Tag Archives: Patreon

Jordan B. Peterson’s free speech fight: Author plans to ditch Patreon as censorship battle rages, by Douglas Ernst

Crowdfunding platform Patreon recently banned Sargon of Akkad, and Jordan Peterson is going to try to set up an alternative platform. From Douglas Ernst at washingtontimes.com:

“12 Rules for Life” author Jordan B. Peterson is fed up with the questionable practices of tech giants when it comes to honoring the idea of free speech.

The recent decision by crowdfunding platform Patreon to remove popular YouTuber Carl Benjamin, aka Sargon of Akkad, may have been a free-speech tipping point for the clinical psychologist. Mr. Peterson and fellow pundit Dave Rubin of YouTube “The Rubin Report” announced plans to build a “better alternative” for intellectuals and content creators.

“We’ve been engaged in lengthy series of email exchanges with all of the people in our network, and no one is happy at all with what’s been happening,” Mr. Peterson said a joint video released Sunday. “We’ve been determining what our options are. We looked at Subscribe Star, but it looks like PayPal decided to cut funding out from them.”

At issue is Patreon’s decision to kill the account of Mr. Benjamin in early December after its staff was made aware of a guest appearance on a small YouTube channel 10 months ago.

The social commentator took an epithet favored by his racist critics, used their definition for the sake of argument, and said they were acting like white versions of the word.

Continue reading→

 

Stripe. PayPal, Patreon: The Right Is Being Banned from Online Fundraising, by Allum Bokhari

Politically liberal online payment processers are engaging in the same sort of covert tactics against conservative voices as politically liberal social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. From Allum Bokhari at breitbart.com:

The creeping exclusion of the right from online platforms like Twitter and Facebook is well-known, drawing the attention of Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale and the RNC. But a greater challenge is on the horizon: the exclusion of the right from financial services.

Conservatives have long been the target of shadowbans, biased algorithms, and account bans on social media. Not content with silencing their voices online, the left now wants to stop the right from using the web to fundraise. Thanks to the increasing willingness of online fundraising platforms and payment processors to ban clients for political reasons, they are getting their way.

One of the most popular fundraising platforms is Patreon, a site that allows users to collect monthly recurring donations from their supporters. With the decline of ad revenue on platforms like YouTube, Patreon has emerged as an important and effective tool for online content creators to earn a living. In some cases, it can take little more than a hundred fans contributing set amounts per month for a creator to support themselves full-time.

In theory, this creates an environment similar to that of talk radio in the 1980s: a decentralized ecosystem where new creators can quickly establish an independent support base, without relying on gatekeepers in the establishment media. With only their fans to answer to, as opposed to controversy-shy advertisers, it should be the perfect formula for free expression.

There’s just one problem — Patreon itself. Like the rest of Silicon Valley, Patreon has decided it wants to be more than just a neutral platform, and now routinely cuts off income from content creators for political reasons. Chief among them is “hate speech”, which Patreon says it does not tolerate on its platform. It has used “hate speech” as a justification to ban a number of figures on the far-right, including white nationalist Jason Kessler. But although the alt-right is shunned by most, including Breitbart News, the idea that politics should dictate whether someone is allowed to access financial services is even more controversial.

To continue reading: Stripe. PayPal, Patreon: The Right Is Being Banned from Online Fundraising