On the removal of Come Back Alive | Hacker News Reader

On the removal of Come Back Alive

blog.patreon.com

322 pointsevvvvr391 comments

You can use bank transfers and Bitcoin to donate directly, see this page: https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/

It seems that bitcoin donations are pouring in (over $4 million already). You can watch the bitcoin address here: https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/bc1qkd5az2ml7dk5j5...

Hopefully they have good security around the private key.

While they are in fact receiving lots of BTC, one transaction sticks out (80 BTC, 2022-02-25 09:55:18 [3,067,846.41 USD]), I wonder who has that much BTC to give away like that. It is impressive, but raises a lot of questions.

Not really. There are plenty of low-profile high-net-worth miners with that much. I used to hang out in the cex.io chatroom back in 2014 and there were fat cat miners in there who would say "watch this" and then the price would quickly go down by several percentage points because their entire mining pool just sold. It seems quite plausible at least to me that one of these networks might decide to donate a large amount all at once.

This is really cool to read, but trading volume of btc went from 20M when it was 3 years old to 170M over the years, so that happens a lot less frequently.

These days, many of these same individuals are literally buying plane-loads of chips fresh off the assembly lines in China, and have significantly scaled up their operations with their previous gains, so I wouldn't count it out.

Vitalik Buterin, just to mention one. He tweeted his support to Ukraine. "Ethereum is neutral but I'm not".

I'm not saying it was him but it could be. And 80 BTC to him it's peanuts.

Here's official info from the National Bank of Ukraine with more options:

https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-vidkriv-sp...

Patreon blocked large Ukrainian army charity volunteers account https://savelife.in.ua/en/ It was probably the second largest on Patreon - getting more than a 200 000$ a month

"We don’t allow Patreon to be used for funding weapons or military activity." What is this then? https://www.patreon.com/search?q=guns

None of those are fundraising for weapons or military activity. They all seem to be videos or blogging fundraisers.

Oh, yeah! They definitely use that money only to pay for internet bills

Patreon money goes into their left pocket. When they buy guns, they pay with their right pocket. Internet bills are indeed paid with their left pocket ;).

"different colors of money" as the government says

Pocket to pocket gas fees are getting totally out of hand.

I mean, this is like saying that anyone who makes an income on Patreon can't buy guns with said income...

This screenshot of Come Back Alive's[0] listing made it clear the fundraiser was for actual munitions.

Perhaps they should have obfuscated what their intentions were.

[0] https://bit.ly/3McywUi

I don't see how these are comparable.

If the Iraq war had happened today, would you be able to use the same arguments for patreons who collect money against the British and US invaders who used imaginary WMD[0] as pretext?

I believe it is very clear that it is impossible for legally operating institutions to collect funds for wars without direct governmental involvement or blessing as these are complex matters that you don't want to end up on the wrong side when things settle. The Iraqi WMD were found to be imaginary much later, not at the time of operations and in this alternative timeline, Patreon could have ended as the company that facilitated the collection of funds for WMD operators.

It's very different from facilitating the collection of funds for creation of weapon related media. No person in right mind would want to be involved in collecting funds for armed conflicts unless actively takes sides.

Even humanitarian aid is risky as it is often used as a cover for military operations, so you will need solid guarantees - preferably from the state actors that you are abiding with.

[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7634313

This is an example of whataboutism at its finest.

Where is the 'call to military action' or 'call for violence' with guns or anything that is funding an active military campaign in your link? There is none.

This is a 'private platform' doing private platform things and they can decide to do business with whoever they want to and will point to anything that breaks their ToS.

Don't like it? Use cryptocurrencies for donations then.

“Whataboutism” is a really stupid name for the Socratic method.

What do you mean by the Socratic method?

Just Asking Questions, probably.

My point exactly.

Civilian-owned firearms enthusiasts are not "military activity."

Mostly video and other media creation about guns (not funding “weaponry or other military activity”), some things that have the string “guns” in a brand name but which aren't, by description, particular even about guns as a subject matter (“Gunsmoke Games” which uses it to fund...Dating Sims).

Even as Whataboutism goes that's pretty weak sauce.

Direct link to Patreon's statement: https://blog.patreon.com/on-the-removal-of-come-back-alive

I’m so disappointed with their stance here. Russians are slaughtered these folks and they can’t get funds to defend themselves? Sickening.

While I wouldn't have stopped this myself, I think its perfectly reasonable for a crowdfunding website to not want to host campaigns used to purchase military grade weaponry.

Freedom. What is being defended here is the right to have a website like this at all. The west has a long way to go to wake up to what's at stake here.

Patreon isn't against "freedom" and they most certainly know what's at stake here. What they're against is having to decide whether a cause is just or not. After all, one side's "freedom fighter" is another side's terrorist. In this case it might be pretty obvious, but they don't want to get in the habit of having to make calls, because there are far more cases that are less clear cut.

No, it is not. Freedom != mass purchase of weapons through crowdfunding.

Patreon hosts tons of youtube channels focused only on weapons including purely military ones, how to make guns more effective (aka better at killing), how to tweak ammo to be more destructive.

That's one fucked up schizophrenic stance, especially from US company in this specific conflict. Does Trump have any influence there by any chance, given his recent statements?

> Does Trump have any influence there by any chance, given his recent statements?

Interesting take to say the least.

Trump campaigners and other alt-right types don't like Patreon due to prior disagreements; they literally founded an alternative platform with a parody name, to avoid it -- Hatreon.

And how well is that doing?

I don't really care :-)

There is a difference to funding a gun blog or shooting-focused YouTube channel, versus training army personnel and buying guns for them.

The difference is that the former is pointless frivolity, and the latter is, in this case, defending against a literal invasion.

Exactly. My point is that they are materially different.

A person may disagree with Patreon’s policy, but you have to agree that it is not in fact hypocritical (or “schizophrenic”) to allow funding to one but not the other.

And you, my dear pister, are waffling on the freedom to self-organize, and falling into the Kissinger trap.

Soft power; Sickening thing. Once you have it you're responsible for everything. In this case, the U.S. trying to once again get entangled in another spat.

Once you start binning which transactions are really appropriate to happen, you're de-facto making policy.

Now you’re just stringing random words together. What is the “Kissinger trap”?

The topic was the freedom of an American corporation to not finance warfare. There is no moral or legal imperative for them to permit their users to finance a foreign country’s military, whether that country is an ally or adversary.

Of course they are free to do so. Nobody has said they are not.

What people are saying is that they are cowards for doing so, and that they will from now on refuse to do business with them. As I am sure you can agree, they are free to do.

The Kissinger Trap. As good a name as I can think of. Rule through soft power as enacted top down from a Global power. Basically "sensible defaults" as applied to foreign policy, as interpreted by diplomats.

It leads to delegatory attitudes wherein people should cede agency to "the authorities" to broker things out and any type of personal agency being disencouraged or quashed.

Works great when people aren't interconnected to the degree we are now, but at the cost of the action potentials being much more strongly gated and open to the idiosyncracies of Heads of State, rather than genuine support across the populace.

Now you're faced with reality where funds can potentially be transfered somewhere they can do good. The reliance on a centralized facilitator is technically lower.

It'll be interesting to see if the "Game of Kings" plays out the same way when the pawns can signal betwixt themselves more easily.

When a conventional army starts using that channel's videos for training, does that mean they magically stop receiving funding?

As long as there's a plausibly non-military use of such projects (ie. entertainment), it's fine. It's not any different than funding some open source project, even though the open source project can theoretically be used for weaponry.

> Patreon hosts tons of youtube channels focused only on weapons including purely military ones, how to make guns more effective (aka better at killing), how to tweak ammo to be more destructive.

This is a straw man argument unless you can produce some sources.

I mean you've had to do some pretty serious stretching to compare the two there.

Essentially saying there's no difference between e.g. a video game store selling games that have guns in them and actual rifles. Come on. Basically the entire non US western world would find that absurd.

Lets be clear. There is no difference between weaponry and military grade. That people entertain the notion is a sign of the softening of language and perversion of meaning by the political classes to justify breaking their own founding document to centralize power (in the case of the U.S.)

There is weaponry, and there is volume. And if you want to completely sidestep these issues, get a mill, some metal, and get fabbing.

Save the squishy little handwringers their conscience. My heart goes out to you folks. Give 'em hell.

Well it doesn't really matter. I can't blame them for not wanting to fund weaponry of any sort on a crowdfunding site.

Europe has promised 1.2 billion in aid and has been sending them armament for a while now. I much prefer countries and politicians sending them large sums than the small donations - of which Patreon and any payment processor in between gets a big cut - given by well-wishing common folk.

That said, the US denied them financial aid though, Trump got impeached for withholding $400 million in military aid to Ukraine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_impeachment_of_Donald_Tr...) if they didn't investigate Joe Biden and took the blame for Russia's intervention in the 2016 elections.

Are we even at a point now where money can make a difference? It seems like within 2-3 days the existing governmental structure will be seized, along with (I assume) funds that are being donated. Is it plausible that Ukrainian gov officials will retreat into NATO territory and continue to coordinate resistance from there, along with the still-pouring-in funds, or is that a pipe dream?

In WW2 several countries invaded by Germany (and the USSR) set up "governments-in-exile" in London, so it certainly isn't unprecedented.

The government of China fled to Hong Kong and is still there today... some people say.

You mean Taiwan

Thanks, it's amazing the things I know and still botch.

For what it's worth plenty of nationalists did actually flee to Hong Kong. Had a friend whose family was from HK, his grandfather was a banker and supposedly a personal friend of Chiang Kai-Shek and he hid under a pile of dead fish on a fishing boat to escape the communists and go to HK.

They have a valid point in not wanting to be used for funding military support, however the way they express concern for the safety of Ukrainian people without criticizing or even taking distance from Putin and the Russian invasion looks quite strange to me. Ukraine wasn't hit by a tornado or an earthquake; there's people behind the invasion, and Patreon seem to ignore that. Expressing disapproval against people behind the facts, and not merely the facts, is important.

> Expressing disapproval against people behind the facts, and not merely the facts, is important.

The platform is in a position to actually help beyond denouncing but they abstain. It is lip service nothing more.

I know emotions are running high in this thread but asking to educate myself.

Ukraine is not a tiny nation, and Russia is huge. In that scenario how will a small assortment of weapons and software even help them? Do they even need weapons help? Also how can a charity buy that list and supply? Can an organization buy them, feels like that kind of a purchase should be restricted to countries only.

I am very much rooting for Ukraine, but at the same time feel there is little anyone short of another peer superpower can do to stop the Russian juggernaut from doing what Putin wants.

Russia can destroy and invade the country. But occupying a place as huge as Ukraine will be hard. Even with a small set of weapons and fighters defending the territory you can make the place way more difficult to control than it would be otherwise.

I expect they’ll have a pretty easy time in the places dominated by ethnic Russians who welcome Russian rule. I further expect they’ll have a considerably harder time in the non-Russian areas.

The USSR brought Ukraine under control after WW II.

> Ukraine is not a tiny nation, and Russia is huge.

The US, the most well-funded army in the world for the past generation, hasn't won a war since the end of WW2. Army size and the like does not matter. The Ukranian forces can entrench themselves and maintain a guerilla war for a long time, as long as they have supplies.

I strongly feel like wars are unwinnable. It either ends up in a stalemate and attrition - see the US trying to do a thing in the middle east for two decades only for things to go back the second they leave - or MAD. And the last one hasn't and will hopefully never happen.

>The US, the most well-funded army in the world for the past generation, hasn't won a war since the end of WW2.

That depends on the definition of winning. In many cases, US military won everything militarily, but lost politically.

I mean, is Iraq even a loss politically?

The US thoroughly rolled the Iraqi military, killed over 1 million Iraqis, overthrew their government, and installed a new government in Iraq that still exists today.

To say this is a "loss" leaves us at a place where the term has no meaning.

Yes, because it required 20 years of active occupation, numerous offensives, and trillions of dollars and it's unlikely that the result will last.

While we fucked around in the middle east, Russia regained strength and China emerged as a peer world power. Does anyone want to bet that Iraq or Afghanistan will remain our loyal ally in this new multipolar world?

We're now $30T in debt with a 125% debt-to-GDP ratio. All of our allies are completely emasculated by 70+ years of U.S. hegemony. And no one has an appetite for war on ideological grounds when we lied about all the past wars and protestors are getting trampled by horses and un-personed from the financial system without due process in a 'liberal' western democracy.

Strategically speaking, you can win a battle but lose the war. It was an absolute loss from that perspective.

> Yes, because it required 20 years of active occupation, numerous offensives, and trillions of dollars and it's unlikely that the result will last.

By that logic, the Germans lost the Franco-Prussian War because they subsequently lost the First World War.

Killing over 1 million Iraqis, most of them civilians, counts as a "win"?

The war massively damaged the US government's credibility, both domestically and internationally, cost the US ~$2T, and did little to stabilize the region; one might be able to argue that it destabilized it, in fact. The US won a military victory in Iraq, but emerged worse off on the whole as a result.

If wars have either winners, losers, or ties, the Iraqis definitely were the "losers" of the invasion of Iraq by the US. This isn't intended to be a moral value judgement on the slaughter of the 1 million Iraqis in the process.

>> The US, the most well-funded army in the world for the past generation, hasn't won a war since the end of WW2.

> That depends on the definition of winning. In many cases, US military won everything militarily, but lost politically.

This. It also really, really depends on definitions. Did the US win the Korean war because South Korea still exists, or lose because North Korea still exists?

> Did the US win the Korean war because South Korea still exists, or lose because North Korea still exists?

Neither, the Korean war never officially ended.

> I strongly feel like wars are unwinnable.

I think wars are winnable. It is technically possible for the US (or Russia, China) to annihilate their opponent.

The bigger question is: what follows?

Let's say that NATO got involved and retaliated. Somehow Putin gets handcuffed and sent to prison or otherwise is removed from office.

What then? A HUGE power vacuum in Russia that will be filled by... another ex-KGB officer? A Russian oligarch? A freely-elected politician?

>The US, the most well-funded army in the world for the past generation, hasn't won a war since the end of WW2.

The First Gulf War was a pretty decisive victory. Also Grenada.

> I know emotions are running high in this thread but asking to educate myself.

I hope You would learn something from today's message by Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine on situation where few Ukrainian kindergartens shelled by Russian rocket strikes:

> Today’s Russian attacks on a kindergarten and an orphanage are war crimes and violations of the Rome Statute. Together with the General Prosecutor’s Office we are collecting this and other facts, which we will immediately send to the Hague. Responsibility is inevitable.[0]

N.B. I'm Ukrainian living in Ukraine. Here is my statement for HN:[1]

[0] https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1497186665156255754

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30395897

Oh no! I am against any Russian aggression and the atrocities they are committing. This is terrible. Please understand that I am only trying to understand the approach that organization was taking with the charity, never questioning how evil Putin is or that he needs to be held accountable.

> I am only trying to understand

I just hope you would be able to understand feeling of Ukrainian 14-year-old girl, killed by Russian missile yesterday on the street of Uman city, Cherkasy region, Ukraine.[0]

[0] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1497242681981882371

As horrific as that is, that sort of stuff happens in wars all the time. It's so common that it even has its own fancy word to make it sound less horrific: collateral damage. That said, unless Russia was intentionally targeting the kindergarten (and/or the Russians didn't reasonably believe the kindergarten to be housing enemy troops at the time) I don't really see how that can be treated as a war crime.

For the record I think Russia's invasion is morally wrong and unjustified.

> As horrific as that is, that sort of stuff happens in wars all the time.

But when it happens in your country, your city, even your home...

I just wish You to not meet war eye-to-eye.

I'm actually looking into war's eyes directly.

The invasion itself may well be a war crime too (though there are gray areas and Russia has been trying to present itself as on the right side of those lines):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_aggression

History will not look kindly on people like you defending the actions of Russia.

What actions exactly have I defended? Awful, horrific shit on scales beyond our comprehension have happened in basically every war in human history, including the deaths of countless innocent civilians. But to count as a war crime, the deaths of civilians has to be intentional (or at least with some level of reckless disregard for the safety of civilians, the standards of proof for which would be extremely high in a war). I've seen no evidence put forward yet that the kindergarten that got shelled was shelled intentionally.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is morally wrong (and as a sibling comment pointed out, the invasion itself may be a war crime). Deaths of civilians caused by Russia's invasion are not inherently war crimes in and of themselves. It's not like felony murder, where any death caused in the commission of a felony is instantly treated as a murder. Civilian deaths caused by a war of aggression are not inherently war crimes.

> Ukraine is not a tiny nation, and Russia is huge.

The Vietnamese successfully fought off multiple foreign invaders over past centuries against armies more powerful and advanced than theirs.

With the stipulation that there were some punches the USA wasn’t willing to throw. Russia has seen this and Russia has seen Aleppo.

Russia committing to this means that they are okay with doing what they need to for a decisive and quick victory.

This.

The US is certainly no saint in combat. However I will say it is arguably much more sensitive towards at least trying to avoid collateral damage. Russia, and autocracies in general, are probably much more willing to inflict total war because they simply do not have to be as accountable to their publics as a democratic government.

This title seems designed to cause outrage. In their post, it's very clear why they couldn't allow the account to remain active: "The website of the organization says they use contributions to finance and train military personnel."

Individuals should not be funding foreign militaries. It does not matter if the country was unjustly attacked or not.

How so? There is preciously little else you can do to feel like you may make a difference.

Not that I believe donating here would have helped, but…

You don't have to donate directly to the military. You can donate to any relief organizations, independent journalists covering the war, etc. There's a lot on the periphery that need donations as well.

Yep! I'm not against people donating to other organizations that are helping out. In fact I hope that people do help out that way!

If anyone wants to support Ukraine defense directly, please use:

https://ukraine.ua/news/support-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/ or https://ukraine.ua/news/donate-to-the-nbu-fund/

this is a bit of a hassle, as UA government agencies can accept donations only through wire transfers, but that's just a few clicks in the banking app anyway.

Anybody can confirm whether ukraine.ua is legit? Their SSL certificate is issued to sni.cloudflaressl.com, which says nothing about whoever owns ukraine.ua.

I'd say this one looks a bit more legit: https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-vidkriv-sp...

FWIW, https://ukraine.ua/ is linked from https://mfa.gov.ua/ ("Офіційний сайт України" in the footer)

Correct.

Site https://ukraine.ua/ is official Ukraine promotion platform, created & managed by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.

Site https://mfa.gov.ua/ is official site of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.

Here some other related official links (due to Ukrainian gov sites are DDoS'ed periodically):

- https://twitter.com/MFA_Ukraine (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine)

- https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba (Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine)

- https://twitter.com/DefenceU (Ministry of Defense of Ukraine)

Googling the IBAN (UA458201720313281002302018611) finds search results [1] from sites including treasury.gov.ua [2], mil.gov.ua [3] and 24tv.ua [4]. I currently see only 23 results for the IBAN code, but I blame this on the newness/novelty of the information and a suspicion that Google's keyword indexing engine doesn't particularly like rare/unique terms (both when parsing queries and tokenizing page content).

Googling the USREOU [4] code (00034022) leads me to discover [5] that this code maps into an open-data public register that several search/scrape services [6,7,8,9,10] identify (with the help of Google Translate) as the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. A cursory examination suggests that all of these services seem to 100% corroborate each other.

The MFI (820172) is a very simple/common query/construction that returns junk/irrelevant results without further context. I wondered if this number being incorrect would cause a transaction to irreversibly "commit" but not go to the correct destination (or anywhere), so I tried to understand its significance. It's a Monetary Financial Institution code [11], part of a European banking standard that Ukraine participated in until it very recently switched to IBAN in 2020 (!) [12]. Critically, while the format of an IBAN (International Bank Account Number) seems (my speculation!) to be up to the implementer to format (seemingly within some loose guidelines... again, speculation), the way Ukraine is doing it is they are embedding the MFI code into the IBAN: UA45𝟴𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟳𝟮313…. Thus the MFI is provided by the MOD likely for bureaucracy purposes, and if it is needed at all it is encoded redundantly into the IBAN in any case. Yay.

**Disclaimer**: I encourage challenging and fact-checking the rationale presented here before proceeding. (The registry information [6..10] is honestly mildly interesting.)

Thankyou for coming to my Wikipedia comment (this was fun!), dodge the citations as you go past :P

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=UA45820172031328100230201861...

[2] https://www.treasury.gov.ua/ua/dopomoga-na-materialno-tehnic...

[3] https://www.mil.gov.ua/dopomoga-na-materialno-tehnichne-ta-m...

[4] https://24tv.ua/ru/finansovo-podderzhat-ukrainskuju-armiju-o..., https://24tv.ua/mzs-otrimalo-bagato-zvernen-za-kordonu-shhod...

[4] https://www.allacronyms.com/USREOU - "Unified State Register of Enterprises and Organizations of Ukraine"

[5] https://www.google.com/search?q=00034022

[6] https://youcontrol.com.ua/en/catalog/company_details/0003402...

[7] https://opendatabot.ua/c/00034022

[8] https://dozorro.org/profile/UA-EDR-00034022/5/role1

[9] https://clarity-project.info/tenderer/00034022

[10] https://izi.trade/tenders/companies/00034022

[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_Financial_Institution...

[12] https://about.pumb.ua/en/info/iban

[13] https://bank.com.ua/en/news/zaprovadzhennya-mizhnarodnogo-no...

[14] https://www.iban.com/banks/privatbank

[15] https://en.privatbank.ua/iban

Realized just as the edit window elapsed (Arc ate my revised text!! noo) - [12] should be [12,15] (I got them the wrong way around and I can't renumber them now), and [13,14] was supposed to go after "encoded redundantly into the IBAN [13,14]".

First time using this citation format (keeping track of numbers is fun O.o), I typically insert links inline but I expected my comment would have been unread(able) in that case :)

Well how do you think they got Cloudflare to issue a cert on their behalf? By proving ownership of the domain...

Oh, hang on. Let me get the SSL certificate for “definitelyukrainegovernment.com”. Then you can donate money to the Ukraine gov on that site too.

Well I wouldn't judge the authenticity of a site based on the SSL cert which the OP seemed to do which was my point

Ohhhh. I see now what you meant.

Depends on the cert. If the cert is issued to "Kancelaria Prezesa Rady Ministrów" I am pretty sure the site belongs to the Polish government.

Are you sure about that? What if I create an LLC in Florida with that name?

They aren't doubting that the people who set up CloudFlare didn't own the domain, they're saying the cert is anonymous.

I guess so, it just seemed weird to point out

Not really, seeing who the certificate was issued to is a good way of figuring out whom the site belongs to (or at least it was, before Let's Encrypt).

It never was

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/12/nope-...

The site is definitely legit and linked to the Ukrainian government. Now hopefully, the money will actually serve the intended goal and not land into some official's pockets... I'm just stating the facts of the region, nothing more.

I would (and will) personally give money to NGO like the red cross or doctor without borders if they intend to intervene in Ukraine, rather than the military.

You can also donate to entities like https://www.unhcr.org/. Could someone suggest other reputable options?

Tangentially (as far as I can tell this doesn’t apply to the Patreon in this post), seeing social media scam profiting from the tragedy by tricking people into reposting shady donation links is disheartening.

Well, I am sure Caritas Internationalis is there helping.

https://www.caritas.org/where-caritas-work/europe/ukraine/

(I have just made a donation).

Seems sensible. Private companies shouldn't be funding wars, particularly wars overseas from where they are based. The Ukrainian's need help but this should be coming from government's, not private citizens through a private foreign company. I feel like this shouldn't be controversial at all.

> The Ukrainian's need help but this should be coming from government's, not private citizens through a private foreign company.

If you set yourself up as a payment gateway people will use you as a payment gateway. And what private citizens do with their money is up to them.

And what private companies allow is up to them.

Patreon is not a "payment gateway", it's a mechanism for people to support creative activities, as the original term "patron of the arts" means.

Funding military weapons steps on some very complicated lines about what people are allowed to spend their money on. So saying "what private citizens do with their money is up to them." is only true as far as the law says.

Sure, but Patreon was just fine with this until two weeks ago. They should either work on their acceptance criteria or admit that they are in fact a money transmitter. They very selectively enforce this and that is why it makes them look bad because right now is the worst possible time to close this account.

> If you set yourself up as a payment gateway people will use you as a payment gateway.

They're not a payment gateway for everything and anything. They can choose what activity they don't want to facilitate and they have.

> And what private citizens do with their money is up to them.

It's not. There are numerous restrictions on what private citizens can do with their money.

> There are numerous restrictions on what private citizens can do with their money.

Yes, but those restrictions are not typically arbitrated by commercial entities but by the law.

That might be a norm that the world _should_ have but it’s not one that actually exists currently.

We demand that payment gateways prevent fraud, prevent the sale of criminal or objectionable materials, prevent money laundering and prevent sending money to nations and individuals under sanction.

Having a policy of not supporting weapons purchases is on that spectrum. Just claiming people can do what they want with their money just isn’t true.

I'm perfectly capable of transferring funds to Ukranian bank accounts from where I'm sitting, my bank doesn't get a say in that.

If I were to try to send money to ISIS or some other known terrorist organization they would surely step in under AMT laws, but the Ukranian defense force is last I checked not on that list (Though I'm sure Putin would love that.)

https://www.dnb.nl/en/sector-information/supervision-laws-an...

So effectively Patreon is carrying Putin's water here.

Your bank absolutely gets a say in that. They can refuse to transfer those funds for effectively any reason and will if they think that those funds are being transferred for any number of proscribed actions.

Those actions need not be official sanctions either. They can refuse to do business with another bank at their discretion.

I agree that it’s a very bad look for Patreon but it’s pretty business as usual.

> Your bank absolutely gets a say in that. They can refuse to transfer those funds for effectively any reason and will if they think that those funds are being transferred for any number of proscribed actions.

I think I covered that by linking to the charter that governs this.

> Those actions need not be official sanctions either. They can refuse to do business with another bank at their discretion.

They'd have to have a pretty good reason or I would have an excellent opportunity to sue. Capricious interference with the flow of capital is frowned upon.

> I agree that it’s a very bad look for Patreon but it’s pretty business as usual.

Patreon effectively joined Putin. There is no way they will whitewash this.

You linked to the charter of what is disallowed, not what is a right.

I’ll concede I don’t know the Netherlands banking regulations so perhaps you do have a right to send electronic wires but what you linked doesn’t outline that.

In the US the cfpb regulates consumer rights when sending international transfers. The rights include disclosures about fees and fx and processes for adjudication of disputes but you do not have a right to send a wire.

IMO exact opposite is the more sensible. Governments are terrible at representing people who put them to their position, let alone the rest who completely disagree with them.

I think it should be controversial, and I do not think people should just proclaim "let the government handle it", that is very dangerous idea and one that is getting us in to more and more problems

The people are the government, when we loose sight of that we have problems. Clearly the governments around the world are unwilling to help

Then go out and protest your government to make the decision you believe is right.

I would but then i would be labeled an "insurrectionist" and possibly have my ability to transact in the every day life removed...

the US, Canada, and most of the "West" is trying very hard to make Liberty and freedom protest illegal, you can only protest some topics, and some actions by government and only with the approval of government that your protesting is OK

I feel like if you don't literally break into the seat of government, smash stuff, kill a cop, or take a literal shit on the floor you'll be just fine.

What if you are let in by police (police actually holding the doors open as is seen on multiple camera's), walk through the building peacefully and unrelated to that a police office has a medical event that sadly costs him his life...

Because that was the experience for 90%+ of people... the less then 10% should be prosecuted, that actually committed property crimes.

Then you have Canada... which was a 100% peaceful protest.

Yeah... And if they don't, just vote them out. In 3 or 4 or whatever years.

In this case there's no time for that.

Is this the same Patreon?

https://www.patreon.com/GunWebsites

You mean like for the 8 years when the same page was up, and Patreon never had a problem with it?

SO they were OK with it, until they suddenly decided when Russia ramped up the invasion - got it patreon, small invasions no problem big invasions, pull the rug.

Is it possible that it's more about the amount of money rather than just timing?

I imagine that the page recently started receiving way more money than it ever has.

I'm aware that the timing still looks bad and won't change some people's view of the move. I'm not asking for that. Just asking for at least an ounce of nuance.

when you are starving and finally get a loaf of bread but still die from hunger because you don't have knife to cut it. because somewhere it is written that you SHOULD cut bread with knife. how pedantic

So essentially the problem is they're sticking to their "violence is bad" policy when in this specific situation violence is maybe not bad.

Or maybe violence is still bad.

It's self-defense. Or is that bad too?

We all know the final outcome of this. In the face of the overwhelming force Ukraine faces it seems to me any help we provide is just going to prolong the agony.

That's not a given. And dragging out the fight gives other forces a chance, too.

What other forces? The West isn't going to intervene directly.

History of the world would be very different if people actually believed that.

Ukraine sees the overwhelming force for 8 years straight.

That didn't seem to be the case in Crimea.

That's all I can think of... I just don't see an outcome where Ukraine receives so much support from the West that it will manage to beat Russia and make it go home without accomplishing any of its goals.... people seem to think that's a possible outcome. I wonder why when Kiev seems to already be surrounded and the USA government (who was right about warning about an imminent invasion!) has already said (correct me if I am wrong) that Kiev is likely to fall within days.

Short of actual military action from the West, which is extremely unlikely as that would give grounds to retaliation by Russia, escalating the war outside Ukrainian borders, Russia seems only days away from removing the Ukrainian government...

The rational thing to do right now is to start planning for the aftermath: how to get Russia out of Ukraine as soon as possible once they've taken control of the country. IMO there's only one way: to dialogue with Putin and finally accept some kind of terms for their removal from Ukraine. This is not what anyone wanted, but now that we've let Putin get to Kiev, what exactly are the options?

Anyone who thinks sending money and weapons to Ukraine will help solve the problem (including, to my horror, the UK government) seems to completely ignore the reality of the situation and is hoping for a delusional outcome, and worse, opening the possibility for things to go wrong and foreign soldiers being killed while trying to reach Ukrainian troops - which may without a doubt trigger a counter-attack by NATO and total escalation of the conflict (which should be priority number one to avoid right now!).

Consider both the US and Russia eventually left Afghanistan.

Look at the cost though. Afghanistan is the poorest country in the world, people are actually starving there now, women aren't allowed to work, people are being murdered for their political beliefs. Just so they could give their invaders a bloody nose.

I think there is nuance there but it may derail the intent of my comment: It is not a foregone conclusion that an invasion with intent of regime change and control is actually a viable strategy. The point of the Afghanistan inclusion is that the relative miltary strengths were even more lopsided yet it was not enough for Russia nor the US to maintain control. Insurgencies are devastating and the more legitimate they are, the more likely they are to maintain support.

I'm sure you'd also tell someone being raped to not defend themselves so it's over faster?

Jesus Christ, how do you people get so callous? What is wrong with you? who hurt you? What made you give up empathy and humanity?

I'll never understand you people.

Agreed, this is beyond disgusting.

Do you really think Ukraine has a reasonable chance of resisting this invasion? It doesn't look like it to me. So what are you offering other than prolonging the agony?

Ukraine resists for 8 years straight. How many years you need to accept that Ukraine is stronger than RF?

Ah the 'lets roll over for the enemy' group. Yes, we had those here in NL as well when WWII broke out.

Let's just say that when the invaders eventually left - as they always do - that group didn't fare particularly well. It's called cowardice, if coupled with actions that benefit the enemy it's called collaboration and is usually dealt with for what it is: treason.

I have no dog in this particular race other than that I know both a number of Russians and a number of Ukrainians so consider my views 'balanced' for what that is worth: down with Putin, and I hope that the Russian soldiers know that they may win the initial push but the price will be substantial and eventually they will lose.

The weird thing is that if anything the result of this is that NATO will expand, precisely to ward of this sort of idiocy.

As for agony: some prefer to fight rather than to suffer under an invader, which is a special kind of agony, which tends to last a lot longer and which will endanger not just you but also your family, your children and so on. Russia has a long history of invading other countries and it invariably spells utter misery for the occupied people.

> The weird thing is that if anything the result of this is that NATO will expand, precisely to ward of this sort of idiocy.

And many seem to have forgotten under Putin's propaganda of "the NATO provocations" that the free and democratic societies of the former Soviet Union / Eastern Bloc chose to join NATO after Russia's military actions, particularly after the events of 1991-1996 (Transnistria conflict, Abchasian separatist conflict, "intervention" in Chechnya).

It is the fault of Russian politics that NATO is so close to its borders!

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"

Of course they have a chance. Their current strength is about 465k men (and women). Add on top the general mobilization happening now. They're also strongly motivated, which the Russians aren't. Ukraine can definitely do this.

Also, giving up doesn't guarantee people will be safe. Russian occupation forces aren't usually very nice.

Did Ireland ever have a reasonable chance of resisting British invasion? Did Afghanistan ever have a reasonable chance of resisting Soviet/US invasion? Did Vietnam ever have a reasonable chance of resisting US/Chinese invasion?

Northern Ireland has never looked so close to reunification and that is largely because the republicans renounced their violence.

Would you have thought the Taliban and IS did in e.g. Afghanistan? Twenty years later and the US got tired of trying, pulled out, and they're back in power.

They can't win a guerilla war.

Yep, fighting without considering the consequences is what people should do. Let's destroy all of Europe if we need to, just so we can say fuck you Putin! Beyong disgusting , me? I am sure you're the best person in the world and ready to pack your bags and bear arms against any invincible opponent without even thinking about the costs as they don't matter a single bit.

Your position is called 'appeasement'. It's understandable, if not very good in the long term because that means that Putin gets to rule the world.

Somewhere you have to draw a line, you can choose for yourself whether that line is the Ukrainian border, Kiev or France. But you too will find that you have a line. Or maybe you don't.

> destroy all of Europe if we need to, just so we can say fuck you Putin

"just so we can say fuck you Putin"? Really? That is how you are attempting to frame the situation of a clear victim defending itself against an aggressor that has been appeased for years now?

So you believe that the attacking entity should always win, no questions asked? Is conflict to be avoided at all costs? Can I come into your home and just claim your house if I threaten to escalate with violence? You wouldn't want any conflict, so the right move would be to just give it to me.

>So you believe that the attacking entity should always win

Nobody is saying that.

Unwillingness to differentiate between different types of violence (like attacking vs. defending) under any circumstance is exactly "saying that".

Depending on the topic you can easily call it victim blaming too.

My country was in a similar position 30 years ago. A laughable army compared to the 5th largest army on paper in Europe that attacked us. The USA didn't want to get involved.

Today we are richer than Portugal.

Not at all.

1. Appeasement is not an option. It just encourages them to do it again.

2. It is up to the Ukrainians if they want to fight to the bitter end. We can't make them, we can't stop them, but we can have their backs.

3. The purpose of resisting an illegal occupation is to drive up the cost of staying as high as possible. This works, even without economic sanctions. Just ask Vietnam or Afghanistan.

4. In a proxy war, countries officially "ignore" inconvenient facts because acknowledging them will cause a more complicated conflict. This happened all over the Cold War, but as recently as Afghanistan the US had to turn a blind eye to Pakistan's behavior.

5. Nothing is predetermined or strictly predictable. History is chaos. The only thing we know for sure right now is this will be hell for the Ukrainians.

My argument is if all you do is extend the inevitable by a few days or weeks then what have you gained? Just more misery with the same outcome.

Depends on Russia's goals. From this other front page (lengthy) discussion[1], they posit Russia likely made a mistake if their goal is regime change. Insurgency's work, especially when they are legitimate. I expect if Ukraine forces survive, they would recieve long-term and well-financed backing indefinitely from the west. Now if Russia's goals are not regime change but just to destablize / make a mess, or even to just make a statement and leave (if that's politically viable? idk), different story.

[1]: https://acoup.blog/2022/02/25/miscellanea-understanding-the-...

I personally don't expect Russia to conquer all of Ukraine. It's a big country with 40 million people iirc. When Germany invaded Ukraine in 1941 they had 3 million soldiers.

I honestly don't know what Putin is expecting to gain from this. The occupation won't pay for itself and Russian economy is already bleak.

On paper with raw soldier numbers you may be right, but look at the map, and check once again how many troops russians deployed. Its not possible to really conquer country so vast with so few soldiers. Maybe 5x more, maybe 10x. Not if civilians are armed, full of hate and can actually shoot their guns and plan diversions effectively.

Yes they can bomb the bases and airports, capture few important points, but if population offers resistance in form of guerilla warfare, russians will bleed and will bleed hard and achieve nothing. Not that russian oligarchs like Putin ever cared about casualties even on their side.

I am not claiming its the best approach overall, maybe even the worst in terms of casualties. But there is something in human nature that reacts wildly when oppression comes and freedoms are being taken. Americans should understand this very well.

I personally think his game is just to install pro-russian government forever and few military bases and withdraw most of the army. Something like second Belarus. Look at the map - he will have 500km wall from rest of Europe. Now the billion $ question is, what he thinks about baltic states, since they are part of Nato.

No, because Russian soldiers get demoralised the longer they stay or fight: noone waits them in Ukraine with hugs, its not their land. Not just Ukrainian soldiers fight with them, but also civilian people resist, especially those who sign for local (in-city, in-town, in-village) defence groups.

> its not their land

I have my suspicions that a few of them believe the opposite.

Plus it is hard to call "agony" a defense of your land, your way of life (and I mean freedom here) and people you live with and love.

Please fix your comment, you're basically saying that Ukraine should just roll over. What happens next? Think before replying, you may come across as a Russia apologist.

the Taliban and IS dragged out the conflict in the middle east for 20 years and came out victorious against an army that spent trillions on that conflict. That was after said army was defeated in Vietnam as well.

>the Taliban and IS dragged out the conflict in the middle east for 20 years

At what cost? America and their allies would have left a long time ago without the Taliban.

Really think this through...if the Taliban had rolled over and let the US win, then there would be a more "stable" western influenced government in place, which is exactly what they were fighting against the whole time.

There is an important but subtle difference between violence and force, and people use both terms as if they were the same. They are not.

Violence is exaggerated force.

You can kill a man and not be exerting violence (like in self-defence).

The only party committing violence here is Putin and his cronies, the guy doesn't even have the backing of the Russian society - he's been ruling by fear for many years now.

To stand aside and claim "violence is bad" while someone is attacked is supporting the attacker, not the innocent attacked.

> when in this specific situation violence is maybe not bad.

I'm pretty sure Russia would say the same thing if you ask them about their situation. That's the problem once you bring in subjectivity.

That being said, tolerating the account for a few more days would've probably been a better play.

EDIT: Just to be very clear, I'm not condoning Russian aggression in any way. My point is that not funding a war is an acceptable choice, since it's very easy to be wrong and a sure way to bring human suffering.

This is why trying "both sides" or staying "neutral" on every issue doesn't make sense.

> If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor — Desmond Tutu

This is called "sticking to your principles". It's a rare thing these days.

I have different principals than them

Good for you.

The problem is there will be situations where it is less clear if it's bad or not.

Next step would be all kind of groups trying to get military funding.

Why not cross that bridge when those less clear situations happen rather than throwing about the false neutrality principle[1] as a defense now?

[1] Thinking about this https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/99574-we-must-take-sides-ne...

It's not about neutrality, it's about doing it the right way. In the end they only become a target of russia's cyber warfare.

There are better channels and ways of helping without making a civilian platform a war target.

That problem is a lot, lot smaller than the problem of people dying in Ukraine as they typed out that statement.

Officially supported funding would make them a legitimate target in war.

like how the US was supposed to send them $400 million in military aid? [0] Or the EU is sending them €1.2 billion?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_impeachment_of_Donald_Tr...

[1] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022...

The US/EU have military backing. What does pateron have?

The Ukraine has disabled some human rights 7 years ago and is actively engaging in violent war with several human right violations for over 8 years now.

I don't see how even this situation is as clear as people make it out to be.

These black and white policies that discard nuance always run into these problems.

Similar to how the "zero violence policies" in schools means they punish the bullied because they're defending themselves.

No, they are hypocrites because there is plenty of violence related stuff funded through Patreon.

If you're been bullied then the school management behaves like hypocrites too.

Who would take up the role of morality police though?

I mean would you still support it if the Ukranian military capture a Russian soldier and torture them?

What if it's not the Ukranian military but IS? Or the US army, which is also guilty of war crimes [0]?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_Naval_Base

Are you arguing that we shouldn't support Ukraine?

If that gives you moral pause you should perhaps stop paying U.S. taxes as a U.S. citizen and see where that gets you.

No, they still allow all the gun-advocacy patreons and things like that. It's more because of regulations that make it harder to exist if your platform materially supports foreign war efforts. Cowardly stance, though.

Can someone with knowledge of these things clarify the ramifications for their business if they were to allow something like this on their platform? I'd imagine it would have significant regulatory and legal implications. Which of course sounds mild compared to the ramifications to the lives of those affected, but I'm wondering if it would be a business-killing move for some legal reason.

To me, the wildest thing here is not that they enforced their policy, but that a site that started as a means for YouTube musicians to get paid has now become a player in international politics and warfare.

They could be accused of funding terrorisim. For instance, imagine a radical fringe group the far left of the West falls in love with takes up arms against a group of people they believe is unjustly occupying their land. So the Western far left group uses Patreon to raise funds so this group can buy military grade weapons to use against their occupiers.

Congrats, you just funded Hammas.

>Can someone with knowledge of these things clarify the ramifications for their business if they were to allow something like this on their platform?

Worst case (ignoring the legal side of things) their payment processors stop working with them and Patreon needs to find new payment processors that allow for more high risk transactions. To avoid paying the higher processing fees Patreon would want to find a way to use payment processors who are okay with these higher risk transacions to only be used on these higher risk patreons.

Which is why I put through a request to have my Patreon account deleted today. Sorry to the channels that I supported, I'll try find a way to support you without using Patreon.

Here's how to delete your account: https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/204605915-Dele...

> We are shocked and heartbroken at the invasion of Ukraine. Like so many around the world, we are watching this tragedy closely and wishing for the safety of the Ukrainian people in harm’s way.

Their wishes aren't worth squat.

Their comment is technically valid.

The timing of the block is bad though. It'd be great if they could comment on the timing.

One twitter comment mentions the account has been active for several years. Call me paranoid, but it's too big of a coincidence that it was closed exactly today.

The development of all out war probably had something to do with it

It's easy to have principles when there is no price.

Here's a couple of other options (please verify yourself):

https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/

https://ukraine.ua/news/support-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/

Considering that they use funds only (mostly) to buy defence stuff and to support the recovery of the veterans (there will be many with PTSD and injuries after this war), Patreon is in a morally wrong territory here.

Like other posters said there are several other ways to support this fund (crypto / wire transfer) or Ukrainian army directly (wire transfer).

With crypto there is an almost 100% chance the money transfer will go through. Not sure about banks, haven't heard anything about wire transfers not going through

>Considering that they use funds only (mostly) to buy defence stuff

can you clarify on what "defence stuff" means? Is there any meaningful difference between a rocket launcher used for "defense" and a rocket launcher that's not used for "defense"? Or are they only buying stuff like sandbags?

This was the right move to make- it's hard to verify whether the money is going to, for example, neo-fascist paramilitary groups, which are rampant in western Ukraine at the moment. I personally think that donating to groups providing aid and medical care to civilians and refugees -the red cross and so forth- is a much more effective way to help actual suffering people.

Adding more weapons to an ongoing conflict is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do in a helpful way, even with the best of intentions, as the history of western intervention in foreign conflicts has vividly demonstrated. You think that the CIA can't seem to do it, despite decades of attempts and the best intelligence apparatus in the world- but you can? They gave guns to the Taliban, to Saddam Hussein, and on and on- how did that turn out? Do you really know who you're giving guns to? And after the conflict is over, the guns don't go away- they just change hands, and what will they be used for then? It's kind of dismaying to see how many people here have still not learned this lesson.

Patreon did the right thing. They are the adults in the room.

If you want to fund guns for Ukraine to fight back, you can donate directly to the Ministry of Defense here: https://ukraine.ua/news/support-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/

In case you'd like to donate or share the financial help link: https://web.archive.org/web/20220224191725/https://savelife.... (I'm using Wayback just in case Russian government hacks it, the original: https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/)

Patreon takes a cut of 5-12%. This is okay for the content distribution platforms, but it is outrageous for the charities.

Donate directly to the Come Back Alive and the army https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsionalniy-bank-vidkriv-sp.... The last link lists the account numbers for many currencies.

The flow of money seems to be one major battleground in this war.

The biggest sanctions so far are disallowing to exchange funds with some russian banks. And the "nuclear option" is to disallow Russia from using the SWIFT system.

What are the chances that this conflict will completely change how trading is done between countries?

Could the USA, Europe, South Korea etc simply "nullify" all Russian holdings of their currency? I guess it is just some numbers on computers the respective countries have control over?

Kicking them out of SWIFT would hurt but China built an alternative system called CIPS. It’s nowhere near as big but it out there. But if China and Russia both used CIPS more then that would threaten the US dollar’s power as the global reserve currency.

For trade between China and Russia, why wouldn't they just do it via Yuan and Rubel? What does a new system like CIPS bring to the table here?

Because the strategic goal for China and Russia is to establish a stable, long-term alternative to US hegemony. The invasion of Ukraine is a demonstration of independent will.

There is going to be nothing to stop China and the USSR from doing this for exactly that reason. At this point the only thing you can do is temporarily inconvenience them, since they’ll get off SWIFT as soon as possible anyway.

It would also sour China's trade relationships with the rest of the world. The US is China's biggest export market at $452 billion a year, with Russia trailing at just $50B a year. If China decided to ally with Russia - or help them get around the sanction - it would decimate China's economy as well: https://tradingeconomics.com/china/exports-by-country

Russia is an economically weak state; it's not in China's interests to help them.

> If China decided to ally with Russia - or help them get around the sanction - it would decimate China's economy as well:

The US and EU also heavily depend on China. Russia is not thrown out of SWIFT for a full-on war; I highly doubt that there will be sanctions to a more important trade partner that massively hurt the EU and US themselves for merely supporting Russia.

Personal donations to a foreign nation-state for the purposes of building and supporting military operations is not the cyberpunk plotline I expected to come out of 2022.

Does Patreon have ties to Russia that are relevant here, or is this purely a principled move based on their terms?

principled move?

Which principles were they following? the principles that made it OK for 8 years, or the principles were they decided to side with Russia's agressions once the real invasion started.

I guess the principle is "it's bad for business". Every corp prioritizes business by design, it's irrational to expect ethical behavior (unless it's good for business).

Not implying a moral judgement in my question, I just noticed a lot of other comments jump directly into the discussion suggested by your statement without ever qualifying whether Patreon has political pressure (whether intrinsic or extrinsic) that would influence their decision one way or the other. I think it adds important nuance / clarification to the situation.

but if political pressure lead them to their decision, it wasn't really a principled decision was it? It was a decision of convenience.

A principled decision is one you make regardless of outside pressures - i.e. you stick by your principles; clearly patreon has no principles in play here. If it was wrong to allow donations, it was wrong since 8 years ago as they happily collected their commissions on donations.

> but if political pressure lead them to their decision, it wasn't really a principled decision was it?

Yes that is the point of my inquiry :)

I think the most likely explanation is that the account only came to Patreons full attention due to recent events and (probably) an insane rise in support.

If their policy is to not allow funding for military stuff, I don't really see the issue?

Yeah, you are right, Ukrainians want to purchase those weapon just for fun...

They meant they don't see the issue with the ban.

If their policy banned this sort of activity and they cared at all, they would have removed this page 7 years ago, it's been up for 7 years. This isn't about their policy. The timing is everything.

Agreed

Actual link: https://blog.patreon.com/on-the-removal-of-come-back-alive

A funding mechanism should be set up for refugees fleeing Ukraine. Jen Psaki announced US is coordinating with Poland to accept refugees who want to relocate to US.

There are already plenty of refugees in Eastern Poland today.

And whatever help/ assistance they need should be provided.

There's a big risk that everything you send to them will be stolen by Russia, and helps them to circumvent the sanctions.

The same goes for any weapons any country sends there.

The charity states they'll use the funds for military training ...

And the real question is: what would you do if you were Patreon management right now?

I would support Ukraine in any way possible.

Match the donations.

Twitter has just blocked https://twitter.com/OSINT_Ukraine account. Good job Twitter, congratulation, Mr. Putin certainly approves your support.

yep, and yet they (and facebook and instagram) continue to allow Russia to push 'their side of the story' without restrictions.

Youtube banning people and channels that support Ukraine or watch live streams from Kiev. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30467384

Is there a backup somewhere?

> If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

My wife and I have both deleted our Patreon accounts in protest. As far as I'm concerned, Patreon is directly blocking aid to a country defending itself from a pathological aggressor.

It is incredible how easy it is for Russia to spread their misinformation about their invasion on Ukraine without any bans or blockades, I have been reporting multiple times accounts that were clearly created by trolls to spread FUD and none of them "was breaking community standards".

On the other hand perfectly factual posts are regularly deleted from groups that track situation on Ukraine and do this in a honest way without pro-soviet bias, e.g the posts from Polish Obrona Pro (Defence Pro) Facebook group are deleted randomly, users are threaten to be banned without any explanation, except "blah, blah community standards".

From what I see all those "algorithms" and "AI" and "moderators" that are supposed to filter out spam are very easy to game by the party with sufficient resources.

What community are you talking about - Patreon?

In general, social networks should not be in the business of filtering fake news.

And blood shouldn’t be involved in filtering out bacteria and viruses.

> and none of them "was breaking community standards".

That should be very saying about just what kind of a shitty community that is.

If anyone has a twitter account (I do not), would be worth mentioning in that thread, to those who are deleting their accounts, to also formally request to have their personal data removed, this would give them a massive pain in the balls (if they complied that is).

Crowd sourced wars; we are living in a world a previous generation would hold up as a dark dystopia.

What? Wars have been crowd sourced since forever. Crusades, worlds wars, and so on.

Isn't state funding also crowd-sourcing? Except by force?

I don't think you can really consider it crowd-funding unless people are individually choosing to contribute to the specific cause.

Yeah, otherwise we may as well call all types of wealth collection "crowd sourcing". I think saying this is the same as crusades and liberty bonds is founding your observation on pedantry.

You should look up on the Crusades, liberty bonds, donation runs of metals from the population, etc. There's nothing dystopian about people donating for a military cause.

I see significant differences between now and a time before the whole world was wired together. Being able to sit at your desk and casually click fund a war that you are watching in real-time on Twitter and cheering on with memes on Reddit is dystopian in my mind.

I see crowdsourcing as being a distinctly modern phenomena enabled by the internet. I don't see it as being the same as historical methods of collecting monies from the populace. Are taxes often referred to as 'crowdsource'? No, and that's because there is a nuance.

Not surprising.Most of the westerners in the corporate world(especially on the far left end of the spectrum) and people near that sphere of influence are fetishists of either the russian regime or the russian way of doing business.They talk about 'dangerous' people as being pro-russian because it's easier to de-legitimize people this way: the "russian bad" rhetoric is long-known since the atomic period of propaganda.And the same goes for other demographics and ideologies(conservative?->nazi; etc.): the problem with this approach is that when russians ,other such groups, or actual nazis are actually doing something bad, the people (western masses) are already insensitive to the same rhetoric and thus won't give a crap, that's why i stated at the beginning that such authoritative voices, often media(i.e. MSM) are closet russian sympathizers.This is and could somewhat further be fixed with social networks that are not censorious, and we've already seen such tendencies of people informing themselves from multiple channels and creating their own opinions, but the issue still exists.

And to fully acknowledge the situation:the right makes the opposite mistake aswell: they confuse neocon and post-modernist american imperialism greed, such as the Middle East situation, with a military alliance(NATO) that's talked about purely in a defensive manner here.NATO does not and will not invade Russia because that's not the intended goal.This is why eastern europeans liked Trump more than Biden, because we remembered the Clintonian geopolitics.

Same happened/happens in Canada: normal people are declined the opportunity of a help-hand on the pretext of "terrorism" as similar talking points.

I fail to see the connection to the Patreon situation in the reply. You're saying western leftist corporations are fetishists of the Russian regime? The reply ends with Trump/Biden/Clinton, then make a turn to mention Canada.

The connection is that lately(well actually since around 2017), when Patreon/other claim to stop supremacists/russian trolls/bots/"dangerous groups" it's mostly a smoke screen and based on nothing than ideologically-based censorship, or due to certain people being tied to russia. To give a little bit more context,when the western "anti-russian" folks (often left wing but not necessarily, there's some nuance here) talk about stopping russians but don't see the hypocrisy when they censor specifically people who are not pro-russian at all, but due to being labeled as such by the MSM, end up in the crosshairs when legitimate good-will gestures are being made.This is precisely why I also shortly mentioned the Canada situation, though arguably that's even worse because we're not talking about violent conflicts, and donations from US to CA are not "foreign meddling".

You might say: why does this bother you? Well, because for non-american citizens it actually makes it really harder to be pro-liberty and stand by US.Many people look up to US as a good reference of the struggle for liberty and freedom.And some can even tolerate US warmongering, but labeling pro-western (which is what most of UA is right now) foreigners wrongfully is really shitty, and the benefiting entities from this are mainly pro-war, western/eastern military industrial complexes.

Patreon loves Trump. Trump loves Putin. Putin hates Ukraine => Patreon hates Ukraine.

Absolutely shameful.

Russian visitors of my foss project (https://www.filestash.app/) now see the message of peace address to them by president Zelenskyy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fwzb_JX7u04

Just to let you know, there's no message, and I'm visiting from a Russian IP. Disabling uBlock Origin doesn't make it show up either.

it shows the video if /ru/.test(navigator.language)

This method is super inaccurate, since visitors from many countries (including Ukraine) could use Russian as their preferred language. You might probably want to use IP geolocation instead.

No method is perfect, obviously. But in this case you probably want to use a bunch of heuristics, placing them in a OR statement would probably get you as close as possible.

- Check preferred language (won't work for Russians who prefer English, and will show for non-Russians who prefer Russians)

- Check where IP is coming from (won't work for Russians on the border if public node is on other side of bordering-countries, won't work for Russians who use VPNs)

- Check preferred locale (won't work for Russians who has a different preferred locale, will show for non-Russians who use Russian locale)

- Finally, ask the user where they are from (worse UX, won't work for people who are lying)

Using all of them gets you pretty close to "perfect" but again, nothing is 100% perfect.

Side note: Russian is Zelenskyy's first language.

Done: https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash-website/blob/ma...

Thank You, man!

I'm Ukrainian[0] and YOUR SUPPORT for Ukrainian people in such terrifying times WOULD BE NEVER FORGOTTEN by me & by all Ukrainians actually fighting just for freedom FOREVER!

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30395897

FYI, after opening your page in the same tab (by accident) as HN, I couldn’t get back to HN, going back a page just ended up looping back to your site. I absolutely hate when websites do that (messing with expected behavior), please consider fixing it.

(On iOS)

Either this was fixed 4 hours after your comment was posted, or the issue doesn't surface on Chrome on Linux or Android. I opened the site by clicking the link in the GP comment.

Still the case for me. Interestingly enough, it also happens in Firefox on macos.

Nice idea, much better than blocking access completely, like what Intel or lots of other sites do.

"Russian visitors" by User Agent languages or IP? Either way it's hard to get the nationality right.

I'm in Denmark, with ENG (US) as language, and I'm getting the speech.

I like the speech, but I would also like to see your software.

* edit: Seems fixed for me now. Filestash looks pretty useful btw!

Good to know Patreon comes out against the idea of Self defense. I wonder how far that extends.

If this upsets you, and you wonder what an alternative could look like, then you've rediscovered cryptocurrencies.

> you've rediscovered cryptocurrencies.

You are correct, but your timing for bashing people on the head with the truth is terrible, hence the downvotes.

Patreon should have insisted the Ukrainian guerrillas bear their insignia, really bring this war into the 21st century.

> For those still looking to help, Ukrainian journalists have recommended several charities

Why journalists should be deciding where funds should go?

"It is a violation of our policies, and so we have removed the page."

What a shit fucking response.

Following a policy that you arbitrarily created yourself is not a reasonable justification for anything.

“We don’t allow Patreon to be used for funding weapons or military activity. It is a violation of our policies, and so we have removed the page. All remaining funds in the account will be refunded to contributors.”

While I wouldn't have stopped this myself, I think its perfectly reasonable for a crowdfunding website to not want to host campaigns used to purchase military grade weaponry.

That's fine, and they're within their rights to have this policy in place, but it doesn't change the fact that they've completely fucked over the volunteers in their hour of need.

"It's a violation of our policies" doesn't magically clear their conscience. It's just another way of saying "because we can".

Companies do this all the time and I have no idea why we accept it.

Because a private company is perfectly entitled to NOT want their platform to be used to fund weapons. That isn't unusual and it absolutely IS perfectly acceptable.

What's the alternative exactly? Propose legislation to force websites to allow arms sales? Give me a break.

Would you be satisfied if they just came out and said "Patreon is a small financial services company. Not black-ops mercenary outfit. Not a powerful nation state. If you expect us to face down powerful nation states on your behalf, we suggest that you sign up HERE to fight on the front lines in Ukraine yourself." ?

I must have missed the part where patreon was asked to face down Russia. Hyperbole much?

Don't you think it could make them a target of russia's cyber warfare?

Honestly, I'd be satisfied if they gave any indication at all that they had considered the weight of their decision, especially given the timing.

Patreon arguing that they were just following the rules, when they themselves created the rules and can rewrite them arbitrarily, is absolutely piss-poor form in a humanitarian crisis like this.

> weight of their decision

I am not too aware of this account. How much money was moving through Patreon to the Ukrainians? Is it the majority of the weapons funding they needed?

Honestly I would be less annoyed if that had been their statement.

+1 and ditto...but my bet is that such honesty would not turn out well for Patreon. "Per our Terms & Conditions..." is a legalism which excuses their behavior, keeps the discussion safely in the legalistic realm, applies a dose of "who actually reads those Terms & Conditions, anyway?" mind-numbing, and fairly well signals "decision is final, case is closed".

Vs. honesty would open a Pandora's Box of internet outrage & arguments about morality, the roles of corporations in modern society, whether Patreon should stand fast if the GRU (Russian military intelligence) sends 'em death threats, how close to funding an overseas armed conflict they (and the banks they use) can legally come, and more. All with Patreon stuck in the middle of that sh*t-storm, collecting $0.000 for each & every enraged comment, reaction, DDoS, etc. aimed at them.

When there are little kiddies in the room, it just works better to say "Because Santa Claus...". You get far fewer screams and tears and arguments from the kiddies, and the grown-ups still understand.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com