Payment Processors Edit Valve's Content Policy
Also The Fire Department Is On Surveillance Detail

The Accounts Department Has Decided Which JPEGs You May Look At

Valve, the company behind the digital storefront Steam, confirmed it was forced to delist a number of adult-themed games after facing pressure from its credit card processors. The core issue is that financial giants, which are the gatekeepers to all digital commerce, can dictate the content standards of any platform by threatening to cut off payment methods entirely. Valve stated that the content purge was necessary to avoid a "loss of payment methods" that would have prevented customers from purchasing any other game on Steam.

This is a classic corporate supply chain problem. The payment networks, acting like a profoundly conservative internal compliance team, determined that certain content violated their "rules and standards". It turns out your credit card company has an opinion on niche gaming content, which is perfectly normal, healthy capitalism. The consensus in the developer community is that Visa and Mastercard are essentially operating a shadow content filtering system that Steam must adhere to, a situation which makes the platform manager, Gabe Newell, look less like a tech visionary and more like a franchise owner whose landlord controls the thermostat.

Meta Declines Mandatory-Optional Compliance Pledge

Meta has announced it will not sign the European Union's voluntary General-Purpose AI Code of Practice, citing a reluctance to comply with a non-binding agreement that still manages to be excessively bureaucratic. Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan confirmed the decision, stating that the code introduces "legal uncertainties" and features measures that stretch "far beyond the scope" of the already mandatory EU AI Act.

The company is essentially refusing to sign up for the optional homework, even though the final exam is still happening regardless. Meta, which relies heavily on its open-source Llama models, is strategically drawing a line against what it calls "regulatory creep". This stance positions the tech giant as a reluctant innovator who is trying to comply with the letter of the law but cannot be bothered with the spirit of the meeting.

The Inter-Departmental Surveillance Exchange Program

The New York Police Department circumvented its own restrictions on facial recognition technology by simply asking another agency to run the search for them. Specifically, NYPD detectives enlisted a fire marshal from the New York City Fire Department to use the FDNY's access to the Clearview AI system. This bureaucratic loophole allowed the NYPD to identify student protester Zuhdi Ahmed using facial recognition, a technology the department is barred from using for this kind of investigation.

The collaboration between the NYPD and FDNY is a perfect example of how an internal policy ban on a technology merely creates a "Shadow IT" department staffed by a fire marshal. The case against the protester was eventually dismissed by a judge who cited government overreach. This whole scenario proves that the only thing stronger than an internal ban on surveillance technology is the willingness of two city agencies to help each other skip the internal memo.

Briefs

• Financial Statistics: AI capital expenditure is now so absurdly high that it is starting to distort official economic statistics. It turns out buying one million GPUs counts as real growth, which explains why the economy feels so confusing right now.
• Software Licensing: Broadcom, having recently acquired VMware, has decided to discontinue the free Bitnami Helm charts. This is the corporate equivalent of buying the office vending machine and raising the prices by 500 percent while simultaneously removing all the good snacks.
• Productivity Feud: LibreOffice is calling out Microsoft for what it alleges is a lock-in strategy using complex and proprietary file formats, a fight that makes the decades-long open source versus closed source battle feel delightfully retro and nostalgic.