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Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt

nytimes.com

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

#41

Post by basic1 »

apk-d wrote: post #5
darkpuma wrote: post #2

The real meat of the racist speech: > "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." I could be wrong, but I'm under the impression Benjamin used that word to insult white sup…

Our descendants are going to be seriously confused by our practice of limiting or taking away people's ability to earn money because they publicly used a wrong word. Or so I hope, at least.

Seems like many went to SubscribeStar, more because Patreon pulled a Tumblr and purged the adult content than political reasons.

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

#42

Post by pokemongoaway »

apk-d wrote: post #5
darkpuma wrote: post #2

The real meat of the racist speech: > "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." I could be wrong, but I'm under the impression Benjamin used that word to insult white sup…

Our descendants are going to be seriously confused by our practice of limiting or taking away people's ability to earn money because they publicly used a wrong word. Or so I hope, at least.

Typical HN. Hiding comments the admins don't agree with.

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

#43

Post by OscarCunningham »

endisukaj wrote: post #12
apk-d wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our descendants are going to be seriously confused by our practice of limiting or taking away people's ability to earn money because they publicly used a wrong word. Or so I hope, at least.

The right to free speech protects you from being persecuted by the government. Patreon and any other private company reserve the right to choose their customers (and workers) based on what they say. This has always been the case. There are countless examples, even in the past, where companies have fired employees for saying things they shouldn't have.

Just because one form of free speech is enshrined in The First Amendment, doesn't mean that other forms aren't also good.

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

#44

Post by darkpuma »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #38
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? Keep in mind that some of those viewpoints are "we live, others get eradicated".

In this particular case Carl Benjamin claims to be anti-nazi. His language, while shockingly offensive, wasn't calling for anybody to be eradicated.

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

#45

Post by raiflip »

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…

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 freedom from discomfort. I'd apply the same standard to corporations. That said, I'm also still torn about whether it is right to impose that view on corporations. In a perfect world, I agree that enough decentralization that no single group can censor people's views is the best solution.

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

#46

Post by Millennium »

cambalache wrote: post #26
pavel_lishin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> taking away people's ability to earn money On a single platform. Nobody's preventing Mr. Benjamin from making money; they're just not allowing him to use one specific platform. He's welcome to sign up for Hatreon, or to use a payment processor directly.

And when the new payment company bans him, then what? And are you OK if Twitter bans all left leaning people just because of their beliefs? I tend to favor the smallest government possible, because I think private companies tend to do a better work in many areas (not all of them) so I dont like government intervening. But when you have an almost defacto monopoly in certain areas (google, facebook, twitter) banning pe…

Last I checked, Hatreon didn't ban people for this sort of thing. Let him go there with his basement-dwelling buddies; that's literally what it's for.

It's the capitalist way: if some private company doesn't want your business, go to another company. If there isn't one, make one. It's all perfectly free-market compatible, and well in keeping with the Internet's ethos of letting anyone set up shop.

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

#47

Post by jayd16 »

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.

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

#48

Post by verall »

darkpuma wrote: post #19
StavrosK wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did he say, exactly? This sounds like a possible use-mention distinction problem to me.

Good question. I've found a transcript published by patreon: https://patreonhq.com/hate-speech-on-patreon-a9026e52c2cf?gi... It's... pretty vitriolic. I'm not totally comfortable with even quoting the redacted version, but here goes nothing: > “I just can’t be bothered with people who chose to treat me like this. It’s really annoying. Like, I — . You’re acting like a bunch of n_____s, just so you know. You act like w…

Thank you for posting this.

Talking about Nazis or not, I don't really think this is defensible. It comes off like some kind of intra-nazi scuffle.

> "White people are meant to be respectful... you guys can't act like white people"

This is a racist statement. I dont want to call him a racist, because "racist" should be a descriptor of actions and not an identity. Instead, he sounds like someone who has little remorse for making racist statements.

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

#49

Post by fb-denier »

apk-d wrote: post #5
darkpuma wrote: post #2

The real meat of the racist speech: > "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." I could be wrong, but I'm under the impression Benjamin used that word to insult white sup…

Our descendants are going to be seriously confused by our practice of limiting or taking away people's ability to earn money because they publicly used a wrong word. Or so I hope, at least.

Maybe not. We might be shocked that people in Europe in the past got tortured or executed for heresy and apostasy, but we're not really confused by it: if your words undermine the creeds that hold up the power structure, you are punished. It's not complicated.

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

#50

Post by dkjfhalskdjfh »

It's also worth considering that the Alt-Right has been deliberately working to get more popular moderate figures like Sargon kicked off of mainstream platforms, so they'll be forced to move (and bring their audiences) to Alt-Right platforms: https://twitter.com/crislopezg/status/969225740540678145
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