Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt • Hacker News Board

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#211

Post by paulcole » Wed, Dec 26, 2018, 8:44 PM UTC

orthecreedence wrote: post #205

paulcole wrote: post #92

> Why are we giving companies and people the right to silence vast amounts of voices and opinions on random whims? This is not a new situation. But all of a sudden it’s a problem because it’s conservative white guys instead of women, LGBTQ people and people of color?

You're not wrong. Traditionally publishers of books and media have always favored the ruling class (in this case, the white man), and they vehemently protect their "right" to do so. I guess my major issue is that, finally, a platform comes along where everybody can say their part (PoC, LGBTQ, women, conservatives, communists, fascists, etc etc) and everyone is, to some extent, able to be heard. We finally have a demo…

> I am a white man, so maybe your comparison is fair and I should shut the hell up =]. I probably won't, though

The 21st century in a nutshell lol.

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#212

Post by vergessenmir » Wed, Dec 26, 2018, 8:45 PM UTC

"This month, the site’s moderators received a complaint about Mr. Benjamin, who had risen to fame railing against diversity and feminism during the GamerGate movement in 2014. Mr. Benjamin used the N-word and anti-gay language during an interview posted to YouTube on Feb. 7, Patreon found."

If you read the transcript you can see why some may view what he said as offensive. Personally I think it was a poor choice of words and a rather unwieldy attempt at a satirical jab.

From what I've gathered, though, the uproar isn't to the fact that Mr Benjamin was kicked off but more around the ambiguity of the 'trust and safety" guidelines. Patreon claim he was kicked off for using 'hate speech', they don't say it was because of using the N-word because the N-word is littered across their site for about 50 pages of search results (https://www.patreon.com/search?q=nigger&p=50). If hate speech is the issue the definition of what that is, is apparently missing.

The uproar I believe is related to the fact that content creators can not self-police and that patreon can arbitrarily define the boundaries of acceptable speech (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window). This boundary is extended to policing on 'other' platforms like Youtube or Twitter which I believe is a little ludicrous.

The finger pointing at Patreon at the moment rails the accusation that this has nothing to do with morals and hate speech but everything to do with political bias due to its lack of specificity. I think this conflation is clear, the NYT article is peppered with the mention of political affiliations and repeatedly casts the detractors by associating them with hate movements or the political right.

Hate speech does exist, but this here seems to me to be a polarised conversation about left and right politics in America than anything else and the platforms being the next phase of this debate. Rowan Atkinson gave a talk a few years ago on hate speech in England, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3UeUnRxE0E . Notice it is a levelled critique of hateful speech and says nothing about left or right, conservative or democratic. I wish the NYT had taken a more measured and thoughtful approach in teasing this story apart and doing what good journalists do: separate the signal from the noise and tell the truth intelligently in the language of the everyday man and woman and not adding to the confusion.

For a bit of context, I'm British and black and we have our own share of problems trying to deal fairly with 'hate speech'.

- "Man guilty of hate crime for filming pug's 'Nazi salutes'" - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43478925

- "Teenager faces prosecution for calling Scientology 'cult'" - https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/may/20/1

- "Gay horse jibe" - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4196447/Arrest-for-g...

It's difficult, but let's not pretend for a second that Patreon dealt with this fairly and transparently. Let's not pretend either that they are deserving of our custom because of their moral virtue.

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#213

Post by madeofmeat » Wed, Dec 26, 2018, 8:45 PM UTC

orthecreedence wrote: post #52

raiflip wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great comment. Honestly love the nuanced take, far too rare. The only point I would respectfully ad is that I'm not sure if we can enforce decentralization. Many markets, like payment services (like Visa, Paypal), tend towards a few large companies. Personally, I think the first amendment is an example where we as a society (at least in the US) said that people's freedom of expression trumps people's freedo…

I think you're right, many things tend toward centralization, large networks and infrastructure (and sometimes difficult-to-solve problems) being among them. I personally "feel" (because I can't really form a hardened ideology around it) that the closer things get to infrastructure, the more neutral they should be. In other words, the more difficult it is to spin up a competitor to Company A, the more Company A shoul…

> we cannot enforce decentralization

Sure we can, it's called antitrust law.

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#214

Post by darkpuma » Wed, Dec 26, 2018, 8:47 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #90

darkpuma wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the context, it seems he was using the words because he knew they were offensive. Also maybe that excuse works for ESL Europeans, but I'm not very convinced it works for somebody who's British.

many words are offensive while not being such a taboo as the n-word in the US

He seems to have made his 'career' (if you can really call it that) on commentary about politics, with a heavy emphasis on American politics. I don't think he can plausibly plead ignorance.

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#215

Post by CM30 » Wed, Dec 26, 2018, 8:47 PM UTC

zamalek wrote: post #120

orthecreedence wrote: post #33

I'm torn about this. On the one hand, Patreon shouldn't have to do business with people they don't like. On the other hand, at what point do we accept that we have different viewpoints and live and let live? The biggest one for me in recent history was Cloudflare arbitrarily deciding to stop hosting the Daily Stormer. Sure, DS is vile, but at the point we start enforcing censorship on a whim instead of hardened polic…

> On the other hand, at what point do we accept that we have different viewpoints and live and let live? The government, soapboxes, homes and places of business that are happy to have them. Freedom of Speech is not the right to be heard. If people don't like what you have to say, or how you are saying it, they are free to walk away. If you don't like what someone is doing in your place of business, you can also throw…

The question is; where does it end?

Sure, I guess you could say Patreon has the right to ban people from its service. But people have found its not easy or practical to compete with them. They've found everyone from their domain registrar to their website host to their payment processor refusing to do business with them.

And at some point, that means it becomes virtually impossible to express yourself if your views are unpopular enough. No one wants to be a service or common carrier, everyone buckles under controversy when it occurs. Should some views only be expressable by millionaires or people with enough resources not to need services from anyone? It's not legal censorship, but it's de facto censorship none the less.

As the likes of SubscribeStar found out, offering a 'free speech' alternative to Patreon is now virtually impossible because of it.

https://www.ft.com/content/7c4285b2-fe2f-11e8-ac00-57a2a8264...

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#216

Post by jcoffland » Wed, Dec 26, 2018, 8:48 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #184

zamalek wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, at what point do we accept that we have different viewpoints and live and let live? The government, soapboxes, homes and places of business that are happy to have them. Freedom of Speech is not the right to be heard. If people don't like what you have to say, or how you are saying it, they are free to walk away. If you don't like what someone is doing in your place of business, you can also throw…

> If you don't like what someone is doing in your place of business, you can also throw them out. Although we all agree that this is legal to do (and nobody is thinking about taking Patreon to court), there is a second, more subtle social issue at play. Taking it to the extreme, if you live in a company town earning company scrip to spend at the company store, when the company decides that they don't like what you're…

But that is ultimately a problem of monopolization.

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#217

Post by gammateam » Wed, Dec 26, 2018, 8:48 PM UTC

nkurz wrote: post #69

The article avoids the specifics of what Benjamin said, which makes it hard to judge whether Patreon is acting reasonably. The interview in question is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ87Wf-0rZg . Here are some excerpts from the automatically generated transcript (click the 3 dots, then "Open transcript"): I just can't be bothered to deal with people who treat me like this it's really annoying like I you are a…

If I was running a platform like Patreon I wouldnt moderate it.

I cant relate to leadership teams that do this, much less passionately do it with blog posts and explanations. It is arbitrary. Its within their right whether the specific cause is something I agree with or not. I can say that I wouldnt be interested.

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#218

Post by KozmoNau7 » Wed, Dec 26, 2018, 8:48 PM UTC

orthecreedence wrote: post #33

I'm torn about this. On the one hand, Patreon shouldn't have to do business with people they don't like. On the other hand, at what point do we accept that we have different viewpoints and live and let live? The biggest one for me in recent history was Cloudflare arbitrarily deciding to stop hosting the Daily Stormer. Sure, DS is vile, but at the point we start enforcing censorship on a whim instead of hardened polic…

The reason why Patreon et. al. are deplatforming people who make reprehensible statements, it's because they risk losing ad revenue. Other companies will stop running ads if they risk them popping up on Uncle Joe's Lynchin' & White Sheets page. It's a purely profit-motivated move.

As long as people and corporations are motivated solely by profit, you will see this move to "truth in the middle" milquetoast centrist presentation, in order to not offend the advertisers and shareholders.

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#219

Post by mancerayder » Wed, Dec 26, 2018, 8:48 PM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #127

mancerayder wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've branded yourself as being politically incorrect, isn't this the kind of conflict and publicity you strive to achieve? I'm getting a little tired of people who've made a career saying what you "can't say on TV" and then pretending to be surprised when their content gets pulled. Wait - how do you know what people's intentions are? Your entire comment is premised on the idea that 'people who've made a career'…

He's quoted in the article as saying his brand is politically incorrect. Its a calculated decision to add shock to his act. This conflict is not something he's trying to avoid to get his ideas out there. Its painfully clear. The content itself is irrelevant to my point as it is a general statement about adding shock value to any act and the faux-consequences of it.

And my point is that there are people who conveniently "know" people's intentions as a way to silence, diminish or discredit them, like you're doing right now when you say things like "faux-consequences." Getting de-platformed (and losing revenue) are faux?

Re: Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

#220

Post by astura » Wed, Dec 26, 2018, 8:48 PM UTC

darkpuma wrote: post #208

astura wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does one draw a line between "restaurants must serve customers regardless of race" and "businesses can choose not to offer services to racists"? I believe the key difference is skin color is innate and being an asshole is not, you don't get to choose to be black, you do choose to be an asshole though. I think that the shift in popularity for gay rights mirrors the shift in acceptance that homosexual feelings ar…

What are your thoughts on religious discrimination? As a former christian, I am well aware that being a christian is not innate. Furthermore I consider christian doctrine to be inherently discriminatory against people like me. Should it be legal for me to bar christians from my restaurant? Of the 11 federally protected classes, religion stands out as the only one that isn't innate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prote…

To be clear, I wasn't really expressing much of a personal opinion, just thinking about the difference between the two and thinking about the profound shift in acceptance of gays in society in even the last decade.

Personally... I'm not religious, I was raised an atheist, I don't like religion, and I don't really think it should be protected, but I sorta kinda understand why it is, religion seems "special."

Veteran status is also protected under employment discrimination law, and military service isn't an innate attribute, however, its in the best interest for a country to protect those who have served it, especially those who were drafted.

Family status is protected under housing discrimination law, and having a ton of kids isn't innate, but some can say that the urge to have children is actually innate. (Though as a person who never felt an urge to reproduce, I have a hard time actually understanding this)

So yeah... we aren't 100% consistent.