Patreon Insults Its Former Creators in NYT Piece

Post Reply New Topic

This is bizarre and it's been getting stranger over the past few weeks. The SubscribeStar thing is probably the worst part of it, ie. a platform linked to Paypal gets popped once creators leaving Patreon decide to go there. Tim's reading through a recent NYT article that just got released including an interview with the Patreon Trust and Safety team and it seems like they're now trying to point fingers at any content creators who'd leave in the wake of what's happening.

The whole reason why people are leaving, plenty if not most either aren't interested in defending Carl Benjamin or have no interest in him (Sam Harris most notably on that list and perhaps some of the other top earners threatening to leave), it's the circumstances and their sense that the stated rules are indeed nebulous enough to mean 'we can close your page without explanation for any reason we choose' and being that in a lot of cases it's their livelihood it's just not a safe or stable environment. Most concerned are both left and right wing independent journalists and commentators who get the sense that they're stepping through cultural tripwire every day and need the leeway to cover controversial issues without concern over whether their account could be revoked on the fly.

Article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/24/tech ... -bans.html

The Patreon "Trust and Safety" team remind me a lot of the mods and admins I had to deal with.

I hope Peterson launches his company and crushes Patreon. As long as he takes the hands off approach that is desired. If I'm a creator I want the freedom and stability to cultivate and grow and cater to my audience as I see fit.

Companies need to go back to serving their customers, and only caring about making money. If laws aren't being broken, they have no business inserting themselves into your business. When Patreon ban a creator, it's a slap in the face to every supporter of that creator. Deeply insulting.

Its worrying that they can get away with behaviour like this. I often hear people use the private company argument, but these companies are publicly traded. The employees are people their political beliefs ahead of shareholder profits.

As far as the Rubin/Peterson platform goes - I think they'd be wisest to plug this into some kind of cryptocurrency or not-for-profit foundation base, something that's a lot harder for people to just shake down with politics and bad press.