The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that while you might think credit-card companies are neutral vehicles for moving money, today the Visa and Mastercard duopoly wields more power over what we can read, watch and buy than many democratic governments. Guest columnist Vass Bednar writes that by quietly expanding their role from transaction processors to global regulators, they now wield state-like power. Visa and Mastercard famously cut ties with Pornhub in 2020 after allegations that the website featured unlawful content. More recently, under pressure from Collective Shout, an Australian anti-porn advocacy group, both companies reportedly pushed on-line video game storefronts such as Steam and Itch.io to restrict titles with sexual themes. For video game developers, being cut off from the credit-card networks is a de facto ban -- without Visa or Mastercard, there is no mainstream distribution. While Ottawa struggles to legislate on-line harms through public policy, these companies are enforcing opaque rules at their own discretion because of external pressures. A mechanism meant to facilitate payments has become a tool of cultural censorship in the absence of clear regulation from the government.