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Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

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Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#311

Post by Neeek »

xexers wrote: post #288
AlwaysBCoding wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've already fucked it up. Here's an hour long interview with Patreon's CEO, Jack Conte, where he goes through some ridiculous mental gymnastics trying to justify why it's ok he is kicking conservative journalists off his platform. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofpbDgCj9rw

Can you give me the TLDW;?

Not having watched the whole thing, it sounds like this Lauren Southern (the journalist in question) was using funds from Patreon to help blockade a ship in the Mediterranean. They though the ship was leaving to collect migrants, apparently it was being used by doctors without borders for search and rescue operations.

The CEO states in the first couple of minutes that they wouldn't be supporting that kind of activity and is apparently against their terms of service. This seems pretty obviously not about freedom of speech but about what illegal activities Patreon could be accused of supporting financially.*

Does he go on later in the video to justify removing other accounts because of political beliefs? I haven't made it much further in.

*EDIT: So after watching another video on the subject, the official statement has less to do with what Patreon doesn't want to be seen funding but more about a section of their content policy stating they will not allow action that might endanger the life of another person, i.e. blockading search and rescue vessels.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#312

Post by cookiecaper »

specialist wrote: post #293
syshum wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No "Hate Speech" is not a form of assault, nor should it be treated as such Further the entire concept of "hate Speech" is rife for abuse and is antithesis of Free Speech. How do you objectively define "Hate Speech", do you trust government to define this, that is a scary thought if you do...

What's the most hateful thing someone ever told you? Or that you heard (witnessed)? How did it make you feel?

"Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me". This old cliche is underappreciated in our day and age.

Individuals are free to choose the way they process the information and commentary they receive. When someone physically assaults you, there is no choice involved, and your life is legitimately and immediately threatened by such activity in the real, physical, and non-abstract sense.

It is great that we are all thinking about what we say, but speech is unequivocally not the same as physical assault, and it's farcical to suggest it should be.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#313

Post by specialist »

Inconel wrote: post #308
specialist wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the most hateful thing someone ever told you? Or that you heard (witnessed)? How did it make you feel?

There's no point in me repeating the most hateful things that have ever been directed at me, but they certainly were hurtful and made me feel bad. With that being said, having been the victim of assault multiple times in my life, once needing extensive hospitalization due to the injuries sustained, I can comfortably say that I don't view these two things as being remotely analogous and wholly reject the notion that s…

I'm just as comfortable, certain that hatespeech is assault. Same lessons, different conclusions.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#314

Post by Inconel »

specialist wrote: post #313
Inconel wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no point in me repeating the most hateful things that have ever been directed at me, but they certainly were hurtful and made me feel bad. With that being said, having been the victim of assault multiple times in my life, once needing extensive hospitalization due to the injuries sustained, I can comfortably say that I don't view these two things as being remotely analogous and wholly reject the notion that s…

I'm just as comfortable, certain that hatespeech is assault. Same lessons, different conclusions.

Well I think this illustrates how difficult it is to come to any consensus on these kinds of issues. Even people that have had similar experiences can come to wildly different conclusions.

Edit: I'll also add that while I personally disagree with your premise that speech can be categorized as assault, I don't think that your position is necessarily unreasonable. Again, I'm not in agreement but it isn't so outrageous a view that I think well meaning and thoughtful people couldn't hold those same views. However, when you start off your argument by stating that anyone holding a contrary opinion must be puerile(I'm not very smart so I had to make sure I remembered the correct definition) it doesn't lend itself to any meaningful discussion.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#315

Post by glenstein »

_xhok wrote: post #283
specialist wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very libertarian (puerile) view of free speech. The rest of us understand principles like civility, that your rights stop where mine begin, don't yell "fire!" in a crowded theater, balancing rights and responsibilities, and that hatespeech is a form of assault.

The problem is deciding who gets to define those concepts in edge cases. Otherwise motivated parties try to push everything they don't like into those categories. "Hate speech" is a common example.

The same problem accompanies definitions of "free speech." People may be interested in broadening the concept of free speech so that it shelters harassment, abuse, hate speech, and generally toxic behavior, and allows communities compatible with those behaviors to drive out communities incompatible with them, and effectively take over communication platforms. Some people even use "free speech" to mean creating automated twitter bots to intentionally push false news stories or reddit bots to manipulate vote totals for stories (this is admittedly an extreme view, but I have seen it expressed first hand by people who don't think it's extreme at all.)

Who gets to decide draw the line between the sincere desire for free speech, and extending the line to include disingenuous calls for "free speech" which are designed to shelter forms of toxic and manipulative behavior that people are just using as a tool to push their preferred ideology?

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#316

Post by hyperdunc »

Neeek wrote: post #311
xexers wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give me the TLDW;?

Not having watched the whole thing, it sounds like this Lauren Southern (the journalist in question) was using funds from Patreon to help blockade a ship in the Mediterranean. They though the ship was leaving to collect migrants, apparently it was being used by doctors without borders for search and rescue operations. The CEO states in the first couple of minutes that they wouldn't be supporting that kind of activity…

s/search and rescue vessels/people smuggling vessels

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#317

Post by hyperdunc »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #58
mason240 wrote: post #26

Corporation caught in a scandal over censoring political speech against the right? Better have the The Verge write a puff piece on them.

Any corporation that doesn't pull down The Sarkeesian Effect is being far more generous to the alt-right than the vast majority of corporations would be.

You really think The Sarkeesian Effect is alt-right?

This kind of misuse of labels suggests that either you are ignorant of the subject matter or you wish to smear your ideological opponents by associating them with a group that doesn't hold their values.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#318

Post by WikipediasBad »

pillowkusis wrote: post #7

I have seen so many content creators go full time and create awesome work because Patreon gives them a format to incentivize their followers to pay them. The economics are beautiful — turns out just 1,000 people (a pittance on internet mass media websites) donating $5 a month will totally change the way you run your life. And even better, these artists are independent in a way no artist has ever been before. You’re n…

Is there a patreon specifically made for open source or coding projects?

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#319

Post by WikipediasBad »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #107

Patreon is starting to take off for open source, too, which is great. I set one up and it offsets a good deal of the infrastructure costs for my projects. Many FOSS Patreons have pretty low figures - please go looking for them and support your tools!

Do you mean coders on patreon itself? Any links to coder patreons I can look at? Or do you mean a new startup that's patreon for open source/coders? It would be really interesting to build a patreon platform tailor made for coders if the market for it is not already taken by patreon.

Re: Inside Patreon, the economic engine of internet culture

#320

Post by kalleboo »

drewg123 wrote: post #16

Unless I'm missing something, they seem to only have a monthly contribution model. There are many times where I find a content creator helpful (for example a video tutorial on how to fix my broken washing machine), and I'd like to reward them. But I don't want to do it monthly, as I'll probably never watch another thing from them. So I'd like to be able to easily leave a one-time tip. Can Patreon do this, and it's ju…

It would be interesting if YouTube implemented a flattr-like model - pay $10 a month and that gets distributed among all your likes for the month.
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