Kickstarter, the crowdfunding platform used to fund the likes of Larian Studios’ Pillars of Eternity and Warhorse Studios’ Kingdom Come: Deliverance, has recently updated its “Mature Content” guidelines to prohibit content that is deemed “violent,” “derogatory,” and sexually “photo-realistic,” and, based on emails sent to creators on the platform, the payment processor Stripe may be to blame for the sudden shift away from NSFW content.
At some point over the past few days, seemingly around May 11, based on Internet Archive snapshots, Kickstarter’s “Rules” page was updated to specifically prohibit several forms of NSFW content. While the previous version of the page simply prohibited “Pornographic content,” it now contains some oddly specific restrictions, including, but not limited to, “implied sex acts,” “MILF/DILF” content, “implied nudity,” and anything featuring “female nipples/areolas, genitalia,” and “anuses.” Good heavens, they’ve even banned “buttocks.”
Why? According to a report by The Daily Cartoonist, Kickstarter may be under pressure from its payment processor, Stripe, which Palantir Chairman Peter Thiel and X proprietor Elon Musk partially own. Kickstarter and Stripe did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to artist and writer Mike Wolfer, Kickstarter began emailing creators as early as March 2026 to inform them that “Stripe will conduct its own review” of any projects featuring “adult/NSFW content,” and may choose to shut down any crowdsourced projects while they’re “live, or even after” they’ve been successfully funded. As The Daily Cartoonist notes, the choice to limit NSFW content on Kickstarter feels especially sudden, considering the platform launched its “Kickstarter After Dark” newsletter in September 2025, which aims to showcase “the best adult-oriented projects across” featured on the website.
If Kickstarter’s newly implemented rules have indeed been forced upon them by Stripe, it wouldn’t be the first time that a payment processor has had a hand in limiting NSFW content. Both Steam and Itch.io had to purge countless NSFW games from their platforms in 2025 following pressure from banking partners and payment processors like Visa and Mastercard. The Australian anti-porn group Collective Shout claimed credit for the censorship, but the move increasingly seems to be part of a larger shift by companies that move money around the internet to crack down on what can actually be bought, sold, and shared on it.