How crowdfunding helps haters profit from harassment

[shaddack]

@Skeptic

But in the larger context that I outlined in my earlier post, payment transaction companies are a financial choke point that government and pressure groups can use to strangle people, companies and ideas that are legal, but that they don’t like.

A good example that should be mentioned is the creditcard payment processors vs Wikileaks.

[Skeptic]

@shaddack

On the other hand, it is all pretty much a thunderstorm in a teacup. From my physical-world friends and coworkers, about one is familiar with the GG thing. Others aren’t, despite some of them playing games.

The media that comprise the bulk of your data intake may be full of a thing, causing a false perception of how important/widespread/wide-known it is. That may not be actually the case.

Yeah, but availability heuristic suggests it’s all gamers!
Vivid == Representative ;-{>

[Maya]

It’s not an endorsement; it’s more than that. It’s a business association. Gofundme, Kickstarter, Patreon… They all pay their bills with money they get from their cut of donations. Just because it isn’t their name on the tags doesn’t mean they’re not profiting from spreading hate.

[Maya]

Does the use of the word “actually” in this comment imply a post-modern level of irony?

[Skeptic]

@Maya

It’s not an endorsement; it’s more than that. I

Oh, please. Next you’ll be demanding that all retailers and ISPs prohibit the people on your say so, because they aren’t just selling to alleged Gamergaters,

“it’s more than that. It’s a business association… They all pay their bills with money they get from their cut of [sales]. Just because it isn’t their name on the tags doesn’t mean they’re not profiting from spreading hate.”

I can picture you saying this:

“I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to Me as being members of the Gamergate Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy on the Internet.”

The Gamergaters are bad but your authoritarian, censorious urges could have much broader, longer lasting, deleterious effects on society if implemented.

Gamergater’s bad + your bad != good.

[Maya]

This is an interesting comment, so I’d like to build on it. They certainly seem to be trying to position themselves as akin to Wells Fargo, but does that mean that they are? I’m thinking of the many industries that “utilize the services of independent contractors” to avoid payroll taxes, despite their employees’ clearly meeting the IRS standards of employment. Generally these employers get to go on with this practice until they’re sued, and only then is legal clarity attained. Would everyone agree that Patreon/etc. gets to claim neutrality as a financial service provider? It’s illegal for banks to funnel drug money around (not that they don’t), so some lines are drawn no matter what. Moreover: is legality the right test; should we be looking at Patreon’s legal responsibilities for campaigns’ content, or is it that we consider them to have more of a moral responsibility?

[Maya]

Nope. It’s me. I’m the one. I am the one who is doing all of the awful things to all of the innocent cishet white dudes. All of the things. Me.
#misandryforlife

@Skeptic

Next you’ll be demanding that all retailers and ISPs prohibit the people on your say so, because they aren’t just selling to alleged Gamergaters

Whoa, whoa, whoa! I think what you heard in what I said was not what I meant. I’m not demanding that anyone do anything on my say so, but I think it’s reasonable to find Patreon shady for the business they’re making money off. I think it’s shady for them to pretend that there’s some behavior they can ban, but on the other side of the line (which they themselves drew) they are just powerless to be anything but neutral. Consequently, I probably won’t be donating through the platform until this is behind them. This is the financial version of social shunning which can be taken to bad places, but which is also probably necessary in some way or other for any civilization. Amazon has loopy, crazily enforced rules about erotica. So authors who were frustrated with toeing a moving line took off with Selena Kitt and made Excessica (the definition of NSFW, so I’m not going to link). Yeah, it’s kind of censorship for Amazon to decide what exactly is and is not acceptable for the consumer to read. On the other hand, they have a right to try to make “Amazon self-publishing” not synonymous with “dinosaur porn”. Freedom of association is a tricky, tricky thing, and I think you can reasonably disagree with my stance on these issues. That said? I am going to stand by my claim that a relationship where money changes hands is even more damning than a straightforward endorsement of ideas.

[wrecksdart]

Please keep flogging, ma’am. They’ve been bad, bad, little boys.

[shaddack]

On the other hand, adding variables to the already complex finance-involving mess is guaranteed to bring false positives.

What criteria will be used to allow/deny a service? can it be retroactively suspended once granted? Will the criteria be strictly related to the service’s use, or could it be extended to the user’s unrelated online behavior (“morality”-based rules tend to suffer of scope creep)? Can the criteria ever be specified so exactly that there is always obvious on which side one is? What are the suggested appeal procedures?

Note the existing problems with PayPal’s often capricious account-suspension policies. How to avoid these?

[shaddack]

@wrecksdart

Please keep flogging, ma’am. They’ve been bad, bad, little boys.

…couldn’t this actually be a professional paid-for service?
I’ll show myself out…

[Skeptic]

@Maya

It’s illegal for banks to funnel drug money around (not that they don’t), so some lines are drawn no matter what. Moreover: is legality the right test; should we be looking at Patreon’s legal responsibilities for campaigns’ content, or is it that we consider them to have more of a moral responsibility?

Your arguments are like those of the MPAA on crack. The MPAA wants to ban people from the internet on their say so, on their unproven allegations of copyright infringement. And they want credit card transaction bans on various companies on their say so. No trial. No adjudication. No due process. That’s exactly what you are arguing for, only with even more nebulous criteria than copyright infringement.

[Skeptic]

@shaddack

…couldn’t this actually be a professional paid-for service? I’ll show myself out…

Or be in your bunk? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[JonS]

uh, no, it’s not like the MPAA. Not at all. As you said yourself, the MPAA want to banish people from the web. Not just a site or two. The. Whole. Damn. Web.

Patreon have the right to choose who they do business with/take money from. Exercising that right is not akin to banishing someone from the web. Not in any meaningful way, at least.

[Maya]

@shaddack

On the other hand, adding variables to the already complex finance-involving mess is guaranteed to bring false positives.

What criteria will be used to allow/deny a service? can it be retroactively suspended once granted? Will the criteria be strictly related to the service’s use, or could it be extended to the user’s unrelated online behavior (“morality”-based rules tend to suffer of scope creep)? Can the criteria ever be specified so exactly that there is always obvious on which side one is? What are the suggested appeal procedures?

Note the existing problems with PayPal’s often capricious account-suspension policies. How to avoid these?

Ah, definitely! I agree that touching financial regulations/practices is its own barrel of worms, and I’m not putting forward any kind of a win-win fix. Given that PR-concerned industries often write morality clauses into contracts, I don’t think any of this is clear-cut in any sense (well, maybe that Thunderd00d and whoever else are being jerks. That seems pretty clear), and probably any action has both benefits and costs. I think that it’s interesting to think about what we do and don’t hold companies responsible for, legally and otherwise, and I valued the article’s take on things as well as your bringing Patreon’s legal materials into the discussion.

@shaddack

…couldn’t this actually be a professional paid-for service?

Not through PayPal.

[Skeptic]

@JonS

uh, no, it’s not like the MPAA. Not at all. As you said yourself, the MPAA want to banish people from the web. Not just a site or two. The. Whole. Damn. Web.

Patreon have the right to choose who they do business with/take money from. Exercising that right is not akin to banishing someone from the web. Not in any meaningful way, at least.

Yes, the MPAA wants internet bans, but at least they have a defineded scope of allegations: specific alleged acts of copyright infringement against their copyrights, giving them standing and various avenues of legal recourse. (Not that they always are good about stating the exact allegations in their take down or lawsuits.)

Maya has no defined criteria for transaction bans, no adjudication, nor is the argument limited to crowd funding processors such as Patreon - any transaction processor, from PayPal and Visa to EventBright can be argued to be in the same position of profiting from the transactions of Gamergaters.

[FoolishOwl]

“You can’t be neutral on a moving train.”

[JonS]

FTFA:

These are the people these crowdfunding services such as Patreon, Gratipay, and GoFundMe have partnered with. They are not mere users, in the way that someone might use the telephone or Facebook, nor mere customers, as with a bank or Paypal. These services handling the billing—and in some cases the promotion and distribution—of the business of encouraging angry mobs to harass people.

In a moral, if not legal sense, they are the business partners of people who profit from intentionally inflicting human misery. Crowdfunding services have the duty not only to be aware of who they are doing business with, but also to care when their rules are flaunted.

Are you intentionally trying to misrepresent Maya’s argument, or are you just to dim to read the words?

[Skeptic]

@JonS

Are you intentionally trying to misrepresent Maya’s argument, or are you just to dim to read the words?

Ah, the ad hominem, a sure sign of a sound and valid rebuttal…

I dispute the thesis that choking off transactions at crowdfunding or recurring payment processor sites sans due process is fundamentally different than choking it off via payment transaction processors such as PayPal, Visa, Bank of America or EventBright sans due process.

[ChaosEngineer]

@Skeptic

I dispute the thesis that choking off transactions at crowdfunding or recurring payment processor sites sans due process is fundamentally different than choking it off via payment transaction processors such as PayPal, Visa, Bank of America or EventBright sans due process.

Good for you! Imagine how dull the world would be if no one ever disputed anything.

I think I’ll dispute the thesis that there’s any significant benefit to using Patreon instead of a Visa Merchant Account. So if somebody gets kicked off Patreon for being a horrible person, then there’s no harm done. They can just find a web-hosting provider that’s sufficiently shady to want to deal with them, and set up a website to take credit card donations.

I’d provide further arguments in support of my thesis, but honestly I feel like I’ve done enough work already.