: https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/article/faq569

"We don’t permit PayPal account holders to buy or sell: Sexually oriented digital goods or content delivered through a digital medium. Downloadable pictures or videos and website subscriptions are examples of digital goods. Sexually oriented goods or services that involve, or appear to involve, minors. Services whose purpose is to facilitate meetings for sexually oriented activities."

- amazon: https://pay.amazon.com/help/6023

"Adult Oriented Products and Services — includes pornography (including child pornography), sexually explicit materials (in all media types such as Internet, phone, and printed materials), dating services, escort services, or prostitution services."

so on and so forth. it's questionable whether this site would break those rules, since they aren't directly selling anything. otoh, it's likely the payment processors would shut them down and so probably not worth the risk.

TL;DR: this does NOT answer #1 as buymeacoffee.com is not a store. It's a donation platform. You do NOT pay for any goods or services there, "adult-oriented" or otherwise.

As you said: they aren't directly selling anything. In fact, they are not selling anything at all, directly or not.

"it's likely the payment processors would shut them down and so probably not worth the risk" --> so.. FUD. As I said, we need less of that. One way to avoid it is getting an explicit answer from the payment provider, and quoting it on the TOS on BuyMeACoffee.

BuyMeAcoffee, are you simply deflecting the blame on payment providers? Please tell us what restrictions made you make this choice. It still doesn't seem to be a reasonable one.

_________________

I fail to see how Buy Me A Coffee would fall under these restrictions, as the payments are not made in exchange for any of the restricted categories.

The payment is for coffee, if you wish. Joking aside, no goods or services are being sold on buymeacoffee.com pages. You get nothing for paying. You can't violate these TOS if the recipients happens to do something "adult-oriented".

So, to clarify:

1. These ToS don't restrict the kind of content that may be displayed on buymeacoffee.com page, just the kind of transactions.

2. Buymeacoffee.com is a donation site; the payments are not made in exchange for any goods or services, sexual ("adult") or otherwise.

3. PayPal/Stripe do not restrict who can get the money. What the recepients do outside of the transaction is none of their business anyway.

Therefore, I repeat the question: what makes you restrict "adult content" on your pages?

Restricting the kinds of content that recipients create would be even more nonsensical. In the same vein, it would be stupendous to say that you can't sell a rug on eBay because you also posted an adult cartoon on deviantart.com at some point in your life.

If I had an upvote button, I would on this response.

I was critical of your previous comment, but these are the questions I think deserve an answer for this general concern. Good on you, and thank you for asking them.

> If I had an upvote button

You don't have an upvote button?

I used to, but did something change a while back with how HN handles profiles and upvotes? I just don't see an upvote button...maybe I really, really don't see it? lol
FWIW, I’m in the same boat. Something got mixed up on the backend and they gave me two downvote buttons by mistake.