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I’m confused why patreons behavior is newly unacceptable in a way that sparks controversy. I agree that it is likely a problem overall, but I don’t understand w

I’m confused why patreons behavior is newly unacceptable in a way that sparks controversy. I agree that it is likely a problem overall, but I don’t understand what has occurred that has made it new to discuss.

krapp 8y ago
>I don’t understand what has occurred that has made it new to discuss. A lot of people in the tech community and on HN sympathize with the ideology of people being deplatformed, particularly regarding alt-right and "anti-feminist" views.
- SolaceQuantum 8y ago
  Yes, but people have been deplatformed in the past, and are quite normally deplatformed for saying and doing socially unacceptable things outside of the platform. Plenty of news anchors get booted off for going on racist twitter rants or whatever. I fundamentally don’t understand the difference between this and booting someone from patreon for what they said on YouTube. I agree this is a problem- I don’t understand why this is a significantly new problem worthy of heated discussion.
- repolfx 8y ago
  Really? How many anti-feminists are there on Hacker News? Very few, I'd say, especially as such views tend to be immediately downvoted and flagged into oblivion. There are however plenty of people who are disturbed by the systematic way certain minorities attack and destroy speech about ideas that are, objectively, commonplace and popular (just look at opinion polls). Even the top voted comment on this whole thread talks about disquiet over censorship whilst ending by saying they're a left leaning socialist. Of course, this statement should not be necessary to make, but it is - it's a form of "don't shoot I'm on your side".
  - krapp 8y ago
    > Very few, I'd say, especially as such views tend to be immediately downvoted and flagged into oblivion They do have to be here to be voted down, though. But they show up often enough in threads that deviate into gender politics (particularly as regards hiring and women in tech,) gender biology and, unsurprisingly, feminism. And codes of conduct. For some weird reason, a lot of people seem to believe software codes of conduct are a feminist conspiracy.
    - barry-cotter 8y ago
      Maybe because they saw what happened when SQLite adopted a non woke Code of Conduct.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - repolfx 8y ago
      Because they tend to get promoted by feminists, and then used to attack and shut down project members who aren't. Look at the NodeJS incident for an example.
- halbritt 8y ago
  I think one of the bigger complaints as I understand it, is that Patreon is a de facto monopoly in this space and their rules for these circumstances are arbitrary and capricious. The outstanding question seems to be whether this merits a degree of outrage, not whether we as a society should pass some laws that would protect creators from Patreon. I know very little about Sargon of Akkad, but as I understand it, his comments were made in a video in which he was being interviewed, not a video that was being funded by Patreon. There's some question about the context of the comments, as to whether he was making them as an example of something a nazi might say or whether they were directed at a particular group. I don't really know. Patreon's response was that when one of their creators exhibited behavior they didn't approve of outside of their platform (i.e. videos funded through them) that they would demand contrition and be the sole arbiter as to whether that contrition was sufficient. Sounds worthy of a little outrage to me.
  - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
    Patreon is not a de facto monopoly. There is twitch (for subscription/donation), ko-fi (direct donation), mailing a check, PayPal, stripe...
    - barry-cotter 8y ago
      Patreon may not be a de facto monopoly but the MasterCard Visa cartel are and they leaned on the downstream payment processors to ban the Patreon competitor SubscribeStar as soon as they took on Carl Benjamin. https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1076886857445711872?s=21 https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1076886857445711872?s...
      - someguydave 8y ago
        And MasterCard and Visa operate their cartel in cooperation with banks and federal regulators. To what degree does the first amendment apply to entities that are regulated and protected by the federal government?
      - notafraudster 8y ago
- coldtea 8y ago
  >A lot of people in the tech community and on HN sympathize with the ideology of people being deplatformed, particularly regarding alt-right and "anti-feminist" views In other words "a lot of people in the tech community" are alt-right and anti-feminist (and thus, implied, bad people with bad ideas), but weaselly put. How about, "a lot of people in the tech community" sympathize with people being deplatformed, period? (Ever heard of the EFF? The story of the Pirate Bay and its support? DeCSS? Support for Assange?) Sure, this which would still include people being sympathetic to "alt-right and anti-feminist". Do people have to follow your particular politics and ideological preferences wholesale to be acceptable? Perhaps those are just pure truth, and everything else is evil?

krapp 8y ago

>I don’t understand what has occurred that has made it new to discuss. A lot of people in the tech community and on HN sympathize with the ideology of people being deplatformed, particularly regarding alt-right and "anti-feminist" views.

SolaceQuantum 8y ago
Yes, but people have been deplatformed in the past, and are quite normally deplatformed for saying and doing socially unacceptable things outside of the platform. Plenty of news anchors get booted off for going on racist twitter rants or whatever. I fundamentally don’t understand the difference between this and booting someone from patreon for what they said on YouTube. I agree this is a problem- I don’t understand why this is a significantly new problem worthy of heated discussion.
repolfx 8y ago
Really? How many anti-feminists are there on Hacker News? Very few, I'd say, especially as such views tend to be immediately downvoted and flagged into oblivion. There are however plenty of people who are disturbed by the systematic way certain minorities attack and destroy speech about ideas that are, objectively, commonplace and popular (just look at opinion polls). Even the top voted comment on this whole thread talks about disquiet over censorship whilst ending by saying they're a left leaning socialist. Of course, this statement should not be necessary to make, but it is - it's a form of "don't shoot I'm on your side".
- krapp 8y ago
  > Very few, I'd say, especially as such views tend to be immediately downvoted and flagged into oblivion They do have to be here to be voted down, though. But they show up often enough in threads that deviate into gender politics (particularly as regards hiring and women in tech,) gender biology and, unsurprisingly, feminism. And codes of conduct. For some weird reason, a lot of people seem to believe software codes of conduct are a feminist conspiracy.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Maybe because they saw what happened when SQLite adopted a non woke Code of Conduct.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - repolfx 8y ago
    Because they tend to get promoted by feminists, and then used to attack and shut down project members who aren't. Look at the NodeJS incident for an example.
halbritt 8y ago
I think one of the bigger complaints as I understand it, is that Patreon is a de facto monopoly in this space and their rules for these circumstances are arbitrary and capricious. The outstanding question seems to be whether this merits a degree of outrage, not whether we as a society should pass some laws that would protect creators from Patreon. I know very little about Sargon of Akkad, but as I understand it, his comments were made in a video in which he was being interviewed, not a video that was being funded by Patreon. There's some question about the context of the comments, as to whether he was making them as an example of something a nazi might say or whether they were directed at a particular group. I don't really know. Patreon's response was that when one of their creators exhibited behavior they didn't approve of outside of their platform (i.e. videos funded through them) that they would demand contrition and be the sole arbiter as to whether that contrition was sufficient. Sounds worthy of a little outrage to me.
- SolaceQuantum 8y ago
  Patreon is not a de facto monopoly. There is twitch (for subscription/donation), ko-fi (direct donation), mailing a check, PayPal, stripe...
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Patreon may not be a de facto monopoly but the MasterCard Visa cartel are and they leaned on the downstream payment processors to ban the Patreon competitor SubscribeStar as soon as they took on Carl Benjamin. https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1076886857445711872?s=21 https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1076886857445711872?s...
    - someguydave 8y ago
      And MasterCard and Visa operate their cartel in cooperation with banks and federal regulators. To what degree does the first amendment apply to entities that are regulated and protected by the federal government?
    - notafraudster 8y ago
coldtea 8y ago
>A lot of people in the tech community and on HN sympathize with the ideology of people being deplatformed, particularly regarding alt-right and "anti-feminist" views In other words "a lot of people in the tech community" are alt-right and anti-feminist (and thus, implied, bad people with bad ideas), but weaselly put. How about, "a lot of people in the tech community" sympathize with people being deplatformed, period? (Ever heard of the EFF? The story of the Pirate Bay and its support? DeCSS? Support for Assange?) Sure, this which would still include people being sympathetic to "alt-right and anti-feminist". Do people have to follow your particular politics and ideological preferences wholesale to be acceptable? Perhaps those are just pure truth, and everything else is evil?