Comment by AmIFirstToThink | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AmIFirstToThink | Hacker News Reader

AmIFirstToThink

barf. yuck.

I found that article physically repulsive.

Patreon, if you are listening, don't buy into all the power that the article wants to shower upon you. They want you to influence your exercise of that power, and they want you to use that power to do their bidding in limiting free debate of ideas.

Patrons and the person that they support, that's it, that's all there is to it. The silver coin is being given by hands of patrons and taken by hands of one that is being supported, that silver coin shouldn't have opinions, emotions and desires. Stay neutral, that is the greatest challenge of our time, stay neutral. If a crime is being committed then co-operate fully with law enforcement, but don't give in to the pressures from lobbying groups with their own agenda.

Don't get carried away into the corrupting power the platforms like youtube, facebook, twitter exercise on the discussion carried out on these platforms. They have absolute power, and you can see that once you use it, it's addictively corrupting. Stay neutral, it is going to be hard to do, I hope you find the power within you to do so.

Good luck.

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.

s/search and rescue vessels/people smuggling vessels

Sure, assuming Doctors Without Borders is in the people smuggling business now, it is still a seaworthy vessel instead of a makeshift raft, the kind that is responsible for that drowned toddler washing up on European shores which is specifically used as an example of the possible harm that would be in breach of the company's content policy.

Picking up people 20 miles off of Libya's coast and bringing them to Italy instead of to the much (!) closer African shore is not exactly "search & rescue".

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-rescue-ita...

Ignoring your apparent political motivation to keep these people out of Europe (which is not really what is being discussed), the fact still stands that without these ships, human people are at greater risk of drowning. As I stated in an earlier post, there are better ways to stop people smuggling than letting the people being smuggled, drown at sea.

Yes, the better way is to make it clear that trying to illegally enter Europe is useless. If there is no motivation to cross the sea in a rubber dinghy, there will be no drowning people, either.

But this is apparently out of the question, for reasons of "humanity".

I'm not disagreeing with you, but we aren't talking about immigration policy here, we are talking about whether or not Patreon's content policy was violated.

I agree, it was only tangentially related due to the Patreon vs Lauren Southern situation.

One of the reasons North African smugglers put people on makeshift rafts is because they know that NGO vessels will rescue them. The African smugglers and NGOs are in cahoots - effectively making the NGOs smugglers as well.

Does that change the fact without the NGO craft, people aboard the raft are at greater risk of drowning? All of this just sounds like justification for allowing people to drown. I'm sure there are better ways to prevent people smugglers than blockading the part of the operation that prevents human deaths.

The NGO boats can rescue the migrants and take them back to Libya instead of to Italy. Why aren't they doing that?

As I mentioned in another post, where they take the people they rescue really has nothing to do with Patreon's content policy.

The irony is that the boat being used to blockade is the one actually engaging in people smuggling.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/27/anti-migrant-b...

Yes, now white supremacists trying to make sure brown people die in the ocean using patreon funds are conservative journalists. Won't anyone think of free speech? Next he'll ban patreon crowdfunding the creation of snuff films, what a monster. It's almost like he doesn't want to be knowingly complicit in murder.

I'll give you this, though, the man is devious -- can you imagine the mental gymnastics involved in watching a video proudly filmed and posted online by these people of them doing a thing and discussing that very thing in the middle of doing it? And using that as evidence? Truly disgusting.

> Yes, now white supremacists trying to make sure brown people die in the ocean

This kind of gross distortion is counterproductive. (Unless your goal is to alienate others and hurt your own credibility.)

Sounds like a sailed ship

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