Howdy everyone. Please share this. I don't care how, I don't care to whom, but you need to listen and you need to send this around.
Patreon has been mobilizing on a lot. 3D Face Scanning technology requirements, increasing scrutiny on content published, purges of various NSFW kink artwork through the years, but this last chapter in Patreon as a Queer-enabling Platform is likely to close with a hell of a bang.
Allegedly, Patreon will be going Public very soon. For those not aware, going Public means the company is going to offer Shares to Investors via the Stock Market. An Initial Public Offering (IPO) is a big deal for a tech company like Patreon, which follows the model of many Silicon Valley start-ups of blitzscaling and then retroactively changing the rules of business with their non-worker clientele. Articles from Summer of this year suggest that the company may be going Public during 2024, or perhaps right at the end of 2023. The company isn't doing so hot based on projected valuation, this might be the moment they have to go full hog.
Read on for more details. SFW content, NSFW blog, just as a heads up.
DECENTRALIZE YOUR ONLINE ALIAS TODAY!
NOWHERE IS BY US, NOWHERE IS FOR US.
Reminder I'm a NSFW blog, this is probably SFW content. I'm less confident that even saying the words "Adult Only Content" is kosher now more than ever lol.
Initial rumblings are suggesting that the newest set of NSFW guidelines on Patreon.com will effectively ban multiple categories of furry porn (click here to read it), but as you might imagine if you read for yourself you might find your favorite artist effected.
As written in my last post (which is shared above) Patreon seems to be gently trimming the fat as they set up for something that might look like a total purge of pornography from the platform. It's unclear if this will become the case right now, but signs are pointing to it. Let's quickly clarify something: NSFW and Pornography are not interchangeable labels, what Patreon is doing is specifically targeting Adult Content / Pornography. The big change today is that Patreon seems to be bending to match MasterCard's policy because they have literally no say in the matter, and we knew this type of Financial Deplatforming by the big establishment payment industry was likely to happen, Visa and MasterCard change roles on who is the bad cop pretty consistently.
Some loose observations below the break, nothing down there is as important as what's been said, just food for thought.
PS: They drop ABDL by name with precision in this update, extreme deliberation was taken to ensure that their stance is emphasized, there's a few errata added that make it sound like they're being reasonable but I wouldn't hold my breath here.
[Update 2]: I forgot about the Feederism Purge, there's more discussion to be had about specific motivations and how it relates to fictional depictions in the context of pornography, not dissimilar to ABDL. A purge of fiction is a purge of fiction, it gets noted. Citation to follow when I have one handy.
[Update 4]: Considering the tragic change in room temperature about Cohost's Future being a likely shuttering or sell-off come April, I'm starting to think for real we queers are in hot water. How long can you boil a frog, exactly?
On our history we have a few things Patreon has done, just listed rapid fire for your note:
- Initiated ID checks for content creators
- Purged multiple categories of content from itself such as ABDL en-mass
- De-listed Adult Content from searches and visibility tools
- Gladly used webcrawlers to detect unapproved content for deplatforming creators
Read the original post and interpret at your pace, at the time of its posting I tried to warn creators I thought might run afoul of Patreon based on niche content. I couldn't have anticipated the precision of the attack vector, but this will impact all content creators, and let's face it, that is going to fundamentally impact Queer creators disproportionately.
I made a joke about having to issue "I consent and am an adult" cards on Twitter early 2023 when Furaffinity did their shit and it became a real argument. The current crises involving "Generative AI" being used to make photo-real pornography aren't even in the public mind right now, so when that starts coming into the broader discussion space, expect more draconian methods to be leveled to protect children and conveniently purge queers while they're at it from the establishment internet.
Don't express surprise if Cohost is hit too somehow, since this in fact involves a major pay processor changing their rules. Mastercard isn't some small name, they're basically 50% of the electronic funds transfer industry for people in the U.S., so this is serious business. Depending on vector, this site could be a ticking time bomb if we see a repeat of individual-specific deplatforming or professional blacklisting. On my other account, I gently asked for help with Archival tools for posts here and a few people are looking at it as an option.
[Update 3]: I was joking about Crypto valuation and going to the moon, and then my pal reminded me that exchanges are actually the vector you are attacked by. We're getting close to having to snail-mail paper money to each other here, does anyone know how to operate a 'Zine network still?
Extra Citations:
Mastodon User comments on Feederism Purge
A friend reminded me that no, the future isn't in Crypto here
