Championing Free Speech In The Digital Age

Rainey Reitman is a veteran digital rights activist, and a prominent voice in the fight against online censorship. As the author of the upcoming book "Transaction Denied: Big Finance's Power to Punish Speech," Reitman has dedicated her career to exposing the intersection of finance and free speech. With a deep understanding of the complex relationships between technology, finance, and civil liberties, Reitman has become a leading expert in her field.

Her work focuses on the ways in which financial institutions and payment providers can exert control over online content, often with profound consequences for free expression. Through her writing, advocacy, and public speaking, "Reitman continues to shed light on these critical issues.".. inspiring others to join the conversation and push back against the forces of censorship.

Source: Found here

The game No Mercy urged players to "never take 'no' for an answer" and caused an international outcry, with just under 70,000 people signing an online petition to ban it. It was swiftly blocked from sale in Australia, the UK and Canada; banned by Itch; and removed from Steam by its creators.

Yet the backlash to that one extreme game caused thousands of others with general themes of sex, gender and LGTBQ experiences to also be removed — but not by any governmental action. The censorship came from the marketplace itself, due to pressure from payment providers such as Mastercard, Visa, PayPal and Stripe — some of which allegedly threatened to stop processing transactions altogether if swift action wasn't taken.