Patreon as a Platform Is in Trouble | Hacker News Reader

Patreon as a Platform Is in Trouble

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10 pointsfelix199619 comments

The post is missing context. That's what I can find:

- Owen Benjamin has been removed from Patreon late 2019

- His fans file suits against Patreon claiming they interfered in their economic relationship with a content creator

- Under Patreon terms of service at the time, such a complaint has to be settled via arbitration under California's laws

- On January 1 Patreon changed their terms to ban users from filing complaints when someone is removed from the platform

- Patreon initiated a counter-suit against 72 complainers

- That has been denied Friday, Patreon will have to pay up to $10k per arbitration case

- Under California laws the updated terms of service can cause other legal issues (?)

- Patreon is now exposed to other lawsuits regarding other personalities removed from their platform

The ToS say you waive your right to a jury trial or participating in a class action. Both are wrong. By stating those conditions, Patreon is guilty of deceptive practices. Which is illegal. All Patreon users can file a demand for arbitration now, regardless of whether or not someone they backed was deplatformed.

To understand what is going on, a summary of the legal repartee going on is as follows, written by Vox Day, who formulated the legal strategy and to my understanding, basically wrote all the legal briefs.

The crazy thing is that neither the lawyers nor the Trust & Safety people even read the Terms and Community Guidelines. I mean, one can excuse the gammas and the armchair lawyers for not knowing what the relevant rules and laws are, they're mostly reacting to what they've seen floating around the Internet.

But it's downright bizarre to me how the freaking lawyers don't even know what they're talking about. They'll write dozens of filings all based on the same false premise.

WE KICKED OWEN OFF BECAUSE HE POSTED HATE SPEECH ON OUR PLATFORM!

No, he didn't.

OKAY, WE KICKED HIM OFF BECAUSE HE POSTED HATE SPEECH ON INSTAGRAM AND WE POLICE OFF-PLATFORM SPEECH TOO!

Instagram is free.

WHAT? SO WHAT?

So Owen's Patreon account didn't fund his Instagram posts. Instagram is free.

WELL, UM, WE DID IT BECAUSE HE POSTED SOMETHING ON FACEBOOK!

Facebook is free too.

TWITTER?

That's free too.

WELL, HE MADE VIDEOS! ON YOUTUBE. HE FUNDED THOSE ON PATREON!

No, he didn't. He was monetized directly on YouTube and he never created a Patreon video project.

WE CAN KICK OFF ANYONE WE WANT FOR NO REASON AT ALL!

Allow me to introduce you to the Unruh Civil Rights Act of 1959....

I think the thing people sometimes forget is that at the core of all of this drama is a substantive issue (and the reason for the arbitration claims), namely:

* Can Patreon kick someone off who did not violate their terms of service?

* Does kicking someone off in this manner constitute tortious interference?

It's actually somewhat unfortunate that this is going through arbitration, if only because we likely won't ever get the full details of the judgement.

However, it is clear that, in addition to the central issue under arbitration, there are a number of errors that Patreon has made that are not working in their favor.

My understanding is that NDAs only apply to settlements, not to actual judgements. Also, no one wants to settle.

I hope we get to see judgments. This is potentially a big deal for consumer rights.

Is there actual risk of imminent crash in Patreon? I do know they have/had content policy/cultural disagreement issues but

Patreon required binding arbitration in case of certain disputes and promised to pay certain fees, then pissed off a creator, who couldn't do anything. His backers could, though, and several thousand of them requested arbitration.

Paying the arbitration fees several thousand times will be a real strain (the total sum is in the millions IIRC), and the working hours won't be easy either. So Patreon tried to group the disputes together, which failed a few days ago.

Now some creators are worried that Patreon might break down and take their money along (ie. the money that Patreon collected last month and would disburse next month).

There were originally about 100 backers, plus the creator himself, filing claims.

Since then, I believe at least another hundred have decided to join the fun.

Patreon Delenda Est.

They seem to be creators. Where is this ideal that the whole platform is at risk coming from?

Patreon is on the hook for all arbitration costs, minus $250 that the aggrieved consumer must pay as a filing fee.

The risk is because Patreon's liability is open-ended. Each arbitration is a MINIMUM of $10K, and escalates from there, depending on the number and nature of claims.

If the claimants are not motivated by money, and they are not, they can push each arbitration to a full hearing and decision, rather than accept a settlement offer. Since they violated their own ToS by suing in court and doing so in a class action (two separate violations), they are in serious peril.

If they do that, Patreon could easily end up paying $100K per user.

Finally, ANY Patreon user can file a claim because of how badly they've botched the multiple revisions to the ToS since then.

ah right...googling this suggests it's connected to this news article I missed 3 days prior

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24009301

It deserves to be in trouble considering they blatantly tried to kill speech of Saragon of Akkad and a few others. Monopoly shouldn't be abused in this manner.

In what way does Patreon hold a monopoly?

They don't have a monopoly, but that only makes Patreon's decisions even more foolish.

They deserve to be in trouble because of their own incompetence, nothing more.

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