41 ms·

On the removal of Come Back Alive

322 points by evvvvr 5y ago

JohnGB 5y ago
Which is why I put through a request to have my Patreon account deleted today. Sorry to the channels that I supported, I'll try find a way to support you without using Patreon.
- gubikmic 5y ago
  Here's how to delete your account: https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/204605915-Delete-my-Patreon-account https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/204605915-Dele...
evvvvr 5y ago
Patreon blocked large Ukrainian army charity volunteers account https://savelife.in.ua/en/ https://savelife.in.ua/en/ It was probably the second largest on Patreon - getting more than a 200 000$ a month
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
not1ofU 5y ago
If anyone has a twitter account (I do not), would be worth mentioning in that thread, to those who are deleting their accounts, to also formally request to have their personal data removed, this would give them a massive pain in the balls (if they complied that is).
cdot2 5y ago
So essentially the problem is they're sticking to their "violence is bad" policy when in this specific situation violence is maybe not bad.
- sam0x17 5y ago
  No, they still allow all the gun-advocacy patreons and things like that. It's more because of regulations that make it harder to exist if your platform materially supports foreign war efforts. Cowardly stance, though.
- colordrops 5y ago
  Or maybe violence is still bad.
  - tgv 5y ago
    It's self-defense. Or is that bad too?
    - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
      We all know the final outcome of this. In the face of the overwhelming force Ukraine faces it seems to me any help we provide is just going to prolong the agony.
      - tgv 5y ago
        That's not a given. And dragging out the fight gives other forces a chance, too.
        tonyedgecombe 5y ago
        What other forces? The West isn't going to intervene directly.
      - syshum 5y ago
        History of the world would be very different if people actually believed that.
      - drran 5y ago
        Ukraine sees the overwhelming force for 8 years straight.
        tonyedgecombe 5y ago
        That didn't seem to be the case in Crimea.
      - brabel 5y ago
- Dma54rhs 5y ago
- Sebb767 5y ago
  > when in this specific situation violence is maybe not bad. I'm pretty sure Russia would say the same thing if you ask them about their situation. That's the problem once you bring in subjectivity. That being said, tolerating the account for a few more days would've probably been a better play. EDIT: Just to be very clear, I'm not condoning Russian aggression in any way. My point is that not funding a war is an acceptable choice, since it's very easy to be wrong and a sure way to bring human suffering.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    - Sebb767 5y ago
      Well, from their point of view, a military pact with the explicit goal of keeping them under control has first taken their land and is now threatening to get even closer to their border and encircle them. Just take a look at the Cuban missile crisis to see how the US reacted in a comparable situation and in that case, the distance from the missiles to the capital was a lot longer. For Russia, this is more like the missiles are already in Cuba and now Mexico is considering to join the Warsaw pact. Everyone thinks they're on the right side. Now, obviously I think we (as in EU+US) are the good guys here, but it's quite clear that a lot of people were both very convinced and very wrong about this and I don't consider us unfailable.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        > Everyone thinks they're on the right side. In this case that has been made pretty easy to see. Even large numbers of Russians agree with that. > Now, obviously I think we (as in EU+US) are the good guys here, but it's quite clear that a lot of people were both very convinced and very wrong about this and I don't consider us unfailable. Indeed. But this isn't the Cuban missile crisis (which was provoked by the USSR to begin with) and the Ukraine isn't anything like Cuba. Note that Cuba was - in spite of everything - never actually invaded with the intent to occupy, and it's not as if the US couldn't have done that if they had wanted to do so.
- basisword 5y ago
  This is called "sticking to your principles". It's a rare thing these days.
  - cdot2 5y ago
    I have different principals than them
    - basisword 5y ago
      Good for you.
- croes 5y ago
  The problem is there will be situations where it is less clear if it's bad or not. Next step would be all kind of groups trying to get military funding.
  - Y-bar 5y ago
    Why not cross that bridge when those less clear situations happen rather than throwing about the false neutrality principle[1] as a defense now? [1] Thinking about this https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/99574-we-must-take-sides-neutrality-helps-the-oppressor-never-the https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/99574-we-must-take-sides-ne...
    - croes 5y ago
      It's not about neutrality, it's about doing it the right way. In the end they only become a target of russia's cyber warfare. There are better channels and ways of helping without making a civilian platform a war target.
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    That problem is a lot, lot smaller than the problem of people dying in Ukraine as they typed out that statement.
    - croes 5y ago
      Officially supported funding would make them a legitimate target in war.
      - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
        like how the US was supposed to send them $400 million in military aid? [0] Or the EU is sending them €1.2 billion? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_impeachment_of_Donald_Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_impeachment_of_Donald_Tr... [1] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022/02/21/council-adopts-1-2-billion-assistance-to-ukraine/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022...
- lawn 5y ago
  These black and white policies that discard nuance always run into these problems. Similar to how the "zero violence policies" in schools means they punish the bullied because they're defending themselves.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    No, they are hypocrites because there is plenty of violence related stuff funded through Patreon.
    - lawn 5y ago
      If you're been bullied then the school management behaves like hypocrites too.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Who would take up the role of morality police though? I mean would you still support it if the Ukranian military capture a Russian soldier and torture them? What if it's not the Ukranian military but IS? Or the US army, which is also guilty of war crimes [0]? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_Naval_Base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_Naval_Base
  - cdot2 5y ago
    Are you arguing that we shouldn't support Ukraine?
  - sam0x17 5y ago
    If that gives you moral pause you should perhaps stop paying U.S. taxes as a U.S. citizen and see where that gets you.
throwaway290 5y ago
You can also donate to entities like https://www.unhcr.org/ https://www.unhcr.org/. Could someone suggest other reputable options? Tangentially (as far as I can tell this doesn’t apply to the Patreon in this post), seeing social media scam profiting from the tragedy by tricking people into reposting shady donation links is disheartening.
- pfortuny 5y ago
  Well, I am sure Caritas Internationalis is there helping. https://www.caritas.org/where-caritas-work/europe/ukraine/ https://www.caritas.org/where-caritas-work/europe/ukraine/ (I have just made a donation).
ivanvas 5y ago
Related thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30465394 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30465394 In case you'd like to donate or share the financial help link: https://web.archive.org/web/20220224191725/https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220224191725/https://savelife.... (I'm using Wayback just in case Russian government hacks it, the original: https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/ https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/)
ivanvas 5y ago
Their comment is technically valid. The timing of the block is bad though. It'd be great if they could comment on the timing.
- dotdi 5y ago
  One twitter comment mentions the account has been active for several years. Call me paranoid, but it's too big of a coincidence that it was closed exactly today.
  - dymk 5y ago
    The development of all out war probably had something to do with it
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      It's easy to have principles when there is no price.
TekMol 5y ago
The flow of money seems to be one major battleground in this war. The biggest sanctions so far are disallowing to exchange funds with some russian banks. And the "nuclear option" is to disallow Russia from using the SWIFT system. What are the chances that this conflict will completely change how trading is done between countries? Could the USA, Europe, South Korea etc simply "nullify" all Russian holdings of their currency? I guess it is just some numbers on computers the respective countries have control over?
- jmisavage 5y ago
  Kicking them out of SWIFT would hurt but China built an alternative system called CIPS. It’s nowhere near as big but it out there. But if China and Russia both used CIPS more then that would threaten the US dollar’s power as the global reserve currency.
  - TekMol 5y ago
    For trade between China and Russia, why wouldn't they just do it via Yuan and Rubel? What does a new system like CIPS bring to the table here?
    - newaccount2021 5y ago
      Because the strategic goal for China and Russia is to establish a stable, long-term alternative to US hegemony. The invasion of Ukraine is a demonstration of independent will.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    There is going to be nothing to stop China and the USSR from doing this for exactly that reason. At this point the only thing you can do is temporarily inconvenience them, since they’ll get off SWIFT as soon as possible anyway.
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    It would also sour China's trade relationships with the rest of the world. The US is China's biggest export market at $452 billion a year, with Russia trailing at just $50B a year. If China decided to ally with Russia - or help them get around the sanction - it would decimate China's economy as well: https://tradingeconomics.com/china/exports-by-country https://tradingeconomics.com/china/exports-by-country Russia is an economically weak state; it's not in China's interests to help them.
piokoch 5y ago
It is incredible how easy it is for Russia to spread their misinformation about their invasion on Ukraine without any bans or blockades, I have been reporting multiple times accounts that were clearly created by trolls to spread FUD and none of them "was breaking community standards". On the other hand perfectly factual posts are regularly deleted from groups that track situation on Ukraine and do this in a honest way without pro-soviet bias, e.g the posts from Polish Obrona Pro (Defence Pro) Facebook group are deleted randomly, users are threaten to be banned without any explanation, except "blah, blah community standards". From what I see all those "algorithms" and "AI" and "moderators" that are supposed to filter out spam are very easy to game by the party with sufficient resources.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  What community are you talking about - Patreon? In general, social networks should not be in the business of filtering fake news.
  - TehCorwiz 5y ago
    And blood shouldn’t be involved in filtering out bacteria and viruses.
- WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
  > and none of them "was breaking community standards". That should be very saying about just what kind of a shitty community that is.
baybal2 5y ago
- herbst 5y ago
  Maybe not bring real life threating into this?
  - morelisp 5y ago
    Someone tell Putin, I guess.
kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
If their policy is to not allow funding for military stuff, I don't really see the issue?
- piokoch 5y ago
  Yeah, you are right, Ukrainians want to purchase those weapon just for fun...
  - alecbz 5y ago
    They meant they don't see the issue with the ban.
- greggh 5y ago
  If their policy banned this sort of activity and they cared at all, they would have removed this page 7 years ago, it's been up for 7 years. This isn't about their policy. The timing is everything.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    Agreed
piokoch 5y ago
If anyone wants to support Ukraine defense directly, please use: https://ukraine.ua/news/support-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/ https://ukraine.ua/news/support-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/ or https://ukraine.ua/news/donate-to-the-nbu-fund/ https://ukraine.ua/news/donate-to-the-nbu-fund/ this is a bit of a hassle, as UA government agencies can accept donations only through wire transfers, but that's just a few clicks in the banking app anyway.
- praptak 5y ago
  Anybody can confirm whether ukraine.ua is legit? Their SSL certificate is issued to sni.cloudflaressl.com, which says nothing about whoever owns ukraine.ua. I'd say this one looks a bit more legit: https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-vidkriv-spetsrahunok-dlya-zboru-koshtiv-na-potrebi-armiyi https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-vidkriv-sp...
  - crtasm 5y ago
    FWIW, https://ukraine.ua/ https://ukraine.ua/ is linked from https://mfa.gov.ua/ https://mfa.gov.ua/ ("Офіційний сайт України" in the footer)
    - app4soft 5y ago
      Correct. Site https://ukraine.ua/ https://ukraine.ua/ is official Ukraine promotion platform, created & managed by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. Site https://mfa.gov.ua/ https://mfa.gov.ua/ is official site of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. Here some other related official links (due to Ukrainian gov sites are DDoS'ed periodically): - https://twitter.com/MFA_Ukraine https://twitter.com/MFA_Ukraine (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine) - https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba (Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine) - https://twitter.com/DefenceU https://twitter.com/DefenceU (Ministry of Defense of Ukraine)
  - exikyut 5y ago
    Googling the IBAN (UA458201720313281002302018611) finds search results [1] from sites including treasury.gov.ua [2], mil.gov.ua [3] and 24tv.ua [4]. I currently see only 23 results for the IBAN code, but I blame this on the newness/novelty of the information and a suspicion that Google's keyword indexing engine doesn't particularly like rare/unique terms (both when parsing queries and tokenizing page content). Googling the USREOU [4] code (00034022) leads me to discover [5] that this code maps into an open-data public register that several search/scrape services [6,7,8,9,10] identify (with the help of Google Translate) as the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. A cursory examination suggests that all of these services seem to 100% corroborate each other. The MFI (820172) is a very simple/common query/construction that returns junk/irrelevant results without further context. I wondered if this number being incorrect would cause a transaction to irreversibly "commit" but not go to the correct destination (or anywhere), so I tried to understand its significance. It's a Monetary Financial Institution code [11], part of a European banking standard that Ukraine participated in until it very recently switched to IBAN in 2020 (!) [12]. Critically, while the format of an IBAN (International Bank Account Number) seems (my speculation!) to be up to the implementer to format (seemingly within some loose guidelines... again, speculation), the way Ukraine is doing it is they are embedding the MFI code into the IBAN: UA45𝟴𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟳𝟮313…. Thus the MFI is provided by the MOD likely for bureaucracy purposes, and if it is needed at all it is encoded redundantly into the IBAN in any case. Yay. **Disclaimer**: I encourage challenging and fact-checking the rationale presented here before proceeding. (The registry information [6..10] is honestly mildly interesting.) Thankyou for coming to my Wikipedia comment (this was fun!), dodge the citations as you go past :P [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=UA458201720313281002302018611 https://www.google.com/search?q=UA45820172031328100230201861... [2] https://www.treasury.gov.ua/ua/dopomoga-na-materialno-tehnichne-ta-medichne-zabezpechennya-zbrojnih-sil-ukrayini https://www.treasury.gov.ua/ua/dopomoga-na-materialno-tehnic... [3] https://www.mil.gov.ua/dopomoga-na-materialno-tehnichne-ta-medichne-zabezpechennya-zbrojnih-sil-ukraini.html https://www.mil.gov.ua/dopomoga-na-materialno-tehnichne-ta-m... [4] https://24tv.ua/ru/finansovo-podderzhat-ukrainskuju-armiju-oficialnye-scheta_n1877181 https://24tv.ua/ru/finansovo-podderzhat-ukrainskuju-armiju-o..., https://24tv.ua/mzs-otrimalo-bagato-zvernen-za-kordonu-shhodo-finansovoyi-dopomogti_n1877055 https://24tv.ua/mzs-otrimalo-bagato-zvernen-za-kordonu-shhod... [4] https://www.allacronyms.com/USREOU https://www.allacronyms.com/USREOU - "Unified State Register of Enterprises and Organizations of Ukraine" [5] https://www.google.com/search?q=00034022 https://www.google.com/search?q=00034022 [6] https://youcontrol.com.ua/en/catalog/company_details/00034022/ https://youcontrol.com.ua/en/catalog/company_details/0003402... [7] https://opendatabot.ua/c/00034022 https://opendatabot.ua/c/00034022 [8] https://dozorro.org/profile/UA-EDR-00034022/5/role1 https://dozorro.org/profile/UA-EDR-00034022/5/role1 [9] https://clarity-project.info/tenderer/00034022 https://clarity-project.info/tenderer/00034022 [10] https://izi.trade/tenders/companies/00034022 https://izi.trade/tenders/companies/00034022 [11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_Financial_Institutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_Financial_Institution... [12] https://about.pumb.ua/en/info/iban https://about.pumb.ua/en/info/iban [13] https://bank.com.ua/en/news/zaprovadzhennya-mizhnarodnogo-nomera-bankivskogo-rahunku-iban https://bank.com.ua/en/news/zaprovadzhennya-mizhnarodnogo-no... [14] https://www.iban.com/banks/privatbank https://www.iban.com/banks/privatbank [15] https://en.privatbank.ua/iban https://en.privatbank.ua/iban
tomerv 5y ago
Direct link to Patreon's statement: https://blog.patreon.com/on-the-removal-of-come-back-alive https://blog.patreon.com/on-the-removal-of-come-back-alive
- cebert 5y ago
  I’m so disappointed with their stance here. Russians are slaughtered these folks and they can’t get funds to defend themselves? Sickening.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - breakfastduck 5y ago
    While I wouldn't have stopped this myself, I think its perfectly reasonable for a crowdfunding website to not want to host campaigns used to purchase military grade weaponry.
    - redwood 5y ago
      Freedom. What is being defended here is the right to have a website like this at all. The west has a long way to go to wake up to what's at stake here.
      - newaccount2021 5y ago
      - nojonestownpls 5y ago
      - gruez 5y ago
        Patreon isn't against "freedom" and they most certainly know what's at stake here. What they're against is having to decide whether a cause is just or not. After all, one side's "freedom fighter" is another side's terrorist. In this case it might be pretty obvious, but they don't want to get in the habit of having to make calls, because there are far more cases that are less clear cut.
AussieWog93 5y ago
"It is a violation of our policies, and so we have removed the page." What a shit fucking response. Following a policy that you arbitrarily created yourself is not a reasonable justification for anything.
- username3 5y ago
  “We don’t allow Patreon to be used for funding weapons or military activity. It is a violation of our policies, and so we have removed the page. All remaining funds in the account will be refunded to contributors.”
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  While I wouldn't have stopped this myself, I think its perfectly reasonable for a crowdfunding website to not want to host campaigns used to purchase military grade weaponry.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    That's fine, and they're within their rights to have this policy in place, but it doesn't change the fact that they've completely fucked over the volunteers in their hour of need. "It's a violation of our policies" doesn't magically clear their conscience. It's just another way of saying "because we can". Companies do this all the time and I have no idea why we accept it.
    - breakfastduck 5y ago
      Because a private company is perfectly entitled to NOT want their platform to be used to fund weapons. That isn't unusual and it absolutely IS perfectly acceptable. What's the alternative exactly? Propose legislation to force websites to allow arms sales? Give me a break.
- bell-cot 5y ago
  Would you be satisfied if they just came out and said "Patreon is a small financial services company. Not black-ops mercenary outfit. Not a powerful nation state. If you expect us to face down powerful nation states on your behalf, we suggest that you sign up HERE to fight on the front lines in Ukraine yourself." ?
mickael-kerjean 5y ago
Russian visitors of my foss project (https://www.filestash.app/ https://www.filestash.app/) now see the message of peace address to them by president Zelenskyy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fwzb_JX7u04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fwzb_JX7u04
- hurflmurfl 5y ago
  Just to let you know, there's no message, and I'm visiting from a Russian IP. Disabling uBlock Origin doesn't make it show up either.
  - mickael-kerjean 5y ago
    it shows the video if /ru/.test(navigator.language)
    - orbital-decay 5y ago
      This method is super inaccurate, since visitors from many countries (including Ukraine) could use Russian as their preferred language. You might probably want to use IP geolocation instead.
      - capableweb 5y ago
        No method is perfect, obviously. But in this case you probably want to use a bunch of heuristics, placing them in a OR statement would probably get you as close as possible. - Check preferred language (won't work for Russians who prefer English, and will show for non-Russians who prefer Russians) - Check where IP is coming from (won't work for Russians on the border if public node is on other side of bordering-countries, won't work for Russians who use VPNs) - Check preferred locale (won't work for Russians who has a different preferred locale, will show for non-Russians who use Russian locale) - Finally, ask the user where they are from (worse UX, won't work for people who are lying) Using all of them gets you pretty close to "perfect" but again, nothing is 100% perfect.
syshum 5y ago
Good to know Patreon comes out against the idea of Self defense. I wonder how far that extends.
basisword 5y ago
Seems sensible. Private companies shouldn't be funding wars, particularly wars overseas from where they are based. The Ukrainian's need help but this should be coming from government's, not private citizens through a private foreign company. I feel like this shouldn't be controversial at all.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  > The Ukrainian's need help but this should be coming from government's, not private citizens through a private foreign company. If you set yourself up as a payment gateway people will use you as a payment gateway. And what private citizens do with their money is up to them.
  - croes 5y ago
    And what private companies allow is up to them.
  - rswail 5y ago
    Patreon is not a "payment gateway", it's a mechanism for people to support creative activities, as the original term "patron of the arts" means. Funding military weapons steps on some very complicated lines about what people are allowed to spend their money on. So saying "what private citizens do with their money is up to them." is only true as far as the law says.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Sure, but Patreon was just fine with this until two weeks ago. They should either work on their acceptance criteria or admit that they are in fact a money transmitter. They very selectively enforce this and that is why it makes them look bad because right now is the worst possible time to close this account.
  - basisword 5y ago
    > If you set yourself up as a payment gateway people will use you as a payment gateway. They're not a payment gateway for everything and anything. They can choose what activity they don't want to facilitate and they have. > And what private citizens do with their money is up to them. It's not. There are numerous restrictions on what private citizens can do with their money.
pettycashstash2 5y ago
A funding mechanism should be set up for refugees fleeing Ukraine. Jen Psaki announced US is coordinating with Poland to accept refugees who want to relocate to US.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  There are already plenty of refugees in Eastern Poland today.
  - pettycashstash2 5y ago
    And whatever help/ assistance they need should be provided.
cloverich 5y ago
Does Patreon have ties to Russia that are relevant here, or is this purely a principled move based on their terms?
- ejb999 5y ago
  principled move? Which principles were they following? the principles that made it OK for 8 years, or the principles were they decided to side with Russia's agressions once the real invasion started.
  - pokot0 5y ago
    I guess the principle is "it's bad for business". Every corp prioritizes business by design, it's irrational to expect ethical behavior (unless it's good for business).
  - cloverich 5y ago
    Not implying a moral judgement in my question, I just noticed a lot of other comments jump directly into the discussion suggested by your statement without ever qualifying whether Patreon has political pressure (whether intrinsic or extrinsic) that would influence their decision one way or the other. I think it adds important nuance / clarification to the situation.
    - ejb999 5y ago
      but if political pressure lead them to their decision, it wasn't really a principled decision was it? It was a decision of convenience. A principled decision is one you make regardless of outside pressures - i.e. you stick by your principles; clearly patreon has no principles in play here. If it was wrong to allow donations, it was wrong since 8 years ago as they happily collected their commissions on donations.
      - cloverich 5y ago
        > but if political pressure lead them to their decision, it wasn't really a principled decision was it? Yes that is the point of my inquiry :)
jensgk 5y ago
"We don’t allow Patreon to be used for funding weapons or military activity." What is this then? https://www.patreon.com/search?q=guns https://www.patreon.com/search?q=guns
- typeofhuman 5y ago
  None of those are fundraising for weapons or military activity. They all seem to be videos or blogging fundraisers.
  - bpolovko 5y ago
    Oh, yeah! They definitely use that money only to pay for internet bills
    - koonsolo 5y ago
      Patreon money goes into their left pocket. When they buy guns, they pay with their right pocket. Internet bills are indeed paid with their left pocket ;).
      - mysterydip 5y ago
        "different colors of money" as the government says
      - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
        Pocket to pocket gas fees are getting totally out of hand.
    - alexb_ 5y ago
      I mean, this is like saying that anyone who makes an income on Patreon can't buy guns with said income...
    - typeofhuman 5y ago
      This screenshot of Come Back Alive's[0] listing made it clear the fundraiser was for actual munitions. Perhaps they should have obfuscated what their intentions were. [0] https://bit.ly/3McywUi https://bit.ly/3McywUi
piokoch 5y ago
Twitter has just blocked https://twitter.com/OSINT_Ukraine https://twitter.com/OSINT_Ukraine account. Good job Twitter, congratulation, Mr. Putin certainly approves your support.
- ejb999 5y ago
  yep, and yet they (and facebook and instagram) continue to allow Russia to push 'their side of the story' without restrictions.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  Youtube banning people and channels that support Ukraine or watch live streams from Kiev. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30467384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30467384
- dijonman2 5y ago
  Is there a backup somewhere?
lawn 5y ago
If this upsets you, and you wonder what an alternative could look like, then you've rediscovered cryptocurrencies.
- ur-whale 5y ago
  > you've rediscovered cryptocurrencies. You are correct, but your timing for bashing people on the head with the truth is terrible, hence the downvotes.
sebow 5y ago
Not surprising.Most of the westerners in the corporate world(especially on the far left end of the spectrum) and people near that sphere of influence are fetishists of either the russian regime or the russian way of doing business.They talk about 'dangerous' people as being pro-russian because it's easier to de-legitimize people this way: the "russian bad" rhetoric is long-known since the atomic period of propaganda.And the same goes for other demographics and ideologies(conservative?->nazi; etc.): the problem with this approach is that when russians ,other such groups, or actual nazis are actually doing something bad, the people (western masses) are already insensitive to the same rhetoric and thus won't give a crap, that's why i stated at the beginning that such authoritative voices, often media(i.e. MSM) are closet russian sympathizers.This is and could somewhat further be fixed with social networks that are not censorious, and we've already seen such tendencies of people informing themselves from multiple channels and creating their own opinions, but the issue still exists. And to fully acknowledge the situation:the right makes the opposite mistake aswell: they confuse neocon and post-modernist american imperialism greed, such as the Middle East situation, with a military alliance(NATO) that's talked about purely in a defensive manner here.NATO does not and will not invade Russia because that's not the intended goal.This is why eastern europeans liked Trump more than Biden, because we remembered the Clintonian geopolitics. Same happened/happens in Canada: normal people are declined the opportunity of a help-hand on the pretext of "terrorism" as similar talking points.
- mtmail 5y ago
  I fail to see the connection to the Patreon situation in the reply. You're saying western leftist corporations are fetishists of the Russian regime? The reply ends with Trump/Biden/Clinton, then make a turn to mention Canada.
  - sebow 5y ago
    The connection is that lately(well actually since around 2017), when Patreon/other claim to stop supremacists/russian trolls/bots/"dangerous groups" it's mostly a smoke screen and based on nothing than ideologically-based censorship, or due to certain people being tied to russia. To give a little bit more context,when the western "anti-russian" folks (often left wing but not necessarily, there's some nuance here) talk about stopping russians but don't see the hypocrisy when they censor specifically people who are not pro-russian at all, but due to being labeled as such by the MSM, end up in the crosshairs when legitimate good-will gestures are being made.This is precisely why I also shortly mentioned the Canada situation, though arguably that's even worse because we're not talking about violent conflicts, and donations from US to CA are not "foreign meddling". You might say: why does this bother you? Well, because for non-american citizens it actually makes it really harder to be pro-liberty and stand by US.Many people look up to US as a good reference of the struggle for liberty and freedom.And some can even tolerate US warmongering, but labeling pro-western (which is what most of UA is right now) foreigners wrongfully is really shitty, and the benefiting entities from this are mainly pro-war, western/eastern military industrial complexes.
Sosh101 5y ago
Here's a couple of other options (please verify yourself): https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/ https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/ https://ukraine.ua/news/support-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/ https://ukraine.ua/news/support-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/
ur-whale 5y ago
The charity states they'll use the funds for military training ... And the real question is: what would you do if you were Patreon management right now?
- koonsolo 5y ago
  I would support Ukraine in any way possible.
- alfl 5y ago
  Match the donations.
DaniloDias 5y ago
Geee 5y ago
You can use bank transfers and Bitcoin to donate directly, see this page: https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/ https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/ It seems that bitcoin donations are pouring in (over $4 million already). You can watch the bitcoin address here: https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/bc1qkd5az2ml7dk5j5h672yhxmhmxe9tuf97j39fm6 https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/bc1qkd5az2ml7dk5j5...
- danuker 5y ago
  Hopefully they have good security around the private key.
- capableweb 5y ago
  While they are in fact receiving lots of BTC, one transaction sticks out (80 BTC, 2022-02-25 09:55:18 [3,067,846.41 USD]), I wonder who has that much BTC to give away like that. It is impressive, but raises a lot of questions.
  - sam0x17 5y ago
    Not really. There are plenty of low-profile high-net-worth miners with that much. I used to hang out in the cex.io chatroom back in 2014 and there were fat cat miners in there who would say "watch this" and then the price would quickly go down by several percentage points because their entire mining pool just sold. It seems quite plausible at least to me that one of these networks might decide to donate a large amount all at once.
    - nurettin 5y ago
      This is really cool to read, but trading volume of btc went from 20M when it was 3 years old to 170M over the years, so that happens a lot less frequently.
      - sam0x17 5y ago
        These days, many of these same individuals are literally buying plane-loads of chips fresh off the assembly lines in China, and have significantly scaled up their operations with their previous gains, so I wouldn't count it out.
jkaljundi 5y ago
Absolutely shameful.
emptysongglass 5y ago
My wife and I have both deleted our Patreon accounts in protest. As far as I'm concerned, Patreon is directly blocking aid to a country defending itself from a pathological aggressor.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
keymone 5y ago
- belter 5y ago
  The same Bitcoin will be used by Russia to avoid sanctions.
  - keymone 5y ago
    Let them. Bitcoin is about freedom.
    - user-the-name 5y ago
      "Bitcoin is about freedom", you say as a response to Bitcoin being used to fund an invasion? How do you not see the absurdity of this claim?
      - keymone 5y ago
      - b112 5y ago
        You seem confused about freedom, and seem to think it means freedom to only do the things you want done. Freedom does not mean people, or countries, must do what one deems right or wrong. That is the reality of no restrictions on a thing. As an aside, maybe, fighting a physical invasion with harsh words, wagging fingers, and paper thin "we won't talk to you any more" restrictions isn't the answer? It's never worked before. It only hurts innocent civilians in the end. Dictators and tyrants, sadly, will only stop when you use force.
        b112 5y ago
        I see downvotes, but history is an excellent predictor. Russia is held in an iron grip. The public can not, and will not successfully rise up. Any threat to Putin is either dead, or jailed. Now, with these restrictions and sanctions, another country, a long time friend of Russia, China, also undergoing trade restrictions, will clearly work with Russia even more closely. Do people really think that China and Russia do not have the resources, and industry, to not care about sanctions?! And again historically, when chaos reigns, people take advantage of opportunities. I fully expect China to finally take Taiwan very soon. Literally, this is the best time for them to do so. Ukraine is just the match, people. The real flames are not even visible yet.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
karlkloss 5y ago
There's a big risk that everything you send to them will be stolen by Russia, and helps them to circumvent the sanctions. The same goes for any weapons any country sends there.
forgingahead 5y ago
Actual link: https://blog.patreon.com/on-the-removal-of-come-back-alive https://blog.patreon.com/on-the-removal-of-come-back-alive
monkeynotes 5y ago
Crowd sourced wars; we are living in a world a previous generation would hold up as a dark dystopia.
- tokai 5y ago
  What? Wars have been crowd sourced since forever. Crusades, worlds wars, and so on.
- danuker 5y ago
  Isn't state funding also crowd-sourcing? Except by force?
  - alecbz 5y ago
    I don't think you can really consider it crowd-funding unless people are individually choosing to contribute to the specific cause.
    - monkeynotes 5y ago
      Yeah, otherwise we may as well call all types of wealth collection "crowd sourcing". I think saying this is the same as crusades and liberty bonds is founding your observation on pedantry.
- sofixa 5y ago
  You should look up on the Crusades, liberty bonds, donation runs of metals from the population, etc. There's nothing dystopian about people donating for a military cause.
  - monkeynotes 5y ago
    I see significant differences between now and a time before the whole world was wired together. Being able to sit at your desk and casually click fund a war that you are watching in real-time on Twitter and cheering on with memes on Reddit is dystopian in my mind. I see crowdsourcing as being a distinctly modern phenomena enabled by the internet. I don't see it as being the same as historical methods of collecting monies from the populace. Are taxes often referred to as 'crowdsource'? No, and that's because there is a nuance.
shmageggy 5y ago
Can someone with knowledge of these things clarify the ramifications for their business if they were to allow something like this on their platform? I'd imagine it would have significant regulatory and legal implications. Which of course sounds mild compared to the ramifications to the lives of those affected, but I'm wondering if it would be a business-killing move for some legal reason. To me, the wildest thing here is not that they enforced their policy, but that a site that started as a means for YouTube musicians to get paid has now become a player in international politics and warfare.
- nemo44x 5y ago
  They could be accused of funding terrorisim. For instance, imagine a radical fringe group the far left of the West falls in love with takes up arms against a group of people they believe is unjustly occupying their land. So the Western far left group uses Patreon to raise funds so this group can buy military grade weapons to use against their occupiers. Congrats, you just funded Hammas.
- charcircuit 5y ago
  >Can someone with knowledge of these things clarify the ramifications for their business if they were to allow something like this on their platform? Worst case (ignoring the legal side of things) their payment processors stop working with them and Patreon needs to find new payment processors that allow for more high risk transactions. To avoid paying the higher processing fees Patreon would want to find a way to use payment processors who are okay with these higher risk transacions to only be used on these higher risk patreons.
intunderflow 5y ago
If you want to fund guns for Ukraine to fight back, you can donate directly to the Ministry of Defense here: https://ukraine.ua/news/support-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/ https://ukraine.ua/news/support-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/
ziml77 5y ago
This title seems designed to cause outrage. In their post, it's very clear why they couldn't allow the account to remain active: "The website of the organization says they use contributions to finance and train military personnel." Individuals should not be funding foreign militaries. It does not matter if the country was unjustly attacked or not.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  How so? There is preciously little else you can do to feel like you may make a difference. Not that I believe donating here would have helped, but…
  - halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
    You don't have to donate directly to the military. You can donate to any relief organizations, independent journalists covering the war, etc. There's a lot on the periphery that need donations as well.
    - ziml77 5y ago
      Yep! I'm not against people donating to other organizations that are helping out. In fact I hope that people do help out that way!
  - graphpercolator 5y ago
yalogin 5y ago
I know emotions are running high in this thread but asking to educate myself. Ukraine is not a tiny nation, and Russia is huge. In that scenario how will a small assortment of weapons and software even help them? Do they even need weapons help? Also how can a charity buy that list and supply? Can an organization buy them, feels like that kind of a purchase should be restricted to countries only.
- decafninja 5y ago
  I am very much rooting for Ukraine, but at the same time feel there is little anyone short of another peer superpower can do to stop the Russian juggernaut from doing what Putin wants.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dgellow 5y ago
  Russia can destroy and invade the country. But occupying a place as huge as Ukraine will be hard. Even with a small set of weapons and fighters defending the territory you can make the place way more difficult to control than it would be otherwise.
  - User23 5y ago
    I expect they’ll have a pretty easy time in the places dominated by ethnic Russians who welcome Russian rule. I further expect they’ll have a considerably harder time in the non-Russian areas.
  - cafard 5y ago
    The USSR brought Ukraine under control after WW II.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  > Ukraine is not a tiny nation, and Russia is huge. The US, the most well-funded army in the world for the past generation, hasn't won a war since the end of WW2. Army size and the like does not matter. The Ukranian forces can entrench themselves and maintain a guerilla war for a long time, as long as they have supplies. I strongly feel like wars are unwinnable. It either ends up in a stalemate and attrition - see the US trying to do a thing in the middle east for two decades only for things to go back the second they leave - or MAD. And the last one hasn't and will hopefully never happen.
hartator 5y ago
> For those still looking to help, Ukrainian journalists have recommended several charities Why journalists should be deciding where funds should go?
practice9 5y ago
Considering that they use funds only (mostly) to buy defence stuff and to support the recovery of the veterans (there will be many with PTSD and injuries after this war), Patreon is in a morally wrong territory here. Like other posters said there are several other ways to support this fund (crypto / wire transfer) or Ukrainian army directly (wire transfer). With crypto there is an almost 100% chance the money transfer will go through. Not sure about banks, haven't heard anything about wire transfers not going through
- gruez 5y ago
  >Considering that they use funds only (mostly) to buy defence stuff can you clarify on what "defence stuff" means? Is there any meaningful difference between a rocket launcher used for "defense" and a rocket launcher that's not used for "defense"? Or are they only buying stuff like sandbags?
james_burden 5y ago
Patreon should have insisted the Ukrainian guerrillas bear their insignia, really bring this war into the 21st century.
moron4hire 5y ago
Personal donations to a foreign nation-state for the purposes of building and supporting military operations is not the cyberpunk plotline I expected to come out of 2022.
fallingfrog 5y ago
This was the right move to make- it's hard to verify whether the money is going to, for example, neo-fascist paramilitary groups, which are rampant in western Ukraine at the moment. I personally think that donating to groups providing aid and medical care to civilians and refugees -the red cross and so forth- is a much more effective way to help actual suffering people. Adding more weapons to an ongoing conflict is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do in a helpful way, even with the best of intentions, as the history of western intervention in foreign conflicts has vividly demonstrated. You think that the CIA can't seem to do it, despite decades of attempts and the best intelligence apparatus in the world- but you can? They gave guns to the Taliban, to Saddam Hussein, and on and on- how did that turn out? Do you really know who you're giving guns to? And after the conflict is over, the guns don't go away- they just change hands, and what will they be used for then? It's kind of dismaying to see how many people here have still not learned this lesson. Patreon did the right thing. They are the adults in the room.
tablespoon 5y ago
> We are shocked and heartbroken at the invasion of Ukraine. Like so many around the world, we are watching this tragedy closely and wishing for the safety of the Ukrainian people in harm’s way. Their wishes aren't worth squat.
- w-j-w 5y ago
T3RMINATED 5y ago
[dead]
lykahb 5y ago
Patreon takes a cut of 5-12%. This is okay for the content distribution platforms, but it is outrageous for the charities. Donate directly to the Come Back Alive and the army https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-vidkriv-spetsrahunok-dlya-zboru-koshtiv-na-potrebi-armiyi https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-vidkriv-sp.... The last link lists the account numbers for many currencies.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
Patreon loves Trump. Trump loves Putin. Putin hates Ukraine => Patreon hates Ukraine.
michalhosna 5y ago
> If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

322 points by evvvvr 5y ago

Which is why I put through a request to have my Patreon account deleted today. Sorry to the channels that I supported, I'll try find a way to support you without using Patreon.

gubikmic 5y ago
Here's how to delete your account: https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/204605915-Delete-my-Patreon-account https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/204605915-Dele...

evvvvr 5y ago

Patreon blocked large Ukrainian army charity volunteers account https://savelife.in.ua/en/ https://savelife.in.ua/en/ It was probably the second largest on Patreon - getting more than a 200 000$ a month

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

not1ofU 5y ago

If anyone has a twitter account (I do not), would be worth mentioning in that thread, to those who are deleting their accounts, to also formally request to have their personal data removed, this would give them a massive pain in the balls (if they complied that is).

cdot2 5y ago

So essentially the problem is they're sticking to their "violence is bad" policy when in this specific situation violence is maybe not bad.

sam0x17 5y ago
No, they still allow all the gun-advocacy patreons and things like that. It's more because of regulations that make it harder to exist if your platform materially supports foreign war efforts. Cowardly stance, though.
colordrops 5y ago
Or maybe violence is still bad.
- tgv 5y ago
  It's self-defense. Or is that bad too?
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    We all know the final outcome of this. In the face of the overwhelming force Ukraine faces it seems to me any help we provide is just going to prolong the agony.
    - tgv 5y ago
      That's not a given. And dragging out the fight gives other forces a chance, too.
      - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
        What other forces? The West isn't going to intervene directly.
    - syshum 5y ago
      History of the world would be very different if people actually believed that.
    - drran 5y ago
      Ukraine sees the overwhelming force for 8 years straight.
      - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
        That didn't seem to be the case in Crimea.
    - brabel 5y ago
Dma54rhs 5y ago
Sebb767 5y ago
> when in this specific situation violence is maybe not bad. I'm pretty sure Russia would say the same thing if you ask them about their situation. That's the problem once you bring in subjectivity. That being said, tolerating the account for a few more days would've probably been a better play. EDIT: Just to be very clear, I'm not condoning Russian aggression in any way. My point is that not funding a war is an acceptable choice, since it's very easy to be wrong and a sure way to bring human suffering.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    Well, from their point of view, a military pact with the explicit goal of keeping them under control has first taken their land and is now threatening to get even closer to their border and encircle them. Just take a look at the Cuban missile crisis to see how the US reacted in a comparable situation and in that case, the distance from the missiles to the capital was a lot longer. For Russia, this is more like the missiles are already in Cuba and now Mexico is considering to join the Warsaw pact. Everyone thinks they're on the right side. Now, obviously I think we (as in EU+US) are the good guys here, but it's quite clear that a lot of people were both very convinced and very wrong about this and I don't consider us unfailable.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      > Everyone thinks they're on the right side. In this case that has been made pretty easy to see. Even large numbers of Russians agree with that. > Now, obviously I think we (as in EU+US) are the good guys here, but it's quite clear that a lot of people were both very convinced and very wrong about this and I don't consider us unfailable. Indeed. But this isn't the Cuban missile crisis (which was provoked by the USSR to begin with) and the Ukraine isn't anything like Cuba. Note that Cuba was - in spite of everything - never actually invaded with the intent to occupy, and it's not as if the US couldn't have done that if they had wanted to do so.
basisword 5y ago
This is called "sticking to your principles". It's a rare thing these days.
- cdot2 5y ago
  I have different principals than them
  - basisword 5y ago
    Good for you.
croes 5y ago
The problem is there will be situations where it is less clear if it's bad or not. Next step would be all kind of groups trying to get military funding.
- Y-bar 5y ago
  Why not cross that bridge when those less clear situations happen rather than throwing about the false neutrality principle[1] as a defense now? [1] Thinking about this https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/99574-we-must-take-sides-neutrality-helps-the-oppressor-never-the https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/99574-we-must-take-sides-ne...
  - croes 5y ago
    It's not about neutrality, it's about doing it the right way. In the end they only become a target of russia's cyber warfare. There are better channels and ways of helping without making a civilian platform a war target.
- user-the-name 5y ago
  That problem is a lot, lot smaller than the problem of people dying in Ukraine as they typed out that statement.
  - croes 5y ago
    Officially supported funding would make them a legitimate target in war.
    - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
      like how the US was supposed to send them $400 million in military aid? [0] Or the EU is sending them €1.2 billion? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_impeachment_of_Donald_Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_impeachment_of_Donald_Tr... [1] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022/02/21/council-adopts-1-2-billion-assistance-to-ukraine/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022...
lawn 5y ago
These black and white policies that discard nuance always run into these problems. Similar to how the "zero violence policies" in schools means they punish the bullied because they're defending themselves.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  No, they are hypocrites because there is plenty of violence related stuff funded through Patreon.
  - lawn 5y ago
    If you're been bullied then the school management behaves like hypocrites too.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Who would take up the role of morality police though? I mean would you still support it if the Ukranian military capture a Russian soldier and torture them? What if it's not the Ukranian military but IS? Or the US army, which is also guilty of war crimes [0]? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_Naval_Base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_Naval_Base
- cdot2 5y ago
  Are you arguing that we shouldn't support Ukraine?
- sam0x17 5y ago
  If that gives you moral pause you should perhaps stop paying U.S. taxes as a U.S. citizen and see where that gets you.

throwaway290 5y ago

You can also donate to entities like https://www.unhcr.org/ https://www.unhcr.org/. Could someone suggest other reputable options? Tangentially (as far as I can tell this doesn’t apply to the Patreon in this post), seeing social media scam profiting from the tragedy by tricking people into reposting shady donation links is disheartening.

pfortuny 5y ago
Well, I am sure Caritas Internationalis is there helping. https://www.caritas.org/where-caritas-work/europe/ukraine/ https://www.caritas.org/where-caritas-work/europe/ukraine/ (I have just made a donation).

ivanvas 5y ago

Related thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30465394 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30465394 In case you'd like to donate or share the financial help link: https://web.archive.org/web/20220224191725/https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220224191725/https://savelife.... (I'm using Wayback just in case Russian government hacks it, the original: https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/ https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/)

ivanvas 5y ago

Their comment is technically valid. The timing of the block is bad though. It'd be great if they could comment on the timing.

dotdi 5y ago
One twitter comment mentions the account has been active for several years. Call me paranoid, but it's too big of a coincidence that it was closed exactly today.
- dymk 5y ago
  The development of all out war probably had something to do with it
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    It's easy to have principles when there is no price.

TekMol 5y ago

The flow of money seems to be one major battleground in this war. The biggest sanctions so far are disallowing to exchange funds with some russian banks. And the "nuclear option" is to disallow Russia from using the SWIFT system. What are the chances that this conflict will completely change how trading is done between countries? Could the USA, Europe, South Korea etc simply "nullify" all Russian holdings of their currency? I guess it is just some numbers on computers the respective countries have control over?

jmisavage 5y ago
Kicking them out of SWIFT would hurt but China built an alternative system called CIPS. It’s nowhere near as big but it out there. But if China and Russia both used CIPS more then that would threaten the US dollar’s power as the global reserve currency.
- TekMol 5y ago
  For trade between China and Russia, why wouldn't they just do it via Yuan and Rubel? What does a new system like CIPS bring to the table here?
  - newaccount2021 5y ago
    Because the strategic goal for China and Russia is to establish a stable, long-term alternative to US hegemony. The invasion of Ukraine is a demonstration of independent will.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  There is going to be nothing to stop China and the USSR from doing this for exactly that reason. At this point the only thing you can do is temporarily inconvenience them, since they’ll get off SWIFT as soon as possible anyway.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  It would also sour China's trade relationships with the rest of the world. The US is China's biggest export market at $452 billion a year, with Russia trailing at just $50B a year. If China decided to ally with Russia - or help them get around the sanction - it would decimate China's economy as well: https://tradingeconomics.com/china/exports-by-country https://tradingeconomics.com/china/exports-by-country Russia is an economically weak state; it's not in China's interests to help them.

piokoch 5y ago

It is incredible how easy it is for Russia to spread their misinformation about their invasion on Ukraine without any bans or blockades, I have been reporting multiple times accounts that were clearly created by trolls to spread FUD and none of them "was breaking community standards". On the other hand perfectly factual posts are regularly deleted from groups that track situation on Ukraine and do this in a honest way without pro-soviet bias, e.g the posts from Polish Obrona Pro (Defence Pro) Facebook group are deleted randomly, users are threaten to be banned without any explanation, except "blah, blah community standards". From what I see all those "algorithms" and "AI" and "moderators" that are supposed to filter out spam are very easy to game by the party with sufficient resources.

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
What community are you talking about - Patreon? In general, social networks should not be in the business of filtering fake news.
- TehCorwiz 5y ago
  And blood shouldn’t be involved in filtering out bacteria and viruses.
WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
> and none of them "was breaking community standards". That should be very saying about just what kind of a shitty community that is.

baybal2 5y ago

herbst 5y ago
Maybe not bring real life threating into this?
- morelisp 5y ago
  Someone tell Putin, I guess.

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago

If their policy is to not allow funding for military stuff, I don't really see the issue?

piokoch 5y ago
Yeah, you are right, Ukrainians want to purchase those weapon just for fun...
- alecbz 5y ago
  They meant they don't see the issue with the ban.
greggh 5y ago
If their policy banned this sort of activity and they cared at all, they would have removed this page 7 years ago, it's been up for 7 years. This isn't about their policy. The timing is everything.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  Agreed

piokoch 5y ago

If anyone wants to support Ukraine defense directly, please use: https://ukraine.ua/news/support-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/ https://ukraine.ua/news/support-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/ or https://ukraine.ua/news/donate-to-the-nbu-fund/ https://ukraine.ua/news/donate-to-the-nbu-fund/ this is a bit of a hassle, as UA government agencies can accept donations only through wire transfers, but that's just a few clicks in the banking app anyway.

praptak 5y ago
Anybody can confirm whether ukraine.ua is legit? Their SSL certificate is issued to sni.cloudflaressl.com, which says nothing about whoever owns ukraine.ua. I'd say this one looks a bit more legit: https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-vidkriv-spetsrahunok-dlya-zboru-koshtiv-na-potrebi-armiyi https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-vidkriv-sp...
- crtasm 5y ago
  FWIW, https://ukraine.ua/ https://ukraine.ua/ is linked from https://mfa.gov.ua/ https://mfa.gov.ua/ ("Офіційний сайт України" in the footer)
  - app4soft 5y ago
    Correct. Site https://ukraine.ua/ https://ukraine.ua/ is official Ukraine promotion platform, created & managed by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. Site https://mfa.gov.ua/ https://mfa.gov.ua/ is official site of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. Here some other related official links (due to Ukrainian gov sites are DDoS'ed periodically): - https://twitter.com/MFA_Ukraine https://twitter.com/MFA_Ukraine (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine) - https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba (Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine) - https://twitter.com/DefenceU https://twitter.com/DefenceU (Ministry of Defense of Ukraine)
- exikyut 5y ago
  Googling the IBAN (UA458201720313281002302018611) finds search results [1] from sites including treasury.gov.ua [2], mil.gov.ua [3] and 24tv.ua [4]. I currently see only 23 results for the IBAN code, but I blame this on the newness/novelty of the information and a suspicion that Google's keyword indexing engine doesn't particularly like rare/unique terms (both when parsing queries and tokenizing page content). Googling the USREOU [4] code (00034022) leads me to discover [5] that this code maps into an open-data public register that several search/scrape services [6,7,8,9,10] identify (with the help of Google Translate) as the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. A cursory examination suggests that all of these services seem to 100% corroborate each other. The MFI (820172) is a very simple/common query/construction that returns junk/irrelevant results without further context. I wondered if this number being incorrect would cause a transaction to irreversibly "commit" but not go to the correct destination (or anywhere), so I tried to understand its significance. It's a Monetary Financial Institution code [11], part of a European banking standard that Ukraine participated in until it very recently switched to IBAN in 2020 (!) [12]. Critically, while the format of an IBAN (International Bank Account Number) seems (my speculation!) to be up to the implementer to format (seemingly within some loose guidelines... again, speculation), the way Ukraine is doing it is they are embedding the MFI code into the IBAN: UA45𝟴𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟳𝟮313…. Thus the MFI is provided by the MOD likely for bureaucracy purposes, and if it is needed at all it is encoded redundantly into the IBAN in any case. Yay. **Disclaimer**: I encourage challenging and fact-checking the rationale presented here before proceeding. (The registry information [6..10] is honestly mildly interesting.) Thankyou for coming to my Wikipedia comment (this was fun!), dodge the citations as you go past :P [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=UA458201720313281002302018611 https://www.google.com/search?q=UA45820172031328100230201861... [2] https://www.treasury.gov.ua/ua/dopomoga-na-materialno-tehnichne-ta-medichne-zabezpechennya-zbrojnih-sil-ukrayini https://www.treasury.gov.ua/ua/dopomoga-na-materialno-tehnic... [3] https://www.mil.gov.ua/dopomoga-na-materialno-tehnichne-ta-medichne-zabezpechennya-zbrojnih-sil-ukraini.html https://www.mil.gov.ua/dopomoga-na-materialno-tehnichne-ta-m... [4] https://24tv.ua/ru/finansovo-podderzhat-ukrainskuju-armiju-oficialnye-scheta_n1877181 https://24tv.ua/ru/finansovo-podderzhat-ukrainskuju-armiju-o..., https://24tv.ua/mzs-otrimalo-bagato-zvernen-za-kordonu-shhodo-finansovoyi-dopomogti_n1877055 https://24tv.ua/mzs-otrimalo-bagato-zvernen-za-kordonu-shhod... [4] https://www.allacronyms.com/USREOU https://www.allacronyms.com/USREOU - "Unified State Register of Enterprises and Organizations of Ukraine" [5] https://www.google.com/search?q=00034022 https://www.google.com/search?q=00034022 [6] https://youcontrol.com.ua/en/catalog/company_details/00034022/ https://youcontrol.com.ua/en/catalog/company_details/0003402... [7] https://opendatabot.ua/c/00034022 https://opendatabot.ua/c/00034022 [8] https://dozorro.org/profile/UA-EDR-00034022/5/role1 https://dozorro.org/profile/UA-EDR-00034022/5/role1 [9] https://clarity-project.info/tenderer/00034022 https://clarity-project.info/tenderer/00034022 [10] https://izi.trade/tenders/companies/00034022 https://izi.trade/tenders/companies/00034022 [11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_Financial_Institutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_Financial_Institution... [12] https://about.pumb.ua/en/info/iban https://about.pumb.ua/en/info/iban [13] https://bank.com.ua/en/news/zaprovadzhennya-mizhnarodnogo-nomera-bankivskogo-rahunku-iban https://bank.com.ua/en/news/zaprovadzhennya-mizhnarodnogo-no... [14] https://www.iban.com/banks/privatbank https://www.iban.com/banks/privatbank [15] https://en.privatbank.ua/iban https://en.privatbank.ua/iban

tomerv 5y ago

Direct link to Patreon's statement: https://blog.patreon.com/on-the-removal-of-come-back-alive https://blog.patreon.com/on-the-removal-of-come-back-alive

cebert 5y ago
I’m so disappointed with their stance here. Russians are slaughtered these folks and they can’t get funds to defend themselves? Sickening.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  While I wouldn't have stopped this myself, I think its perfectly reasonable for a crowdfunding website to not want to host campaigns used to purchase military grade weaponry.
  - redwood 5y ago
    Freedom. What is being defended here is the right to have a website like this at all. The west has a long way to go to wake up to what's at stake here.
    - newaccount2021 5y ago
    - nojonestownpls 5y ago
    - gruez 5y ago
      Patreon isn't against "freedom" and they most certainly know what's at stake here. What they're against is having to decide whether a cause is just or not. After all, one side's "freedom fighter" is another side's terrorist. In this case it might be pretty obvious, but they don't want to get in the habit of having to make calls, because there are far more cases that are less clear cut.

AussieWog93 5y ago

"It is a violation of our policies, and so we have removed the page." What a shit fucking response. Following a policy that you arbitrarily created yourself is not a reasonable justification for anything.

username3 5y ago
“We don’t allow Patreon to be used for funding weapons or military activity. It is a violation of our policies, and so we have removed the page. All remaining funds in the account will be refunded to contributors.”
breakfastduck 5y ago
While I wouldn't have stopped this myself, I think its perfectly reasonable for a crowdfunding website to not want to host campaigns used to purchase military grade weaponry.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  That's fine, and they're within their rights to have this policy in place, but it doesn't change the fact that they've completely fucked over the volunteers in their hour of need. "It's a violation of our policies" doesn't magically clear their conscience. It's just another way of saying "because we can". Companies do this all the time and I have no idea why we accept it.
  - breakfastduck 5y ago
    Because a private company is perfectly entitled to NOT want their platform to be used to fund weapons. That isn't unusual and it absolutely IS perfectly acceptable. What's the alternative exactly? Propose legislation to force websites to allow arms sales? Give me a break.
bell-cot 5y ago
Would you be satisfied if they just came out and said "Patreon is a small financial services company. Not black-ops mercenary outfit. Not a powerful nation state. If you expect us to face down powerful nation states on your behalf, we suggest that you sign up HERE to fight on the front lines in Ukraine yourself." ?

mickael-kerjean 5y ago

Russian visitors of my foss project (https://www.filestash.app/ https://www.filestash.app/) now see the message of peace address to them by president Zelenskyy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fwzb_JX7u04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fwzb_JX7u04

hurflmurfl 5y ago
Just to let you know, there's no message, and I'm visiting from a Russian IP. Disabling uBlock Origin doesn't make it show up either.
- mickael-kerjean 5y ago
  it shows the video if /ru/.test(navigator.language)
  - orbital-decay 5y ago
    This method is super inaccurate, since visitors from many countries (including Ukraine) could use Russian as their preferred language. You might probably want to use IP geolocation instead.
    - capableweb 5y ago
      No method is perfect, obviously. But in this case you probably want to use a bunch of heuristics, placing them in a OR statement would probably get you as close as possible. - Check preferred language (won't work for Russians who prefer English, and will show for non-Russians who prefer Russians) - Check where IP is coming from (won't work for Russians on the border if public node is on other side of bordering-countries, won't work for Russians who use VPNs) - Check preferred locale (won't work for Russians who has a different preferred locale, will show for non-Russians who use Russian locale) - Finally, ask the user where they are from (worse UX, won't work for people who are lying) Using all of them gets you pretty close to "perfect" but again, nothing is 100% perfect.

syshum 5y ago

Good to know Patreon comes out against the idea of Self defense. I wonder how far that extends.

basisword 5y ago

Seems sensible. Private companies shouldn't be funding wars, particularly wars overseas from where they are based. The Ukrainian's need help but this should be coming from government's, not private citizens through a private foreign company. I feel like this shouldn't be controversial at all.

jacquesm 5y ago
> The Ukrainian's need help but this should be coming from government's, not private citizens through a private foreign company. If you set yourself up as a payment gateway people will use you as a payment gateway. And what private citizens do with their money is up to them.
- croes 5y ago
  And what private companies allow is up to them.
- rswail 5y ago
  Patreon is not a "payment gateway", it's a mechanism for people to support creative activities, as the original term "patron of the arts" means. Funding military weapons steps on some very complicated lines about what people are allowed to spend their money on. So saying "what private citizens do with their money is up to them." is only true as far as the law says.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Sure, but Patreon was just fine with this until two weeks ago. They should either work on their acceptance criteria or admit that they are in fact a money transmitter. They very selectively enforce this and that is why it makes them look bad because right now is the worst possible time to close this account.
- basisword 5y ago
  > If you set yourself up as a payment gateway people will use you as a payment gateway. They're not a payment gateway for everything and anything. They can choose what activity they don't want to facilitate and they have. > And what private citizens do with their money is up to them. It's not. There are numerous restrictions on what private citizens can do with their money.

pettycashstash2 5y ago

A funding mechanism should be set up for refugees fleeing Ukraine. Jen Psaki announced US is coordinating with Poland to accept refugees who want to relocate to US.

jacquesm 5y ago
There are already plenty of refugees in Eastern Poland today.
- pettycashstash2 5y ago
  And whatever help/ assistance they need should be provided.

cloverich 5y ago

Does Patreon have ties to Russia that are relevant here, or is this purely a principled move based on their terms?

ejb999 5y ago
principled move? Which principles were they following? the principles that made it OK for 8 years, or the principles were they decided to side with Russia's agressions once the real invasion started.
- pokot0 5y ago
  I guess the principle is "it's bad for business". Every corp prioritizes business by design, it's irrational to expect ethical behavior (unless it's good for business).
- cloverich 5y ago
  Not implying a moral judgement in my question, I just noticed a lot of other comments jump directly into the discussion suggested by your statement without ever qualifying whether Patreon has political pressure (whether intrinsic or extrinsic) that would influence their decision one way or the other. I think it adds important nuance / clarification to the situation.
  - ejb999 5y ago
    but if political pressure lead them to their decision, it wasn't really a principled decision was it? It was a decision of convenience. A principled decision is one you make regardless of outside pressures - i.e. you stick by your principles; clearly patreon has no principles in play here. If it was wrong to allow donations, it was wrong since 8 years ago as they happily collected their commissions on donations.
    - cloverich 5y ago
      > but if political pressure lead them to their decision, it wasn't really a principled decision was it? Yes that is the point of my inquiry :)

jensgk 5y ago

"We don’t allow Patreon to be used for funding weapons or military activity." What is this then? https://www.patreon.com/search?q=guns https://www.patreon.com/search?q=guns

typeofhuman 5y ago
None of those are fundraising for weapons or military activity. They all seem to be videos or blogging fundraisers.
- bpolovko 5y ago
  Oh, yeah! They definitely use that money only to pay for internet bills
  - koonsolo 5y ago
    Patreon money goes into their left pocket. When they buy guns, they pay with their right pocket. Internet bills are indeed paid with their left pocket ;).
    - mysterydip 5y ago
      "different colors of money" as the government says
    - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
      Pocket to pocket gas fees are getting totally out of hand.
  - alexb_ 5y ago
    I mean, this is like saying that anyone who makes an income on Patreon can't buy guns with said income...
  - typeofhuman 5y ago
    This screenshot of Come Back Alive's[0] listing made it clear the fundraiser was for actual munitions. Perhaps they should have obfuscated what their intentions were. [0] https://bit.ly/3McywUi https://bit.ly/3McywUi

piokoch 5y ago

Twitter has just blocked https://twitter.com/OSINT_Ukraine https://twitter.com/OSINT_Ukraine account. Good job Twitter, congratulation, Mr. Putin certainly approves your support.

ejb999 5y ago
yep, and yet they (and facebook and instagram) continue to allow Russia to push 'their side of the story' without restrictions.
foxfluff 5y ago
Youtube banning people and channels that support Ukraine or watch live streams from Kiev. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30467384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30467384
dijonman2 5y ago
Is there a backup somewhere?

lawn 5y ago

If this upsets you, and you wonder what an alternative could look like, then you've rediscovered cryptocurrencies.

ur-whale 5y ago
> you've rediscovered cryptocurrencies. You are correct, but your timing for bashing people on the head with the truth is terrible, hence the downvotes.

sebow 5y ago

Not surprising.Most of the westerners in the corporate world(especially on the far left end of the spectrum) and people near that sphere of influence are fetishists of either the russian regime or the russian way of doing business.They talk about 'dangerous' people as being pro-russian because it's easier to de-legitimize people this way: the "russian bad" rhetoric is long-known since the atomic period of propaganda.And the same goes for other demographics and ideologies(conservative?->nazi; etc.): the problem with this approach is that when russians ,other such groups, or actual nazis are actually doing something bad, the people (western masses) are already insensitive to the same rhetoric and thus won't give a crap, that's why i stated at the beginning that such authoritative voices, often media(i.e. MSM) are closet russian sympathizers.This is and could somewhat further be fixed with social networks that are not censorious, and we've already seen such tendencies of people informing themselves from multiple channels and creating their own opinions, but the issue still exists. And to fully acknowledge the situation:the right makes the opposite mistake aswell: they confuse neocon and post-modernist american imperialism greed, such as the Middle East situation, with a military alliance(NATO) that's talked about purely in a defensive manner here.NATO does not and will not invade Russia because that's not the intended goal.This is why eastern europeans liked Trump more than Biden, because we remembered the Clintonian geopolitics. Same happened/happens in Canada: normal people are declined the opportunity of a help-hand on the pretext of "terrorism" as similar talking points.

mtmail 5y ago
I fail to see the connection to the Patreon situation in the reply. You're saying western leftist corporations are fetishists of the Russian regime? The reply ends with Trump/Biden/Clinton, then make a turn to mention Canada.
- sebow 5y ago
  The connection is that lately(well actually since around 2017), when Patreon/other claim to stop supremacists/russian trolls/bots/"dangerous groups" it's mostly a smoke screen and based on nothing than ideologically-based censorship, or due to certain people being tied to russia. To give a little bit more context,when the western "anti-russian" folks (often left wing but not necessarily, there's some nuance here) talk about stopping russians but don't see the hypocrisy when they censor specifically people who are not pro-russian at all, but due to being labeled as such by the MSM, end up in the crosshairs when legitimate good-will gestures are being made.This is precisely why I also shortly mentioned the Canada situation, though arguably that's even worse because we're not talking about violent conflicts, and donations from US to CA are not "foreign meddling". You might say: why does this bother you? Well, because for non-american citizens it actually makes it really harder to be pro-liberty and stand by US.Many people look up to US as a good reference of the struggle for liberty and freedom.And some can even tolerate US warmongering, but labeling pro-western (which is what most of UA is right now) foreigners wrongfully is really shitty, and the benefiting entities from this are mainly pro-war, western/eastern military industrial complexes.

Sosh101 5y ago

Here's a couple of other options (please verify yourself): https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/ https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/ https://ukraine.ua/news/support-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/ https://ukraine.ua/news/support-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/

ur-whale 5y ago

The charity states they'll use the funds for military training ... And the real question is: what would you do if you were Patreon management right now?

koonsolo 5y ago
I would support Ukraine in any way possible.
alfl 5y ago
Match the donations.

DaniloDias 5y ago

Geee 5y ago

You can use bank transfers and Bitcoin to donate directly, see this page: https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/ https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/ It seems that bitcoin donations are pouring in (over $4 million already). You can watch the bitcoin address here: https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/bc1qkd5az2ml7dk5j5h672yhxmhmxe9tuf97j39fm6 https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/bc1qkd5az2ml7dk5j5...

danuker 5y ago
Hopefully they have good security around the private key.
capableweb 5y ago
While they are in fact receiving lots of BTC, one transaction sticks out (80 BTC, 2022-02-25 09:55:18 [3,067,846.41 USD]), I wonder who has that much BTC to give away like that. It is impressive, but raises a lot of questions.
- sam0x17 5y ago
  Not really. There are plenty of low-profile high-net-worth miners with that much. I used to hang out in the cex.io chatroom back in 2014 and there were fat cat miners in there who would say "watch this" and then the price would quickly go down by several percentage points because their entire mining pool just sold. It seems quite plausible at least to me that one of these networks might decide to donate a large amount all at once.
  - nurettin 5y ago
    This is really cool to read, but trading volume of btc went from 20M when it was 3 years old to 170M over the years, so that happens a lot less frequently.
    - sam0x17 5y ago
      These days, many of these same individuals are literally buying plane-loads of chips fresh off the assembly lines in China, and have significantly scaled up their operations with their previous gains, so I wouldn't count it out.

jkaljundi 5y ago

Absolutely shameful.

emptysongglass 5y ago

My wife and I have both deleted our Patreon accounts in protest. As far as I'm concerned, Patreon is directly blocking aid to a country defending itself from a pathological aggressor.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

keymone 5y ago

belter 5y ago
The same Bitcoin will be used by Russia to avoid sanctions.
- keymone 5y ago
  Let them. Bitcoin is about freedom.
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    "Bitcoin is about freedom", you say as a response to Bitcoin being used to fund an invasion? How do you not see the absurdity of this claim?
    - keymone 5y ago
    - b112 5y ago
      You seem confused about freedom, and seem to think it means freedom to only do the things you want done. Freedom does not mean people, or countries, must do what one deems right or wrong. That is the reality of no restrictions on a thing. As an aside, maybe, fighting a physical invasion with harsh words, wagging fingers, and paper thin "we won't talk to you any more" restrictions isn't the answer? It's never worked before. It only hurts innocent civilians in the end. Dictators and tyrants, sadly, will only stop when you use force.
      - b112 5y ago
        I see downvotes, but history is an excellent predictor. Russia is held in an iron grip. The public can not, and will not successfully rise up. Any threat to Putin is either dead, or jailed. Now, with these restrictions and sanctions, another country, a long time friend of Russia, China, also undergoing trade restrictions, will clearly work with Russia even more closely. Do people really think that China and Russia do not have the resources, and industry, to not care about sanctions?! And again historically, when chaos reigns, people take advantage of opportunities. I fully expect China to finally take Taiwan very soon. Literally, this is the best time for them to do so. Ukraine is just the match, people. The real flames are not even visible yet.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

karlkloss 5y ago

There's a big risk that everything you send to them will be stolen by Russia, and helps them to circumvent the sanctions. The same goes for any weapons any country sends there.

forgingahead 5y ago

Actual link: https://blog.patreon.com/on-the-removal-of-come-back-alive https://blog.patreon.com/on-the-removal-of-come-back-alive

monkeynotes 5y ago

Crowd sourced wars; we are living in a world a previous generation would hold up as a dark dystopia.

tokai 5y ago
What? Wars have been crowd sourced since forever. Crusades, worlds wars, and so on.
danuker 5y ago
Isn't state funding also crowd-sourcing? Except by force?
- alecbz 5y ago
  I don't think you can really consider it crowd-funding unless people are individually choosing to contribute to the specific cause.
  - monkeynotes 5y ago
    Yeah, otherwise we may as well call all types of wealth collection "crowd sourcing". I think saying this is the same as crusades and liberty bonds is founding your observation on pedantry.
sofixa 5y ago
You should look up on the Crusades, liberty bonds, donation runs of metals from the population, etc. There's nothing dystopian about people donating for a military cause.
- monkeynotes 5y ago
  I see significant differences between now and a time before the whole world was wired together. Being able to sit at your desk and casually click fund a war that you are watching in real-time on Twitter and cheering on with memes on Reddit is dystopian in my mind. I see crowdsourcing as being a distinctly modern phenomena enabled by the internet. I don't see it as being the same as historical methods of collecting monies from the populace. Are taxes often referred to as 'crowdsource'? No, and that's because there is a nuance.

shmageggy 5y ago

Can someone with knowledge of these things clarify the ramifications for their business if they were to allow something like this on their platform? I'd imagine it would have significant regulatory and legal implications. Which of course sounds mild compared to the ramifications to the lives of those affected, but I'm wondering if it would be a business-killing move for some legal reason. To me, the wildest thing here is not that they enforced their policy, but that a site that started as a means for YouTube musicians to get paid has now become a player in international politics and warfare.

nemo44x 5y ago
They could be accused of funding terrorisim. For instance, imagine a radical fringe group the far left of the West falls in love with takes up arms against a group of people they believe is unjustly occupying their land. So the Western far left group uses Patreon to raise funds so this group can buy military grade weapons to use against their occupiers. Congrats, you just funded Hammas.
charcircuit 5y ago
>Can someone with knowledge of these things clarify the ramifications for their business if they were to allow something like this on their platform? Worst case (ignoring the legal side of things) their payment processors stop working with them and Patreon needs to find new payment processors that allow for more high risk transactions. To avoid paying the higher processing fees Patreon would want to find a way to use payment processors who are okay with these higher risk transacions to only be used on these higher risk patreons.

intunderflow 5y ago

If you want to fund guns for Ukraine to fight back, you can donate directly to the Ministry of Defense here: https://ukraine.ua/news/support-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/ https://ukraine.ua/news/support-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/

ziml77 5y ago

This title seems designed to cause outrage. In their post, it's very clear why they couldn't allow the account to remain active: "The website of the organization says they use contributions to finance and train military personnel." Individuals should not be funding foreign militaries. It does not matter if the country was unjustly attacked or not.

Aeolun 5y ago
How so? There is preciously little else you can do to feel like you may make a difference. Not that I believe donating here would have helped, but…
- halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
  You don't have to donate directly to the military. You can donate to any relief organizations, independent journalists covering the war, etc. There's a lot on the periphery that need donations as well.
  - ziml77 5y ago
    Yep! I'm not against people donating to other organizations that are helping out. In fact I hope that people do help out that way!
- graphpercolator 5y ago

yalogin 5y ago

I know emotions are running high in this thread but asking to educate myself. Ukraine is not a tiny nation, and Russia is huge. In that scenario how will a small assortment of weapons and software even help them? Do they even need weapons help? Also how can a charity buy that list and supply? Can an organization buy them, feels like that kind of a purchase should be restricted to countries only.

decafninja 5y ago
I am very much rooting for Ukraine, but at the same time feel there is little anyone short of another peer superpower can do to stop the Russian juggernaut from doing what Putin wants.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dgellow 5y ago
Russia can destroy and invade the country. But occupying a place as huge as Ukraine will be hard. Even with a small set of weapons and fighters defending the territory you can make the place way more difficult to control than it would be otherwise.
- User23 5y ago
  I expect they’ll have a pretty easy time in the places dominated by ethnic Russians who welcome Russian rule. I further expect they’ll have a considerably harder time in the non-Russian areas.
- cafard 5y ago
  The USSR brought Ukraine under control after WW II.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
> Ukraine is not a tiny nation, and Russia is huge. The US, the most well-funded army in the world for the past generation, hasn't won a war since the end of WW2. Army size and the like does not matter. The Ukranian forces can entrench themselves and maintain a guerilla war for a long time, as long as they have supplies. I strongly feel like wars are unwinnable. It either ends up in a stalemate and attrition - see the US trying to do a thing in the middle east for two decades only for things to go back the second they leave - or MAD. And the last one hasn't and will hopefully never happen.

hartator 5y ago

> For those still looking to help, Ukrainian journalists have recommended several charities Why journalists should be deciding where funds should go?

practice9 5y ago

Considering that they use funds only (mostly) to buy defence stuff and to support the recovery of the veterans (there will be many with PTSD and injuries after this war), Patreon is in a morally wrong territory here. Like other posters said there are several other ways to support this fund (crypto / wire transfer) or Ukrainian army directly (wire transfer). With crypto there is an almost 100% chance the money transfer will go through. Not sure about banks, haven't heard anything about wire transfers not going through

gruez 5y ago
>Considering that they use funds only (mostly) to buy defence stuff can you clarify on what "defence stuff" means? Is there any meaningful difference between a rocket launcher used for "defense" and a rocket launcher that's not used for "defense"? Or are they only buying stuff like sandbags?

james_burden 5y ago

Patreon should have insisted the Ukrainian guerrillas bear their insignia, really bring this war into the 21st century.

moron4hire 5y ago

Personal donations to a foreign nation-state for the purposes of building and supporting military operations is not the cyberpunk plotline I expected to come out of 2022.

fallingfrog 5y ago

This was the right move to make- it's hard to verify whether the money is going to, for example, neo-fascist paramilitary groups, which are rampant in western Ukraine at the moment. I personally think that donating to groups providing aid and medical care to civilians and refugees -the red cross and so forth- is a much more effective way to help actual suffering people. Adding more weapons to an ongoing conflict is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do in a helpful way, even with the best of intentions, as the history of western intervention in foreign conflicts has vividly demonstrated. You think that the CIA can't seem to do it, despite decades of attempts and the best intelligence apparatus in the world- but you can? They gave guns to the Taliban, to Saddam Hussein, and on and on- how did that turn out? Do you really know who you're giving guns to? And after the conflict is over, the guns don't go away- they just change hands, and what will they be used for then? It's kind of dismaying to see how many people here have still not learned this lesson. Patreon did the right thing. They are the adults in the room.

tablespoon 5y ago

> We are shocked and heartbroken at the invasion of Ukraine. Like so many around the world, we are watching this tragedy closely and wishing for the safety of the Ukrainian people in harm’s way. Their wishes aren't worth squat.

w-j-w 5y ago

T3RMINATED 5y ago

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lykahb 5y ago

Patreon takes a cut of 5-12%. This is okay for the content distribution platforms, but it is outrageous for the charities. Donate directly to the Come Back Alive and the army https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-vidkriv-spetsrahunok-dlya-zboru-koshtiv-na-potrebi-armiyi https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-vidkriv-sp.... The last link lists the account numbers for many currencies.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago

Patreon loves Trump. Trump loves Putin. Putin hates Ukraine => Patreon hates Ukraine.

michalhosna 5y ago

> If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.