7 ms·

Patreon loses lawsuit with Owen Benjamin fans

49 points by pgrote 6y ago

ceejayoz 6y ago
> Patreon’s terms included language that allowed any users of the platform to litigate their case individually under California’s JAMS arbitration scheme. Regardless of the merits (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Benjamin#Views https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Benjamin#Views) of the comedian in question, I'm enjoying watching arbitration - intended to fuck over users - come back to bite companies in the ass. DoorDash learned this the hard way, too. https://www.vox.com/2020/2/12/21133486/doordash-workers-10-million-forced-arbitration-class-action-supreme-court-backfired https://www.vox.com/2020/2/12/21133486/doordash-workers-10-m... > Under Judge William Alsup’s order in Abernathy v. DoorDash, DoorDash must arbitrate over 5,000 individual disputes with various workers who claim that they were misclassified as independent contractors, when they should be treated as employees. It also must pay a $1,900 fee for each of these individual arbitration proceedings.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > arbitration - intended to fuck over users Arbitration is disadvantageous to users in the case of class actions. In cases of individual grievance, it’s vastly cheaper to bring and settle claims in arbitration over courts. A lot of the conflicts-of-interest issues in arbitration, moreover, can be avoided with competent counsel. The same counsel one would require to get started in state or federal courts.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    > In cases of individual grievance, it’s vastly cheaper to bring and settle claims in arbitration over courts. Cheaper, sure. You get less out of it, though. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/03/google-workers-want-outlaw-mandatory-arbitration-heres-why-this-matters/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/03/google-wo... "Arbitration produces clear winners and losers. Employees win less frequently and receive lower damages in arbitration than in litigation. Employers win more frequently, especially if they use the same arbitrators repeatedly. That’s hardly surprising, given that the employers typically choose the arbitrators."
    - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
      Agree for employee-employer cases. These are complicated lawsuits involving highly personal claims. There is an original power imbalance. And it concerns peoples’ livelihoods. For customer-vendor relationships, the field is more even. These suits tend to be simpler. And they are, on average, less material. Lowering the bar to litigation is a fair compromise for slightly-lower payouts.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        > For customer-vendor relationships, the field is more even. I disagree. If a company screws a million people out of $10, it's not at all worth the trouble of arbitration for the individuals. That's where class actions shine.
        JumpCrisscross 6y ago
        > If a company screws a million people out of $10, it's not at all worth the trouble of arbitration for the individuals. That's where class actions shine. Correct. Arbitration is good for moderately high-value customer-vendor disputes. Bigger disputes should go to courts. Smaller ones be organised into a class. (Though someone arbitrating a $10 dispute will get far more, including, usually, their arbitration costs, than that person settling in a class.) In the middle, about $500 to $25,000, arbitration is the better option for the public. It’s faster and cheaper. And the amounts are material enough to not warrant paying out 90% of it to lawyers.
- zucker42 6y ago
  William Alsup is a name that seems to come up frequently in tech litigation, and I'm rarely disappointed with his opinions. He was the one who learned Java in order judge to Google v. Oracle case better. Fun fact: his middle name is Haskell.
  - dependenttypes 6y ago
    He has been programming for decades actually https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-google-judge-william-alsup-interview-waymo-uber https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-googl...
binarymax 6y ago
It's sad that Patreon is paying a price for kicking an abusive person off their platform, but forced arbitration needs to die, and I hope cases like these end the practice entirely.
- RaptorJ 6y ago
  seems unlikely while Epic Systems vs. Lewis remains US law
  - binarymax 6y ago
    Legally they won't be going away. My point is that if having arbitration clauses is more expensive and disruptive than not, it will deter companies from using them.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  It’s not sad at all. If you want to decide what speech you want on your platform, there’s a cost. Patreon deserves this.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    No, the cost here is because Patreon tried to screw over users and wound up with a loophole that let them do it back. It has little to do with free speech.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      I think we’ll disagree, but I’m excited to see others use arbitration weaponization like this against other platforms when they unilaterally take action against users (free speech or otherwise). Cheap force multiplier.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        I do agree. I'm excited to see forced arbitration hurt companies that intended to use it to hurt their users. I'm a bit disappointed to see it benefit a Holocaust denier at the same time.
mikece 6y ago
I just saw this on a YouTube news clip last night. ONE YouTuber was banned form Patreon and he encouraged his followers who had been supporting him on Patreon to file a "tortious interference" lawsuit which asserts breach of contract against Patreon. In letting this go forward the judge also asserted that Patreon's change in their terms of service on January 1 does not apply to complaints about actions which give rise to legal claims prior to that date. In short: Patreon has to front $10,000 in legal fees per arbitration claim. The source of the suit is only about 100 people but if a sizable portion of the supporters of some of the larger names who have been banned from Patreon file suit as well then Patreon could be facing the requirement to put aside hundreds of millions of dollars to pre-fund arbitration cases... which could, theoretically, force them to file for bankruptcy and/or cease operation. The above-mentioned news clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHzEJ6ESRY8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHzEJ6ESRY8
chejazi 6y ago
Unrelated; this site runs ads literally between each sentence. smh
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  It's a grifty conspiracy theory site; the ads are its primary purpose for existing: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/national-file/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/national-file/
- alextheparrot 6y ago
  Maybe it is just my content blocker, but I only see links that are pretty easy to distinguish. Your child would love GoGurt, a quick and easy snack that they can take on the go! At least there is some clear delimitation in that form, but yeah a lot of these sites are surviving off accidental clicks it seems. If you’ve been in an accident, call the law offices of Howard, Howard, and Howie today!
VikingCoder 6y ago
How did their lawyers screw this up so badly?
- hedora 6y ago
  Any site with a binding arbitration clause is vulnerable to the same sort of attack. California shouldn’t have ~ banned class action lawsuits.
lgleason 6y ago
I hope that we see more situations like this. Providers need to stop moralizing IMHO and it would be nice to see this severely affect their bottom line or even put Patreon out of business.
- cecja 6y ago
  These tech companies are not the public space you want them to be they are more like clubs and if you don't adhere to these rules you get kicked out. This is a problem of a bad ToS and nothing else.
- sp332 6y ago
  He's actively directing harassment of anyone who gets in his way. Deciding not to be part of that is not moralizing, it's very practical and might actually be self-defense.
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  "In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- unity1001 6y ago
  With that logic, Patreon would have to keep helping Nazis propagate their ideology back in 1930s. Actually, there are Nazis today. And they are not so far away from what Owen Benjamin represents. So, how long until actual Nazis start using the platform and start gathering followers in a lead up to a new world war?

49 points by pgrote 6y ago

> Patreon’s terms included language that allowed any users of the platform to litigate their case individually under California’s JAMS arbitration scheme. Regardless of the merits (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Benjamin#Views https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Benjamin#Views) of the comedian in question, I'm enjoying watching arbitration - intended to fuck over users - come back to bite companies in the ass. DoorDash learned this the hard way, too. https://www.vox.com/2020/2/12/21133486/doordash-workers-10-million-forced-arbitration-class-action-supreme-court-backfired https://www.vox.com/2020/2/12/21133486/doordash-workers-10-m... > Under Judge William Alsup’s order in Abernathy v. DoorDash, DoorDash must arbitrate over 5,000 individual disputes with various workers who claim that they were misclassified as independent contractors, when they should be treated as employees. It also must pay a $1,900 fee for each of these individual arbitration proceedings.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> arbitration - intended to fuck over users Arbitration is disadvantageous to users in the case of class actions. In cases of individual grievance, it’s vastly cheaper to bring and settle claims in arbitration over courts. A lot of the conflicts-of-interest issues in arbitration, moreover, can be avoided with competent counsel. The same counsel one would require to get started in state or federal courts.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  > In cases of individual grievance, it’s vastly cheaper to bring and settle claims in arbitration over courts. Cheaper, sure. You get less out of it, though. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/03/google-workers-want-outlaw-mandatory-arbitration-heres-why-this-matters/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/03/google-wo... "Arbitration produces clear winners and losers. Employees win less frequently and receive lower damages in arbitration than in litigation. Employers win more frequently, especially if they use the same arbitrators repeatedly. That’s hardly surprising, given that the employers typically choose the arbitrators."
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    Agree for employee-employer cases. These are complicated lawsuits involving highly personal claims. There is an original power imbalance. And it concerns peoples’ livelihoods. For customer-vendor relationships, the field is more even. These suits tend to be simpler. And they are, on average, less material. Lowering the bar to litigation is a fair compromise for slightly-lower payouts.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      > For customer-vendor relationships, the field is more even. I disagree. If a company screws a million people out of $10, it's not at all worth the trouble of arbitration for the individuals. That's where class actions shine.
      - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
        > If a company screws a million people out of $10, it's not at all worth the trouble of arbitration for the individuals. That's where class actions shine. Correct. Arbitration is good for moderately high-value customer-vendor disputes. Bigger disputes should go to courts. Smaller ones be organised into a class. (Though someone arbitrating a $10 dispute will get far more, including, usually, their arbitration costs, than that person settling in a class.) In the middle, about $500 to $25,000, arbitration is the better option for the public. It’s faster and cheaper. And the amounts are material enough to not warrant paying out 90% of it to lawyers.
zucker42 6y ago
William Alsup is a name that seems to come up frequently in tech litigation, and I'm rarely disappointed with his opinions. He was the one who learned Java in order judge to Google v. Oracle case better. Fun fact: his middle name is Haskell.
- dependenttypes 6y ago
  He has been programming for decades actually https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-google-judge-william-alsup-interview-waymo-uber https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-googl...

binarymax 6y ago

It's sad that Patreon is paying a price for kicking an abusive person off their platform, but forced arbitration needs to die, and I hope cases like these end the practice entirely.

RaptorJ 6y ago
seems unlikely while Epic Systems vs. Lewis remains US law
- binarymax 6y ago
  Legally they won't be going away. My point is that if having arbitration clauses is more expensive and disruptive than not, it will deter companies from using them.
toomuchtodo 6y ago
It’s not sad at all. If you want to decide what speech you want on your platform, there’s a cost. Patreon deserves this.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  No, the cost here is because Patreon tried to screw over users and wound up with a loophole that let them do it back. It has little to do with free speech.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    I think we’ll disagree, but I’m excited to see others use arbitration weaponization like this against other platforms when they unilaterally take action against users (free speech or otherwise). Cheap force multiplier.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      I do agree. I'm excited to see forced arbitration hurt companies that intended to use it to hurt their users. I'm a bit disappointed to see it benefit a Holocaust denier at the same time.

mikece 6y ago

I just saw this on a YouTube news clip last night. ONE YouTuber was banned form Patreon and he encouraged his followers who had been supporting him on Patreon to file a "tortious interference" lawsuit which asserts breach of contract against Patreon. In letting this go forward the judge also asserted that Patreon's change in their terms of service on January 1 does not apply to complaints about actions which give rise to legal claims prior to that date. In short: Patreon has to front $10,000 in legal fees per arbitration claim. The source of the suit is only about 100 people but if a sizable portion of the supporters of some of the larger names who have been banned from Patreon file suit as well then Patreon could be facing the requirement to put aside hundreds of millions of dollars to pre-fund arbitration cases... which could, theoretically, force them to file for bankruptcy and/or cease operation. The above-mentioned news clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHzEJ6ESRY8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHzEJ6ESRY8

chejazi 6y ago

Unrelated; this site runs ads literally between each sentence. smh

ceejayoz 6y ago
It's a grifty conspiracy theory site; the ads are its primary purpose for existing: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/national-file/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/national-file/
alextheparrot 6y ago
Maybe it is just my content blocker, but I only see links that are pretty easy to distinguish. Your child would love GoGurt, a quick and easy snack that they can take on the go! At least there is some clear delimitation in that form, but yeah a lot of these sites are surviving off accidental clicks it seems. If you’ve been in an accident, call the law offices of Howard, Howard, and Howie today!

VikingCoder 6y ago

How did their lawyers screw this up so badly?

hedora 6y ago
Any site with a binding arbitration clause is vulnerable to the same sort of attack. California shouldn’t have ~ banned class action lawsuits.

lgleason 6y ago

I hope that we see more situations like this. Providers need to stop moralizing IMHO and it would be nice to see this severely affect their bottom line or even put Patreon out of business.

cecja 6y ago
These tech companies are not the public space you want them to be they are more like clubs and if you don't adhere to these rules you get kicked out. This is a problem of a bad ToS and nothing else.
sp332 6y ago
He's actively directing harassment of anyone who gets in his way. Deciding not to be part of that is not moralizing, it's very practical and might actually be self-defense.
bryanlarsen 6y ago
"In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
unity1001 6y ago
With that logic, Patreon would have to keep helping Nazis propagate their ideology back in 1930s. Actually, there are Nazis today. And they are not so far away from what Owen Benjamin represents. So, how long until actual Nazis start using the platform and start gathering followers in a lead up to a new world war?