5 ms·

Patreon has always had its hands dirty in enforcing their definition of "morality" -- while I almost completely agreed with their decisions, banning "anime" was

Patreon has always had its hands dirty in enforcing their definition of "morality" -- while I almost completely agreed with their decisions, banning "anime" was the last straw for me. https://www.reddit.com/r/patreon/comments/fho2ii/patreons_ban_on_anime_art/ https://www.reddit.com/r/patreon/comments/fho2ii/patreons_ba... Each choice they made to ban an "influencer" in the name of morality was a massive hit to their business because by definition, not only was said influencer banned, but also the massive audience that he/she influenced. Unfortunately, you can only successfully stick to an allow-all policy (with all of the dangerous content and liability/bad PR this entails), or you can haphazardly try to enforce your often-subjective definition of morality with all of its inconsistencies and edge cases, to your own detriment, like Patreon did (I'm a moral relativist). It's a Faustian bargain because neither is a good business decision.

hvis 7y ago
I'm guessing Patreon is reacting to the changes in the legal landscape. The same ones that made Craiglist close its Personals section (or however it was called): the increased liability for the platform for whatever behaviors the public at large might find objectionable. Or find an excuse to take an issue with, really. From what I know, the anime genre creators were a fairly popular niche (with the associated income stream), so they probably weren't taking these changes lightly. I'd say write your congressmen (I'm not from US myself), but at this point it seems futile.
- Hydraulix989 7y ago
  These are private companies, other competitors have stepped up that are willing to take on a certain level of risk -- no need to get the government involved. People didn't stop making video games because of "moral" activists like Jack Thompson. Anime is a global industry for Japan, much like K-Pop is for Korea; however, I'm willing to bet that far more than just anime creators (to say nothing of their respective fan bases) have been alienated by Patreon's policies. One of my favorite creators, Louis Rossmann, is pretty vocal about being against Patreon's moral policing. I don't even watch anime, but if you don't see anything wrong with Patreon's business strategy, you can at least observe how the market is reacting to it (i.e. badly enough that they need to cut some of their top senior engineers, even though their business model practically prints money in a scalable way -- a rarity in the SoftBank tech bubble -- and the industry they are in is one of the LEAST affected by the coronavirus pandemic).
  - hvis 7y ago
    What do you mean, no need? The US government did this. IIUC Tumblr and Craigs have similar problems as a result. Video games are somewhat different, it's not a situation of a platform with user-generated content.
mrunkel 7y ago
Except that they didn't ban anime. Not even close. From your link a little further down: https://www.reddit.com/r/patreon/comments/fho2ii/patreons_ban_on_anime_art/fkcd1c2/ https://www.reddit.com/r/patreon/comments/fho2ii/patreons_ba... > They're not banning anime. They're banning the fetishization of young girls, which has been against the community guidelines for quite a while: > However, we have zero tolerance when it comes to the glorification of sexual violence which includes bestiality, rape, and child exploitation (i.e., sexualized depiction of minors). This is true for illustrated, animated, or any other type of creations. Patreon reserves the right to review and remove accounts that may violate this guideline.
- Hydraulix989 7y ago
  Do you not realize the false equivalence they are making here to justify actually banning it? Banning first person shooter video games can also be done under the guise of having zero tolerance for glorifying mass shootings. And then any heavy handed enforcement actions can be justified by saying that only violent games are banned. Look at which patrons have actually been affected by their policy and how they are choosing to enforce it. Wake up! (Lastly, hentai is obviously a very different thing than anime. It is clear that Patreon is targeting anime, as well as hentai.)
- jowsie 7y ago
  The issue is with how they define minors. Considering they're stylised cartoons it can be pretty subjective, and for some, simply having a flat chest = child, regardless of anything else. In other cases, curvy body + large breasts can also be considered child if they are deemed 'too cute', etc. It leads to inconsistency, which leads to people creating content that is well within the guidelines deciding to not publish to Patreon as they can't guarantee whoever is enforcing the rules that day won't arbitrarily decide otherwise.
- belorn 7y ago
  > even though anime characters more closely resemble aliens than actual human beings The typical characteristics of child-like appearances is proportionally large head compared to the rest of the body, round head, and large eyes. It also happens that having a large head with large eyes is a common method to make it easier to express emotion for objects which we know is fake. For example, the two main robots in the movie wall-e utilize this a lot, and yes, one can interpret that as if both robots are children as they do have more human child like proportions than human adult proportions. The only real way to know the age of non-photo non-realistic image of a character is in context or if the author spells it out. If we were to guess the age of Donald duck we would base it on that he has a job, has nephews, and wear a time appropriate hat for adults, but also that his head is slightly less round compared to Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

hvis 7y ago

I'm guessing Patreon is reacting to the changes in the legal landscape. The same ones that made Craiglist close its Personals section (or however it was called): the increased liability for the platform for whatever behaviors the public at large might find objectionable. Or find an excuse to take an issue with, really. From what I know, the anime genre creators were a fairly popular niche (with the associated income stream), so they probably weren't taking these changes lightly. I'd say write your congressmen (I'm not from US myself), but at this point it seems futile.

Hydraulix989 7y ago
These are private companies, other competitors have stepped up that are willing to take on a certain level of risk -- no need to get the government involved. People didn't stop making video games because of "moral" activists like Jack Thompson. Anime is a global industry for Japan, much like K-Pop is for Korea; however, I'm willing to bet that far more than just anime creators (to say nothing of their respective fan bases) have been alienated by Patreon's policies. One of my favorite creators, Louis Rossmann, is pretty vocal about being against Patreon's moral policing. I don't even watch anime, but if you don't see anything wrong with Patreon's business strategy, you can at least observe how the market is reacting to it (i.e. badly enough that they need to cut some of their top senior engineers, even though their business model practically prints money in a scalable way -- a rarity in the SoftBank tech bubble -- and the industry they are in is one of the LEAST affected by the coronavirus pandemic).
- hvis 7y ago
  What do you mean, no need? The US government did this. IIUC Tumblr and Craigs have similar problems as a result. Video games are somewhat different, it's not a situation of a platform with user-generated content.

mrunkel 7y ago

Except that they didn't ban anime. Not even close. From your link a little further down: https://www.reddit.com/r/patreon/comments/fho2ii/patreons_ban_on_anime_art/fkcd1c2/ https://www.reddit.com/r/patreon/comments/fho2ii/patreons_ba... > They're not banning anime. They're banning the fetishization of young girls, which has been against the community guidelines for quite a while: > However, we have zero tolerance when it comes to the glorification of sexual violence which includes bestiality, rape, and child exploitation (i.e., sexualized depiction of minors). This is true for illustrated, animated, or any other type of creations. Patreon reserves the right to review and remove accounts that may violate this guideline.

Hydraulix989 7y ago
Do you not realize the false equivalence they are making here to justify actually banning it? Banning first person shooter video games can also be done under the guise of having zero tolerance for glorifying mass shootings. And then any heavy handed enforcement actions can be justified by saying that only violent games are banned. Look at which patrons have actually been affected by their policy and how they are choosing to enforce it. Wake up! (Lastly, hentai is obviously a very different thing than anime. It is clear that Patreon is targeting anime, as well as hentai.)
jowsie 7y ago
The issue is with how they define minors. Considering they're stylised cartoons it can be pretty subjective, and for some, simply having a flat chest = child, regardless of anything else. In other cases, curvy body + large breasts can also be considered child if they are deemed 'too cute', etc. It leads to inconsistency, which leads to people creating content that is well within the guidelines deciding to not publish to Patreon as they can't guarantee whoever is enforcing the rules that day won't arbitrarily decide otherwise.
belorn 7y ago
> even though anime characters more closely resemble aliens than actual human beings The typical characteristics of child-like appearances is proportionally large head compared to the rest of the body, round head, and large eyes. It also happens that having a large head with large eyes is a common method to make it easier to express emotion for objects which we know is fake. For example, the two main robots in the movie wall-e utilize this a lot, and yes, one can interpret that as if both robots are children as they do have more human child like proportions than human adult proportions. The only real way to know the age of non-photo non-realistic image of a character is in context or if the author spells it out. If we were to guess the age of Donald duck we would base it on that he has a job, has nephews, and wear a time appropriate hat for adults, but also that his head is slightly less round compared to Huey, Dewey, and Louie.