In response to Mastercard suddenly cutting support for Japanese video hosting site Niconico, more Japanese netizens are waking up to the idea that their culture is being negatively affected thanks to the whims of foreign credit card companies, with a rally to switch to JCB instead.
On November 8th, Niconico suddenly announced that they were cutting Mastercard payment support for Premium Membership (or more likely, the other way around). While not fully confirmed, one working theory for the reason behind this sudden change is the handling of a certain video takedown on the video website, which was requested by Mastercard.
The title of the video (uploaded in 2014) was titled ‘I found a dirty kitten, so I tried to abuse it (1st one)’, although it was just clickbait for the video of the person taking care of the abandoned kitten. Mastercard took the title literally and issued a takedown claim to Niconico under the claim of animal abuse, who then asked the video creator to private the video.
Possibly being the straw that broke the camel’s back due to Mastercard holding all the power in the current arrangement, this may have led to Niconico discontinuing the use of Mastercard.
In response to this, in a Tweet that gained nearly 20k likes in a few days, a Japanese netizen rallied around switching to the local credit card brand JCB, especially since Japan is one of the only three countries to have their own credit card brands, the other two being USA and China. While JCB support outside Japan is lacking, they discussed how the brand was perfectly fine for all purchases nationally while being a method to reduce foreign influence and the outward flow of money from Japan.
For some, the latest incident brought to mind Mastercard dropping support for services like DMM and adult video site FC2, while JCB was quick to add support for Skeb in March this year.
According to an industry insider consulted by Business Journal, JCB currently ranks second place in Japan with a 30% market share, behind Visa at a 50% market share.
We all need to discontinue support for Mastercard.
This is what happens when you rely on foreign financial services. I fully support Japan becoming more isolationist.
I wish japanese credit cards were available to us. That would seriously harm the wave of censorship
Japanese law and culture typically promote and enshrine censorship. You think s♥♥t’s bad now? Try having a mosaic over something as weak as a middle-finger as part of your daily life.
Still better than total ban on l♥♥i. Even a fully clothed l♥♥i. Just the appearance of a small petite woman is offensive to westerners.
So yeah, it’s still a net W for Japanese.
That is a whole different issue though. It’s not japanese media and companies deciding what we are allowed to see or create, it’s the Japanese government forcing them into nonsensical censorship.
Good riddance never let them give an inch to censor things and take control in your hands I am happy that my country launched it’s own credit card and both visa and master card were crying how our card shrinking their market monopoly and scumbags now trying to bribe banks so we only get master card or visa not gonna happen
It took them a long time to realize how much American credit card companies hate Japan.
Mastercard Foundation has also gone WOKE. so don;t use them anymore.