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Comment by ng12 | Hacker News Reader

Can someone explain exactly what is pressuring payment processors to pass moral judgement on the payments they're processing? I'm sure MasterCard would rather not waste resources moderating Patreon users, so what's pressuring them to do so?

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Public pressure in the form of negative press or Twitter mobs can go a long way; I could name a dozen firings and deplatformings off the top of my head just in the past year. As far as banking and payments goes, there is evidence that the FDIC pressured banks to cut off businesses selling satanic death metal, providing payday loans, or distributing racist materials, formerly under the auspices of "Operation Choke Point" [1].

The larger phenomenon has also been dubbed "woke capital": the claim is that as a shield against public opinion and regulators, multi-billion dollar corporations promote various types of progressive activism that don't cut into their bottom line [2]. How public opinion and regulators got that way is another story and still a mystery to me.

[1] https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1081248850252390400.html [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/opinion/corporate-america...

First time i’ve heard of operation choke point. Thanks for both citations.

A company I work with is heavily engaged in corporate activism. They suggested political viewpoints during the midterms and tend to only hire candidates who share those same perspectives. There has been at least one employee who was let go over their support of a different political viewpoint.

It wasn’t always like this. It has intensified over the past two years. The majority of their revenue is from a single company and I suspect that has something to do with it.

Wallstreet. My financial advisor tried to sell me on this new socially conscious index, years ago. Political correctness is great for business - very predictable, very manageable.

https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b14z9vvlscsnp2...

Political correctness and social good may be related, but they are not synonymous.

One literally defines the other, so no. Unless you are speaking from a universal perspective, which unfortunately isn't really part of the collective consciousness - and therefor inconsequential to daily life and the issue at hand.

Do you mean to say that political correctness defines social good, or that the social good defines what is politically correct?

I'd say the former, but it really doesn't matter - the point is the subjectivity of collective "good" and "correctness". Also, a lot of people are under the impression that these things are numerically based - the democratic tyranny of the majority... this is not the case. We see the same thing play out in the slow failure of competing interest to guard against lobbyist abuse, it is an issue of motivation - not quantity or legitimacy.

They are completely orthogonal. Social good is the "quality" of being good for society. Political correctness is almost always a complete waste of time for any society.

Ok, but that's not what he said at all. He said it's a safe investment.

Political correctness and identity politics have spread pretty much everywhere in large financial institutions. There is a justified fear of retaliation which means that employees become over-zealous.

I guess the founders and employees at Patreon just don’t care for making life easier for white supremacists and the like.

I'm curious, how are you defining "the like"? The list of people denied service looks a lot more like those you wouldn't want preceding your Coca-Cola ad buy. Why would Patreon care? Because payment networks care.

   8chan
   Encyclopedia Dramatica
   BitChute

If you expand the scope beyond Patreon and include Paypal then you can throw in:

   Wikileaks
   Numerous Antifa chapters
   World Socialist Web Site

As somebody who has been involved with bitcoin since 2012, I can tell you from first hand experience that when Visa declares you a persona non grata - a large number of businesses quickly do the same. Yes, the full list of Patreon service denials includes a lot of unsympathetic figures - but you'd be a fool to think that this behavior doesn't shift with the Overton window (welcome back to the world of crypto currency, Dwolla, betcha feel silly for screwing up that perfect opportunity Paypal gave you).

Many of the voluntary donors on Patreon are averse to supporting their favorite creators on a platform that does not take a "moral" stand when needed (at the donors' discretion). This has been the actual user behavior (even organized protests against Patreon!) for not banning certain political figures.

This seems counter to Patreon's claims that Mastercard has forced them to make decisions. If there were complainants on Patreon, would they not just complain to Patreon first?

You're referring to one specific case (of which there are many). Also, even in this specific case, I encourage you to evaluate the facts, press, and public statements yourself, ask yourself the right questions, and do your own critical thinking.

Meanwhile, other voluntary donors are leaving Patreon because of the bannings.

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