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Top Patreon creators launching an alternate crowdfunding platform

88 points by raarts 8y ago

jatsign 8y ago
There have been various "alt-right" versions of companies, like twitter, and they don't seem to take off. Patreon took a long time to grow before enough people heard of it, and understood what it was. Alt-right versions don't have the reach, since by definition, they're niche-focused. They usually also run into problems with payment processors.
- joeyrideout 8y ago
  Hopefully this healthier mix of Liberal, Centrist, and Conservative individuals do better then :)
  - Kye 8y ago
    We seem to have incompatible definitions of those terms. But I guess that's why this is a good thing. People bring different lived experiences and perspectives to their creative work. Some of those differences are too far to bridge while trying to make a living. They should be able to go off and build their own home that suits their needs when others won't change their home to serve one specific community's conflicting preferences.
    - raarts 8y ago
      If you look at the intellectualdark.website, GP description was pretty much on the spot IMHO. The people there, like Jordan Peterson, Sarah Vaughan, Sam Harris, Dave Rubin, Lindsay Shepherd and Claire Lehmann are definitely not alt-right, not only by their own accord, but also by my personal reading and viewing of their work. Have been following that site, and so far spotted no white supremacists, racists, bigots etc. EDIT: First sentence was contradictory.
      - Kye 8y ago
        >> "Actually [...] I believe." My disagreement is not out of ignorance of who these people are and what they think. I promise we're not going to agree here. Nothing can come of pursuing a subthread trying to agree on definitions for political alignments.
        raarts 8y ago
        Fixed. Thanks.
- mc32 8y ago
  I think it would be healthy for these companies to be more like CloudFlare and get out of the business of determining how "good" a customer is when deciding to provide services. Aside from credit score and legitimacy of proceeds banks can't deny services based on how "good" a company or person is in real life. Once you begin qualifying your users based on their social score, I think we're going down a perilous road when it comes to basic services like these. To add to this, I think YouTube is okay with having a ToS and denying service to people who violate their ToS (now uniformity of application of the ToS is a different subject). Using the service is not a platform and can't in and of itself create harm. Cash is not harmful. Using cash to buy a gun and using the gun in violence is harmful. Just because cash is a transaction enabler does not mean we deny access to cash to criminals.
  - thecatspaw 8y ago
    Patreon is not a basic service. Patreon is a private company, with no monopoly to speak of.
    - mc32 8y ago
      Sure, we can go down that path. And Amazon could deny its marketplace to felons, but it's not the right thing to do as it's not their place to make that judgement.
      - thecatspaw 8y ago
        There is a reason why I included the monopoly part. Amazon pretty much has the monopoly on next-day deliveries on goods in the US. People also dont usually buy goods off of felons because they are felond. They pay for it because they want the good. These creators got paid for their opinions and views. Amazon is also well in their right to deny goods they deem harmful from beeing sold on their website
        mc32 8y ago
        Implicit in your answer is that Amazon would be wrong to deny its services to known felons. I agree with that. It's also not a monopoly nor "pretty much a monopoly". There is WalMart/Jet, Target, and many other outfits out there, online as well as physical alternatives. Yet, I think it would be wrong to deny their services to people based on how "good" they thought they were.
- zozbot123 8y ago
  To the extent that "alt-right" has any meaning at all, it seems quite wrong and perhaps disingenuous to suggest that a crowdfunding site focusing on the "Intellectual Dark Web" (IDW) would be "alt-right" in any sense. Edit: Of course when I say something might "seem" disingenuous, I'm not blaming parent in any way for it! But this is a sort of claim that is sometimes made in an arguably insincere manner, as part of some partisan controversy or another, and it's important to be able to point this out.
- cm2187 8y ago
  The term "alt-right" is used so frequently by the left that it has lost any meaning. But if it is meant to refer to far-right extremist movements, I don't think that should apply to either Peterson, Harris or Rubin.
  - MikePemulis 8y ago
    I think the broader point is that the 'free speech' sites that these guys make end up being overrun by the alt-right and the out-and-out fash. But, on the question of Peterson being alt-right, his arguments for a willful re-adoption of mythical 'archetypes' as a basis for modern society is... well, excatly what happens with all far right ideologies, where a conception of social order is influenced by lobsters. (Cherry-picking bits of animal behaviour to explain human society is a mug's game, but if we were going to go down this route, why not create some vision of frozen gay ice cream orgies and child rearing, based on penguins?) But the real smelly herring in Peterson's schtick is his conflation of Marxism, post-moderism, and general identity politics. It's an invented bogeyman, detached from any real analysis of the cornerstones of modern poltiics. Again, it's absolutely a key strain of any rightish movement. A lot of this could be explained as him being more of a grifter than anything, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    - raarts 8y ago
      This makes me wonder. Would it be useful if HN added the age of an account which each comment?
      - MikePemulis 8y ago
        Kewl comment bro
        sctb 8y ago
        Could you please read the guidelines and start following them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - 8y ago
- m-p-3 8y ago
  Which brings another questions: are payment processors responsible for their inability to take off (maybe because of bias?), or is it the actual market that sees no interest in them?
- opencl 8y ago
  From the headline I was expecting a porn thing rather than a right wing thing. But both groups have similar problems with reach and payment processing.
- Reedx 8y ago
  This is not that. The Intellectual Dark Web is starkly opposed to the alt-right (and any that consider group identity as paramount). The defining feature of the IDW is about open, honest discussion and debate of ideas. That is incompatible with identity politics. Although whatever they do is often miscast as alt-right in part because the IDW defends free speech even when they don't agree with the content. Indeed Sam Harris deleted his Patreon account to protest the censoring of those he does not agree with. It's a principled stance and an important one. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
abnry 8y ago
This is pretty interesting. People like Peterson get massive amounts of money through their Patreon. I would find it very hard to give that up. On the other hand, it seems necessary to do so to stay consistent with his values.
- mpweiher 8y ago
  He is a university professor with tenure, has sold how many millions of copies of 12 Rules for Life and has had the Patreon income for some time. I think it's safe to say that he is financially independent, and he doesn't strike me as the "can't ever get enough" kind of greedy.
thecatspaw 8y ago
So what stops this new site from getting extremist? Looking at a similar story of voat here, which quickly became very rightwing and unwelcome to tame ideologies
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  Who says this site intends to NOT get extremist? Providing a platform for freedom of speech as an ultimate goal will end up with extremism, which chases the less extremist people away - which is why e.g. Reddit started to crack down on the fringes a while ago, to increase their mass appeal and not piss off potential advertisers. If you run a platform where your members pay you a percentage though, you're not beholden to advertisers. You'd be beholden to law enforcement though.
  - TorKlingberg 8y ago
    Hopefully you are also beholden to your own moral compass. There's a risk this new site turns into "Let's collect money to harass people we don't like."
  - thecatspaw 8y ago
    Sure, maybe they intend that. But that puts them pretty much immediatly in the dark web. Tor server because no hoster wants a crowdfunding page for extremists. Bitcoin because no way credit card companies are gonna partner with you Thats gonna cause a non-negligible drop of users and revenue
  - cm2187 8y ago
    Well, they will likely run into problems with payment processors. My guess is that the only way they can achieve this is by still filtering for unwanted content (porn, extremists) but trying to not do what Patreon did, which is to call extremist people who really aren't just because they don't share their political opinion.
    - wetpaws 8y ago
      Looks like they need their own payment processing as well :)
tekproxy 8y ago
All crowd funding can be disintermediated by smart contacts. Imho, the writing is on the wall.
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  Until the FBI or whoever comes in to shut it down once it attracts enough illegal activity.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    If it can be shut down, it was a fail from the start. Edit: Just in case it's not obvious, I consider vulnerability to takedown as a backdoor.
    - tjoff 8y ago
      If it can't be shut down it is doomed to fail.
      - sparkie 8y ago
        What makes you so sure? BitTorrent couldn't be shut down, and that certainly didn't fail. Various torrent websites have been shut down and the protocol sill runs as good as ever. What is needed isn't just a company delivering a patreon alternative, but people to build a protocol for crowdfunding, much like Bittorrent. This can be done now thanks to Bitcoin. If exchanges and webhosters get shut down, it will cause a slight disturbance in the protocol, but it won't bring the protocol down. These protocols can offer better privacy than their centralized counterparts, and censorship becomes a non-issue. Given the clear advantages, I suspect that it is the centralized, politically charged providers who are doomed to fail, eventually.
        tjoff 8y ago
        Who cares about the protocol? BitTorrent most certainly has taken a huge hit just by being associated with piracy, but regardless that's not very interesting. There are tons of ISPs etc. that filter BitTorrent, but that's mostly because it puts a strain on the network. Aside from that few has been attacking the protocol itself. If emailing was considered illegal and google, microsoft et al would shut down their servers, you would still be able to email people. Though far from anyone, and you might need to remember that odd IP because the DNS queries for popular people might be blocked depending on where you live. If that was the case, would email be dead? Yes. Would email as a protocol be dead? No. But it would be dead in the eyes of the public. And that kind of defeats the "censorship becomes a non issue". By that logic censorship in china is also a non-issue. Because you can circumvent the great firewall with VPNs. Never mind that you have to be tech savvy and take personal risks, but despite that it isn't a non-issue to the public. And that's enough.
digianarchist 8y ago
Wonder how they will get Visa/Mastercard to support their new white supremacist crowd funding site. Edit: Not sure how this violates the rules. If people like Faith Goldy are using the site then my statement is valid.
- kongDaKid 8y ago
  Yep everyone who does not agree with the extreme left’s radical views is a nazi and a white supremacist. /s. Yawn. You are not fooling anyone with this tired trope.
Sujan 8y ago
HN submission title is missing the "of the 'Intellectual Dark Web,'" bit.
- hbosch 8y ago
  That part is an absolute joke.
  - cm2187 8y ago
    What is a joke?
    - hbosch 8y ago
      Oh my god. As of right now, I was blissfully unaware that this group of towering idiots actually called themselves the 'Intellectual Dark Web'. I thought it was an ironic editorial twist.
      - Ninjaneered 8y ago
        That's a stiff statement that could use support beyond a passing comment on Hacker News. Let's take a few members of the "Intellectual Dark Web"[0] like Bret Weinstein, Sam Harris, and Michael Shermer; I'm truly curious how you classify them as "towering idiots". [0] https://intellectualdarkweb.site/vanguards-of-the-intellectual-dark-web/ https://intellectualdarkweb.site/vanguards-of-the-intellectu...
      - Raphmedia 8y ago
        As far as I can gather, it's a media coined theme. Similar to the "alternative influencer network" that they coined for YouTubers. The whole thing is grasping at straws really. The medias seems to think that everyone who is in the edgy/troll/internet/meme culture are working together for some nefarious purpose. Their latest smearing campaign is against free thinkers, podcasters and debaters... or using their words, the "Intellectual Dark Web". The only relation those people (both thinkers and influencers) have is that they use the Internet to 𝐚) spread their content and 𝐛) reference each other and sometimes collaborate together. Both of those actions are done by every content creators online no matter their intentions. Collaborations and networking is the basis of the internet.
Rumperuu 8y ago
Ignoring whatever views you may have about him and those he associates with, at the end of one of Carl Benjamin/Sargon of Akkad's recent videos on his Patreon removal [0] he starts talking about 'alt-tech' (Gab, Voat, whatever this alt-Patreon ends up being) and tells his viewers to join with him 'to essentially build a new Internet that _they_ can't attack'. This has me wondering about the long-feared Balkanisation of the Internet. It's always been assumed that nation state conflicts would bring this about [1,2], but this incident has me wondering if we might not see it come about based on ideology instead. With all the fuss made about how people on social platforms live in filter bubbles, at least those bubbles coexisted on the same platforms and there might be at least some chance of piercing them. What's going to happen if we create two (or more) entirely separate service ecosystems for people to sort themselves into on political bases? On the flipside, maybe this is a _feature_ of the market rather than a bug and everything'll work out fine [3]? It might even lead to a drive to develop resilient, distributed services that don't run the risk of a single provider being strongarmed or being able to revoke service on ideological grounds that everyone can benefit from. I'll be interested to see how this all develops. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXRx98gpuRY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXRx98gpuRY [1] http://newdigitalage.com/ http://newdigitalage.com/ [2] https://www.rt.com/russia/446502-russia-legislators-internet-security/ https://www.rt.com/russia/446502-russia-legislators-internet... [3] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-and-atomic-communitarianism/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-and-atomic-...
- Kye 8y ago
  Humans interpreted censorship as damage and routed around it long before they encoded that into the internet. Dissent seems like an inherent, impossible to isolate part of the human condition. They can create bubbles all they like, but some people will break out and keep the ladder down.
- consp 8y ago
  > ... "to essentially build a new Internet that _they_ can't attack". This refutes any dialogue and is used mainly by people profiting off ideology (on all sides of arguments, not just right wing). Make sure 'you' belong to a special group and point to everyone which is not part of that group as bad and make sure the active followers feel the same way by making any claims needed (lies included). I'm wondering when he starts selling vitamin supplements on the "new" internet. Just to give an example.
kongDaKid 8y ago
Good. Really hoping it takes off and people abandon Patreon in droves. Also hoping there is a decent , decentralized twitter alternative that gains widespread mass adoption. Time to abandon these ideologically run extreme leftist corporations.
- psychometry 8y ago
  You're very confused about the spectrum of possible political positions that opposing misogyny and racism makes someone a "leftist".
  - hiddenSU 8y ago
    These platforms enforce their own definition of "racism". Openly calling for white-genocide is okay. "Misogyny" is punished, while hatred towards masculinity is supported. The "left" doesn't actually oppose these ideas as long as they're the ones espousing it. They engage, likely at a larger scale, in identity politics and exclusionary behavior. If you want evidence, look at how nearly all conservative or right-leaning comments on a platform like HN are from newly created (dummy?) accounts.
    - unknownkadath 8y ago
      "Openly calling for white-genocide..." [Citation needed]
      - hiddenSU 8y ago
        https://twitter.com/julius_s_malema/status/974962070574813184 https://twitter.com/julius_s_malema/status/97496207057481318... https://twitter.com/JohnWil60163557/status/1074582217316335617 https://twitter.com/JohnWil60163557/status/10745822173163356... https://twitter.com/TBPlaneswalker/status/1074840841498193921 https://twitter.com/TBPlaneswalker/status/107484084149819392... https://twitter.com/blodmai/status/1074709574307995648 https://twitter.com/blodmai/status/1074709574307995648 Racism towards whites: https://twitter.com/thatniggakay/status/1074910792145747968 https://twitter.com/thatniggakay/status/1074910792145747968 https://twitter.com/ajhiaa/status/1075044999530729472 https://twitter.com/ajhiaa/status/1075044999530729472 https://twitter.com/julius_s_malema/status/176659300238897153?s=21 https://twitter.com/julius_s_malema/status/17665930023889715... took me a few minutes to find these...
hossbeast 8y ago
Finally, a reason to build something on a block chain.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
hiddenSU 8y ago
One of my favorite Jordan Peterson quotes: > Now, here’s the issue. We know that things can go too far on the right, and we know that things can go too far on the left. But we don’t know what the markers are for going too far on the left. I would say that it’s ethically incumbent on those who are liberal or left-leaning to identity the markers of pathological extremism on the left and to distinguish themselves from the people who hold those pathological viewpoints — and I don’t see that that’s being done. I think when sites like Patreon, Twitter, etc. start banning other view points in the name of "social justice" or "political correctness"... all the while being complete hypocrites to their own values... is when the left goes too far.
- 49531 8y ago
  I wouldn't call that the left, but just that capitalist have found that they can profit more by sharing the values most people in their market share. Most Americans, for instance, are much more progressive on social issues. It's just faux-activism, which doesn't address the actual system of oppression marginalized groups face. Extreme leftism is when workers control the means of production and run companies democratically.
- sparrc 8y ago
  really? extreme leftism is pretty clear, it's communism. Saying that communism isn't recognized by most people on the left as "going too far" is pretty hard to believe.
  - sparkie 8y ago
    The irony is that you see many people non-ironically touting a hammer and sickle on their profiles on these sites. To me that symbol is as dreadful as the swastika. Both communism and fascism are two sides to the same coin. Horseshoe theory is a real. If the platforms were concerned about extremism, they would be clamping down on the communists too, who have a human rights record as bad, if not worse than the fascists.
    - 49531 8y ago
tptacek 8y ago
Why exactly won't the outcome of this be that their alternate platform is dominated by characters that ruin the brand and drive away normal customers? Thats's what happens every time this is tried elsewhere.
- beginningguava 8y ago
  for a normal social media site that's an issue, for something like this where you only join the site to mainly support people you already know about it doesn't really matter. Although I'd rather see some sort of open source project or crypto based platform instead of another centralized service that can be taken down by their payment processor. Brave browser and BAT could be the answer >normal customers also like the add that "normal" can change pretty quickly, ask women in post-revolution Iran. Within living memory alt-right would be considered normal by a large chunk of the population and people would be chasing people of color and LGBT off these platforms. The tools used to censor opponents today could be used against you tomorrow
  - tptacek 8y ago
    No, it's not that simple. The platform will start out hosting I.D.W. celebrities. But if it's an open platform and it aims to avoid "censorship", then the system converges on something like Gab, a place where those I.D.W. celebrities will not long feel comfortable calling home.
    - gadders 8y ago
      People seem to be comfortable sharing twitter with anti-semites like Louis Farrakhan. It doesn't mean everyone on twitter shares Farrakhan's views.
      - tptacek 8y ago
        I don't know what you're trying to say here. I think Twitter should probably ban Farrakhan. Lots of people have in fact left Twitter because they believe it's too lax about toxic users. But nobody really believes Twitter is an anti-censorship platform; the whole premise of anti-censorship platforms is that Twitter does censor people. But it's obvious to any user what the difference is between Twitter and a site like Gab. You have to dig to find white supremacists and holocaust denial on Twitter, through a mountain of celebrity gossip and banal conversations. Meanwhile, that stuff is showcased --- is the dominant conversation! --- on the alternative site. And it's obvious why that's bound to happen: the users that get the most value from supposed non-censoring platforms are exactly the ones that want to broadcast hateful and alienating messages. Unless you're comfortable talking about recipes or your new book or an upcoming lecture sandwiched between lectures about Jews controlling the media and sending all the black people back to Africa, you're not going to stick around on that platform. Peterson won't be able to do it; it'll destroy his brand. So again my question is: how is this supposed to work? Maybe it's not really a Patreon competitor but something more like the old Deck blog advertising network, where you'll have to be yea cool to join.
TheodolphusRose 8y ago
Peterson and Rubin are starting this because Patreon banned Yiannopoulos and Benjamin. Benjamin got banned for saying, among other things, “Maybe you're just acting like a n....r, mate? Have you considered that? Do you think white people act like this? White people are meant to be polite and respectful to one another, and you guys can't even act like white people, it's really amazing to me." Portraying Patreon’s action as being anti-conservative is pretty disingenuous unless “conservative” was suddenly redefined to mean “racist.”
chx 8y ago
You mean two neonazis (stop whitewashing them) are trying to launch something after a third was kicked. Good! More. Most of Patreon is very fine. Looking at my list, I am supporting musicians, erotic photographers, Unix bloggers, a hilarious vlogger, they will be not affected at all. Those who are affected deserve to be affected.
- adamnemecek 8y ago
  Why is Peterson a neonazi?
  - chx 8y ago
    > I will never use words I hate, like the trendy and artificially constructed words "zhe" and "zher." These words are at the vanguard of a post-modern, radical leftist ideology that I detest > Peterson has criticized the use of the term "white privilege", stating that "being called out on their white privilege, identified with a particular racial group and then made to suffer the consequences of the existence of that racial group and its hypothetical crimes, and that sort of thing has to come to a stop Emphasis mine, both. What do you call someone who is very strongly against the left while protecting white privilege? We have a non whitewashing word for that.
    - adamnemecek 8y ago
      I am very strongly against the left (as well as right) but that might be due to the fact that I’m from a post communist country. Fun fact, Czechs are the only ethnicity that was mentioned explicitly by both Marx and Hitler as enemies of their respective ideologies. I dislike both. What does that make me? The idea of white privileged is dangerous tho.
    - qwerty11111 8y ago
      TIL, I'm a "neonazi". I'm Asian.
      - hnbroseph 8y ago
EGreg 8y ago
The root of the problem is centralized platforms. The future consists of platforms which are: 1) End to end encrypted, with clients sharing keys as needed 2) Distributed hash tables route every activity to a few servers (per activity) which run consensus 3) Automatic rebalancing when some server is taken out Simple? Well, this is the future. Not blockchains, but this. MaidSAFE, Holochain, Intercoin and others are building it. You can even make realtime push via sockets in this model, though anything realtime compromises anonymity.
rchaud 8y ago
Yesterday there was some discussion about how Robinhood's SIPC fiasco could have been a marketing push because all publicity is good publicity. I disagreed because Robinhood is trying to be a "serious" business, and stunts like that would hurt their credibility. This on the other hand is exactly the kind of situation where bad publicity helps the characters in question. This Patreon competitor is pure vaporware; Peterson has zero interest in business and tech, and doesn't even try to describe the feature set. He knows that as far as his audience is concerned, he only has to make it look like he's playing the big man and going to battle against the "oppressive censorship of the far left" for the money to keep coming in, either via book sales or speaking engagements.
ghostly_s 8y ago
What the hell is with the editorializing in this submission headline? The original is "Top Patreon creators, of the 'Intellectual Dark Web,[...]'. The headline here creates the impression that Jordan Peterson et al are the most popular people on the platform. They're not[1]. 1. https://graphtreon.com/top-patreon-creators https://graphtreon.com/top-patreon-creators
- owaty 8y ago
  Peterson is #20 and Harris is #15 — how is that not the top?
  - ghostly_s 8y ago
    Number one is top on an ordered list. Hope this helps.
raarts 8y ago
OP here. More information here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWz1RDVoqw4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWz1RDVoqw4
charliebrownau 8y ago
Gday Platforms that censor speech:- * Facebook * Twitter * Google * Youtube * TUMBLR * Pateron * Stripe * Paypal * Twitch * Spotify * Apple * pin interest * LinkedIn * Mailchimp * Wordpress * azure * Mastercard * Godaddy * MEDIUM * Shopify * Cloudflare * pusher * WIKI * Reddit * teespring
charliebrownau 8y ago
Gday Platforms that DONT censor speech * Minds + mewe (FB alt) * Gabai (Twitter alt) * Bitchute (Youtube alt) * Tutanota + Protonmail(email alt) * Wire (skype alt) * Librepay (Donation alt)(Warning they use STRIPE+Paypal) * subscribestar (Donation alt)(Warning they use STRIPE+Paypal) * Startengine (Kickstarter alt) * peertube (DIY self host youtube stream style server) * stream.me (steaming alt) * Voat (Reddit alt) * Movim (Tumblr alt) * @GetTogether (meetup.com alt) Also look into:- * searX.me or Duckduckgo (search alt) * OpenStreetmap (Map alt) * imgtc or tineye - free image upload site * Linux - Win/MacOSX replacement * f-droid.org - Google Play Store ALT * Mumble - Discord ALT * spreadshirt - shirt alt Regards Charliebrownau
digianarchist 8y ago
Wonder how they will get Visa/Mastercard to support their new white supremacist crowd funding site.
- raarts 8y ago
  The people doing this are not white supremacists. Whoever claims this is either misinformed or slanderous.

88 points by raarts 8y ago

There have been various "alt-right" versions of companies, like twitter, and they don't seem to take off. Patreon took a long time to grow before enough people heard of it, and understood what it was. Alt-right versions don't have the reach, since by definition, they're niche-focused. They usually also run into problems with payment processors.

joeyrideout 8y ago
Hopefully this healthier mix of Liberal, Centrist, and Conservative individuals do better then :)
- Kye 8y ago
  We seem to have incompatible definitions of those terms. But I guess that's why this is a good thing. People bring different lived experiences and perspectives to their creative work. Some of those differences are too far to bridge while trying to make a living. They should be able to go off and build their own home that suits their needs when others won't change their home to serve one specific community's conflicting preferences.
  - raarts 8y ago
    If you look at the intellectualdark.website, GP description was pretty much on the spot IMHO. The people there, like Jordan Peterson, Sarah Vaughan, Sam Harris, Dave Rubin, Lindsay Shepherd and Claire Lehmann are definitely not alt-right, not only by their own accord, but also by my personal reading and viewing of their work. Have been following that site, and so far spotted no white supremacists, racists, bigots etc. EDIT: First sentence was contradictory.
    - Kye 8y ago
      >> "Actually [...] I believe." My disagreement is not out of ignorance of who these people are and what they think. I promise we're not going to agree here. Nothing can come of pursuing a subthread trying to agree on definitions for political alignments.
      - raarts 8y ago
        Fixed. Thanks.
mc32 8y ago
I think it would be healthy for these companies to be more like CloudFlare and get out of the business of determining how "good" a customer is when deciding to provide services. Aside from credit score and legitimacy of proceeds banks can't deny services based on how "good" a company or person is in real life. Once you begin qualifying your users based on their social score, I think we're going down a perilous road when it comes to basic services like these. To add to this, I think YouTube is okay with having a ToS and denying service to people who violate their ToS (now uniformity of application of the ToS is a different subject). Using the service is not a platform and can't in and of itself create harm. Cash is not harmful. Using cash to buy a gun and using the gun in violence is harmful. Just because cash is a transaction enabler does not mean we deny access to cash to criminals.
- thecatspaw 8y ago
  Patreon is not a basic service. Patreon is a private company, with no monopoly to speak of.
  - mc32 8y ago
    Sure, we can go down that path. And Amazon could deny its marketplace to felons, but it's not the right thing to do as it's not their place to make that judgement.
    - thecatspaw 8y ago
      There is a reason why I included the monopoly part. Amazon pretty much has the monopoly on next-day deliveries on goods in the US. People also dont usually buy goods off of felons because they are felond. They pay for it because they want the good. These creators got paid for their opinions and views. Amazon is also well in their right to deny goods they deem harmful from beeing sold on their website
      - mc32 8y ago
        Implicit in your answer is that Amazon would be wrong to deny its services to known felons. I agree with that. It's also not a monopoly nor "pretty much a monopoly". There is WalMart/Jet, Target, and many other outfits out there, online as well as physical alternatives. Yet, I think it would be wrong to deny their services to people based on how "good" they thought they were.
zozbot123 8y ago
To the extent that "alt-right" has any meaning at all, it seems quite wrong and perhaps disingenuous to suggest that a crowdfunding site focusing on the "Intellectual Dark Web" (IDW) would be "alt-right" in any sense. Edit: Of course when I say something might "seem" disingenuous, I'm not blaming parent in any way for it! But this is a sort of claim that is sometimes made in an arguably insincere manner, as part of some partisan controversy or another, and it's important to be able to point this out.
cm2187 8y ago
The term "alt-right" is used so frequently by the left that it has lost any meaning. But if it is meant to refer to far-right extremist movements, I don't think that should apply to either Peterson, Harris or Rubin.
- MikePemulis 8y ago
  I think the broader point is that the 'free speech' sites that these guys make end up being overrun by the alt-right and the out-and-out fash. But, on the question of Peterson being alt-right, his arguments for a willful re-adoption of mythical 'archetypes' as a basis for modern society is... well, excatly what happens with all far right ideologies, where a conception of social order is influenced by lobsters. (Cherry-picking bits of animal behaviour to explain human society is a mug's game, but if we were going to go down this route, why not create some vision of frozen gay ice cream orgies and child rearing, based on penguins?) But the real smelly herring in Peterson's schtick is his conflation of Marxism, post-moderism, and general identity politics. It's an invented bogeyman, detached from any real analysis of the cornerstones of modern poltiics. Again, it's absolutely a key strain of any rightish movement. A lot of this could be explained as him being more of a grifter than anything, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - raarts 8y ago
    This makes me wonder. Would it be useful if HN added the age of an account which each comment?
    - MikePemulis 8y ago
      Kewl comment bro
      - sctb 8y ago
        Could you please read the guidelines and start following them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - 8y ago
m-p-3 8y ago
Which brings another questions: are payment processors responsible for their inability to take off (maybe because of bias?), or is it the actual market that sees no interest in them?
opencl 8y ago
From the headline I was expecting a porn thing rather than a right wing thing. But both groups have similar problems with reach and payment processing.
Reedx 8y ago
This is not that. The Intellectual Dark Web is starkly opposed to the alt-right (and any that consider group identity as paramount). The defining feature of the IDW is about open, honest discussion and debate of ideas. That is incompatible with identity politics. Although whatever they do is often miscast as alt-right in part because the IDW defends free speech even when they don't agree with the content. Indeed Sam Harris deleted his Patreon account to protest the censoring of those he does not agree with. It's a principled stance and an important one. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

abnry 8y ago

This is pretty interesting. People like Peterson get massive amounts of money through their Patreon. I would find it very hard to give that up. On the other hand, it seems necessary to do so to stay consistent with his values.

mpweiher 8y ago
He is a university professor with tenure, has sold how many millions of copies of 12 Rules for Life and has had the Patreon income for some time. I think it's safe to say that he is financially independent, and he doesn't strike me as the "can't ever get enough" kind of greedy.

thecatspaw 8y ago

So what stops this new site from getting extremist? Looking at a similar story of voat here, which quickly became very rightwing and unwelcome to tame ideologies

Cthulhu_ 8y ago
Who says this site intends to NOT get extremist? Providing a platform for freedom of speech as an ultimate goal will end up with extremism, which chases the less extremist people away - which is why e.g. Reddit started to crack down on the fringes a while ago, to increase their mass appeal and not piss off potential advertisers. If you run a platform where your members pay you a percentage though, you're not beholden to advertisers. You'd be beholden to law enforcement though.
- TorKlingberg 8y ago
  Hopefully you are also beholden to your own moral compass. There's a risk this new site turns into "Let's collect money to harass people we don't like."
- thecatspaw 8y ago
  Sure, maybe they intend that. But that puts them pretty much immediatly in the dark web. Tor server because no hoster wants a crowdfunding page for extremists. Bitcoin because no way credit card companies are gonna partner with you Thats gonna cause a non-negligible drop of users and revenue
- cm2187 8y ago
  Well, they will likely run into problems with payment processors. My guess is that the only way they can achieve this is by still filtering for unwanted content (porn, extremists) but trying to not do what Patreon did, which is to call extremist people who really aren't just because they don't share their political opinion.
  - wetpaws 8y ago
    Looks like they need their own payment processing as well :)

tekproxy 8y ago

All crowd funding can be disintermediated by smart contacts. Imho, the writing is on the wall.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago
Until the FBI or whoever comes in to shut it down once it attracts enough illegal activity.
- mirimir 8y ago
  If it can be shut down, it was a fail from the start. Edit: Just in case it's not obvious, I consider vulnerability to takedown as a backdoor.
  - tjoff 8y ago
    If it can't be shut down it is doomed to fail.
    - sparkie 8y ago
      What makes you so sure? BitTorrent couldn't be shut down, and that certainly didn't fail. Various torrent websites have been shut down and the protocol sill runs as good as ever. What is needed isn't just a company delivering a patreon alternative, but people to build a protocol for crowdfunding, much like Bittorrent. This can be done now thanks to Bitcoin. If exchanges and webhosters get shut down, it will cause a slight disturbance in the protocol, but it won't bring the protocol down. These protocols can offer better privacy than their centralized counterparts, and censorship becomes a non-issue. Given the clear advantages, I suspect that it is the centralized, politically charged providers who are doomed to fail, eventually.
      - tjoff 8y ago
        Who cares about the protocol? BitTorrent most certainly has taken a huge hit just by being associated with piracy, but regardless that's not very interesting. There are tons of ISPs etc. that filter BitTorrent, but that's mostly because it puts a strain on the network. Aside from that few has been attacking the protocol itself. If emailing was considered illegal and google, microsoft et al would shut down their servers, you would still be able to email people. Though far from anyone, and you might need to remember that odd IP because the DNS queries for popular people might be blocked depending on where you live. If that was the case, would email be dead? Yes. Would email as a protocol be dead? No. But it would be dead in the eyes of the public. And that kind of defeats the "censorship becomes a non issue". By that logic censorship in china is also a non-issue. Because you can circumvent the great firewall with VPNs. Never mind that you have to be tech savvy and take personal risks, but despite that it isn't a non-issue to the public. And that's enough.

digianarchist 8y ago

Wonder how they will get Visa/Mastercard to support their new white supremacist crowd funding site. Edit: Not sure how this violates the rules. If people like Faith Goldy are using the site then my statement is valid.

kongDaKid 8y ago
Yep everyone who does not agree with the extreme left’s radical views is a nazi and a white supremacist. /s. Yawn. You are not fooling anyone with this tired trope.

Sujan 8y ago

HN submission title is missing the "of the 'Intellectual Dark Web,'" bit.

hbosch 8y ago
That part is an absolute joke.
- cm2187 8y ago
  What is a joke?
  - hbosch 8y ago
    Oh my god. As of right now, I was blissfully unaware that this group of towering idiots actually called themselves the 'Intellectual Dark Web'. I thought it was an ironic editorial twist.
    - Ninjaneered 8y ago
      That's a stiff statement that could use support beyond a passing comment on Hacker News. Let's take a few members of the "Intellectual Dark Web"[0] like Bret Weinstein, Sam Harris, and Michael Shermer; I'm truly curious how you classify them as "towering idiots". [0] https://intellectualdarkweb.site/vanguards-of-the-intellectual-dark-web/ https://intellectualdarkweb.site/vanguards-of-the-intellectu...
    - Raphmedia 8y ago
      As far as I can gather, it's a media coined theme. Similar to the "alternative influencer network" that they coined for YouTubers. The whole thing is grasping at straws really. The medias seems to think that everyone who is in the edgy/troll/internet/meme culture are working together for some nefarious purpose. Their latest smearing campaign is against free thinkers, podcasters and debaters... or using their words, the "Intellectual Dark Web". The only relation those people (both thinkers and influencers) have is that they use the Internet to 𝐚) spread their content and 𝐛) reference each other and sometimes collaborate together. Both of those actions are done by every content creators online no matter their intentions. Collaborations and networking is the basis of the internet.

Rumperuu 8y ago

Ignoring whatever views you may have about him and those he associates with, at the end of one of Carl Benjamin/Sargon of Akkad's recent videos on his Patreon removal [0] he starts talking about 'alt-tech' (Gab, Voat, whatever this alt-Patreon ends up being) and tells his viewers to join with him 'to essentially build a new Internet that _they_ can't attack'. This has me wondering about the long-feared Balkanisation of the Internet. It's always been assumed that nation state conflicts would bring this about [1,2], but this incident has me wondering if we might not see it come about based on ideology instead. With all the fuss made about how people on social platforms live in filter bubbles, at least those bubbles coexisted on the same platforms and there might be at least some chance of piercing them. What's going to happen if we create two (or more) entirely separate service ecosystems for people to sort themselves into on political bases? On the flipside, maybe this is a _feature_ of the market rather than a bug and everything'll work out fine [3]? It might even lead to a drive to develop resilient, distributed services that don't run the risk of a single provider being strongarmed or being able to revoke service on ideological grounds that everyone can benefit from. I'll be interested to see how this all develops. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXRx98gpuRY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXRx98gpuRY [1] http://newdigitalage.com/ http://newdigitalage.com/ [2] https://www.rt.com/russia/446502-russia-legislators-internet-security/ https://www.rt.com/russia/446502-russia-legislators-internet... [3] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-and-atomic-communitarianism/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-and-atomic-...

Kye 8y ago
Humans interpreted censorship as damage and routed around it long before they encoded that into the internet. Dissent seems like an inherent, impossible to isolate part of the human condition. They can create bubbles all they like, but some people will break out and keep the ladder down.
consp 8y ago
> ... "to essentially build a new Internet that _they_ can't attack". This refutes any dialogue and is used mainly by people profiting off ideology (on all sides of arguments, not just right wing). Make sure 'you' belong to a special group and point to everyone which is not part of that group as bad and make sure the active followers feel the same way by making any claims needed (lies included). I'm wondering when he starts selling vitamin supplements on the "new" internet. Just to give an example.

kongDaKid 8y ago

Good. Really hoping it takes off and people abandon Patreon in droves. Also hoping there is a decent , decentralized twitter alternative that gains widespread mass adoption. Time to abandon these ideologically run extreme leftist corporations.

psychometry 8y ago
You're very confused about the spectrum of possible political positions that opposing misogyny and racism makes someone a "leftist".
- hiddenSU 8y ago
  These platforms enforce their own definition of "racism". Openly calling for white-genocide is okay. "Misogyny" is punished, while hatred towards masculinity is supported. The "left" doesn't actually oppose these ideas as long as they're the ones espousing it. They engage, likely at a larger scale, in identity politics and exclusionary behavior. If you want evidence, look at how nearly all conservative or right-leaning comments on a platform like HN are from newly created (dummy?) accounts.
  - unknownkadath 8y ago
    "Openly calling for white-genocide..." [Citation needed]
    - hiddenSU 8y ago
      https://twitter.com/julius_s_malema/status/974962070574813184 https://twitter.com/julius_s_malema/status/97496207057481318... https://twitter.com/JohnWil60163557/status/1074582217316335617 https://twitter.com/JohnWil60163557/status/10745822173163356... https://twitter.com/TBPlaneswalker/status/1074840841498193921 https://twitter.com/TBPlaneswalker/status/107484084149819392... https://twitter.com/blodmai/status/1074709574307995648 https://twitter.com/blodmai/status/1074709574307995648 Racism towards whites: https://twitter.com/thatniggakay/status/1074910792145747968 https://twitter.com/thatniggakay/status/1074910792145747968 https://twitter.com/ajhiaa/status/1075044999530729472 https://twitter.com/ajhiaa/status/1075044999530729472 https://twitter.com/julius_s_malema/status/176659300238897153?s=21 https://twitter.com/julius_s_malema/status/17665930023889715... took me a few minutes to find these...

hossbeast 8y ago

Finally, a reason to build something on a block chain.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

hiddenSU 8y ago

One of my favorite Jordan Peterson quotes: > Now, here’s the issue. We know that things can go too far on the right, and we know that things can go too far on the left. But we don’t know what the markers are for going too far on the left. I would say that it’s ethically incumbent on those who are liberal or left-leaning to identity the markers of pathological extremism on the left and to distinguish themselves from the people who hold those pathological viewpoints — and I don’t see that that’s being done. I think when sites like Patreon, Twitter, etc. start banning other view points in the name of "social justice" or "political correctness"... all the while being complete hypocrites to their own values... is when the left goes too far.

49531 8y ago
I wouldn't call that the left, but just that capitalist have found that they can profit more by sharing the values most people in their market share. Most Americans, for instance, are much more progressive on social issues. It's just faux-activism, which doesn't address the actual system of oppression marginalized groups face. Extreme leftism is when workers control the means of production and run companies democratically.
sparrc 8y ago
really? extreme leftism is pretty clear, it's communism. Saying that communism isn't recognized by most people on the left as "going too far" is pretty hard to believe.
- sparkie 8y ago
  The irony is that you see many people non-ironically touting a hammer and sickle on their profiles on these sites. To me that symbol is as dreadful as the swastika. Both communism and fascism are two sides to the same coin. Horseshoe theory is a real. If the platforms were concerned about extremism, they would be clamping down on the communists too, who have a human rights record as bad, if not worse than the fascists.
  - 49531 8y ago

tptacek 8y ago

Why exactly won't the outcome of this be that their alternate platform is dominated by characters that ruin the brand and drive away normal customers? Thats's what happens every time this is tried elsewhere.

beginningguava 8y ago
for a normal social media site that's an issue, for something like this where you only join the site to mainly support people you already know about it doesn't really matter. Although I'd rather see some sort of open source project or crypto based platform instead of another centralized service that can be taken down by their payment processor. Brave browser and BAT could be the answer >normal customers also like the add that "normal" can change pretty quickly, ask women in post-revolution Iran. Within living memory alt-right would be considered normal by a large chunk of the population and people would be chasing people of color and LGBT off these platforms. The tools used to censor opponents today could be used against you tomorrow
- tptacek 8y ago
  No, it's not that simple. The platform will start out hosting I.D.W. celebrities. But if it's an open platform and it aims to avoid "censorship", then the system converges on something like Gab, a place where those I.D.W. celebrities will not long feel comfortable calling home.
  - gadders 8y ago
    People seem to be comfortable sharing twitter with anti-semites like Louis Farrakhan. It doesn't mean everyone on twitter shares Farrakhan's views.
    - tptacek 8y ago
      I don't know what you're trying to say here. I think Twitter should probably ban Farrakhan. Lots of people have in fact left Twitter because they believe it's too lax about toxic users. But nobody really believes Twitter is an anti-censorship platform; the whole premise of anti-censorship platforms is that Twitter does censor people. But it's obvious to any user what the difference is between Twitter and a site like Gab. You have to dig to find white supremacists and holocaust denial on Twitter, through a mountain of celebrity gossip and banal conversations. Meanwhile, that stuff is showcased --- is the dominant conversation! --- on the alternative site. And it's obvious why that's bound to happen: the users that get the most value from supposed non-censoring platforms are exactly the ones that want to broadcast hateful and alienating messages. Unless you're comfortable talking about recipes or your new book or an upcoming lecture sandwiched between lectures about Jews controlling the media and sending all the black people back to Africa, you're not going to stick around on that platform. Peterson won't be able to do it; it'll destroy his brand. So again my question is: how is this supposed to work? Maybe it's not really a Patreon competitor but something more like the old Deck blog advertising network, where you'll have to be yea cool to join.

TheodolphusRose 8y ago

Peterson and Rubin are starting this because Patreon banned Yiannopoulos and Benjamin. Benjamin got banned for saying, among other things, “Maybe you're just acting like a n....r, mate? Have you considered that? Do you think white people act like this? White people are meant to be polite and respectful to one another, and you guys can't even act like white people, it's really amazing to me." Portraying Patreon’s action as being anti-conservative is pretty disingenuous unless “conservative” was suddenly redefined to mean “racist.”

chx 8y ago

You mean two neonazis (stop whitewashing them) are trying to launch something after a third was kicked. Good! More. Most of Patreon is very fine. Looking at my list, I am supporting musicians, erotic photographers, Unix bloggers, a hilarious vlogger, they will be not affected at all. Those who are affected deserve to be affected.

adamnemecek 8y ago
Why is Peterson a neonazi?
- chx 8y ago
  > I will never use words I hate, like the trendy and artificially constructed words "zhe" and "zher." These words are at the vanguard of a post-modern, radical leftist ideology that I detest > Peterson has criticized the use of the term "white privilege", stating that "being called out on their white privilege, identified with a particular racial group and then made to suffer the consequences of the existence of that racial group and its hypothetical crimes, and that sort of thing has to come to a stop Emphasis mine, both. What do you call someone who is very strongly against the left while protecting white privilege? We have a non whitewashing word for that.
  - adamnemecek 8y ago
    I am very strongly against the left (as well as right) but that might be due to the fact that I’m from a post communist country. Fun fact, Czechs are the only ethnicity that was mentioned explicitly by both Marx and Hitler as enemies of their respective ideologies. I dislike both. What does that make me? The idea of white privileged is dangerous tho.
  - qwerty11111 8y ago
    TIL, I'm a "neonazi". I'm Asian.
    - hnbroseph 8y ago

EGreg 8y ago

The root of the problem is centralized platforms. The future consists of platforms which are: 1) End to end encrypted, with clients sharing keys as needed 2) Distributed hash tables route every activity to a few servers (per activity) which run consensus 3) Automatic rebalancing when some server is taken out Simple? Well, this is the future. Not blockchains, but this. MaidSAFE, Holochain, Intercoin and others are building it. You can even make realtime push via sockets in this model, though anything realtime compromises anonymity.

rchaud 8y ago

Yesterday there was some discussion about how Robinhood's SIPC fiasco could have been a marketing push because all publicity is good publicity. I disagreed because Robinhood is trying to be a "serious" business, and stunts like that would hurt their credibility. This on the other hand is exactly the kind of situation where bad publicity helps the characters in question. This Patreon competitor is pure vaporware; Peterson has zero interest in business and tech, and doesn't even try to describe the feature set. He knows that as far as his audience is concerned, he only has to make it look like he's playing the big man and going to battle against the "oppressive censorship of the far left" for the money to keep coming in, either via book sales or speaking engagements.

ghostly_s 8y ago

What the hell is with the editorializing in this submission headline? The original is "Top Patreon creators, of the 'Intellectual Dark Web,[...]'. The headline here creates the impression that Jordan Peterson et al are the most popular people on the platform. They're not[1]. 1. https://graphtreon.com/top-patreon-creators https://graphtreon.com/top-patreon-creators

owaty 8y ago
Peterson is #20 and Harris is #15 — how is that not the top?
- ghostly_s 8y ago
  Number one is top on an ordered list. Hope this helps.

raarts 8y ago

OP here. More information here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWz1RDVoqw4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWz1RDVoqw4

charliebrownau 8y ago

Gday Platforms that censor speech:- * Facebook * Twitter * Google * Youtube * TUMBLR * Pateron * Stripe * Paypal * Twitch * Spotify * Apple * pin interest * LinkedIn * Mailchimp * Wordpress * azure * Mastercard * Godaddy * MEDIUM * Shopify * Cloudflare * pusher * WIKI * Reddit * teespring

charliebrownau 8y ago

Gday Platforms that DONT censor speech * Minds + mewe (FB alt) * Gabai (Twitter alt) * Bitchute (Youtube alt) * Tutanota + Protonmail(email alt) * Wire (skype alt) * Librepay (Donation alt)(Warning they use STRIPE+Paypal) * subscribestar (Donation alt)(Warning they use STRIPE+Paypal) * Startengine (Kickstarter alt) * peertube (DIY self host youtube stream style server) * stream.me (steaming alt) * Voat (Reddit alt) * Movim (Tumblr alt) * @GetTogether (meetup.com alt) Also look into:- * searX.me or Duckduckgo (search alt) * OpenStreetmap (Map alt) * imgtc or tineye - free image upload site * Linux - Win/MacOSX replacement * f-droid.org - Google Play Store ALT * Mumble - Discord ALT * spreadshirt - shirt alt Regards Charliebrownau

digianarchist 8y ago

Wonder how they will get Visa/Mastercard to support their new white supremacist crowd funding site.

raarts 8y ago
The people doing this are not white supremacists. Whoever claims this is either misinformed or slanderous.