Child Porn Allegations at Patreon After Security Team Fired
secjuice.com
secjuice.com
1) “family” blogs- this isn’t just a problem on patreon but also exists on YouTube, tiktok, etc. this is when you can film your own children bathing or other settings and sell it as family friendly content. Yes, creepy men comment on these videos and it’s dubious about how or if the parents are exploiting their child— a much better coverage than this article is the Somewhere Under Neith podcast which explicitly explores how vulnerable parties are exploited and overlooked[1] (they also did a series on child marriage and where it is legal to marry children in the USA).
2) drawn or animated adult content - loli/shota shit, legal dependent on country, no actual children harmed here
I think this article performs multiple leaps of logic and cites anonymous sources for its more serious allegations. For example it assumes an off handed anonymous glassdoor comment “if half the child porn allegations are true patreon is in trouble” to mean patreon as a company is aware of and endorses any child porn on its platform. It could instead just be someone who saw the same tiktok the article points to alleging child porn.
(This isn’t to say there isn’t csam on patreon but I don’t think patreon is uniquely platforming csam based on these allegations. Unfortunately uploading videos of your own children in bathing suits and stuff without their consent is very legal and categorized as family friendly even.)
1. https://www.lastpodcastnetwork.com/some-place-under-neith/
...and you just made it clear exactly at what point you stopped reading the article.
I can tell you that I have discovered HUNDREDS of allegations going back a decade.
I found two different glass door posts from a couple of years ago talking about child porn, hundreds of Trustpilot reviews from Patreon users saying that they have reported CP and been ignored, in many cases those reporting CP had their accounts suspended. I have spoken to a number of people who have told me that they have repeatedly tried to report what look like organised CP rings on Patreon, only to be ignored time and time again.
Social media is littered with complains about this going back years, allegations are EVERYWHERE. There is very clearly a serious problem over at Patreon, and I have been told it is because internally they have a policy of not taking action against creators unless law enforcement or a court order is involved.
2) In a near future neuroscience will cure pedophilia and ,partially, psychopatic tendencies with artifical empathy generators in your skull.
This will be the first application of so-called "desire engineering": the elimination of desires that people do not desire to desire.
From there though the implications get... interesting. What happens when you can also add or tweak desires? What do you want to want? What do you want to want to want? Raises a lot of philosophical questions, some of which may be troubling.
If an "implant" could influence anyone mind to the degree the GP is speculating, it could probably also influence them to desire the implant and strongly reject the idea of its removal, which raises interesting questions.
Basically "we can't prove this, lol."
If you read through my article a little more, I found two different glass door posts from a couple of years ago talking about child porn, hundreds of Trustpilot reviews from Patreon users saying that they have reported CP and been ignored, in many cases those reporting CP had their accounts suspended.
I have spoken to a number of people who have told me that they have repeatedly tried to report what look like organised CP rings on Patreon, only to be ignored time and time again. Social media is littered with complains about this going back years, allegations are EVERYWHERE. There is very clearly a serious problem over at Patreon, and I have been told it is because internally they have a policy of not taking action against creators unless law enforcement or a court order is involved.
I would argue that the allegations you see stretching back years are a direct result of this policy. Patreon is in serious need of law enforcement investigation, this has obviously been allowed to develop into a systemic issue internally.
But hey, good to see we're upvoting nutcase tik tok conspiracies on HN as easily as they make the rounds on Facebook.
[1] https://twitter.com/EmilyGorcenski/status/156968445070277017...
If it's the latter it's reprehensible and arguably cover for real CSAM - but it's not illegal in the US. It's (currently) protected speech because of the Ashcroft v Free Speech Coalition SCOTUS ruling.
If it's the former, holy shit. I can't believe it's just the security team responsible. And another thing that's not clear, was it them that was responsible for the content, or were they fired for speaking up?
The message was: lack of rights, work and education created monsters. And, as I see, the trend continues, sadly.
They tried to censor them, but the politicians were not aware that that kind of shit was depicted as a harsh reality in fanzines because of their ineptitude making the worst neighbourhoods in Spain degrade like hell because of the big unemployment (astounding in the 80's).
Someone should tell people porn it's just a theatre, and that sexuality requires a partner close to your maturity. Oh, and stop idealizing extremes. You aren't that ugly, neither you one aren't that hot. Stop degrading yourself and idolizing the others with $PRODUCT/fake IG filter/make up. Capitalism exploits extremes and insecurities, stop giving a crap on pose and appearance.
regardless it sounds like you're more salty about thus than interested in the article? or maybe i'm reading you wrong.
Not to mention singers who are minors since they have the same problem. Probably worse, even.
So we are as legit as any bunch of hackers publishing online could be :)
probably video of some sort too
I follow two furry artists that post full-size (3000+px wide) images.
1. I needed to open some privacy page
2. Then click some button to make privacy request
3. Pick an option to Erase account
4. Click Allow, so some third-party (?) can access my information and delete it. In their support page [1] they state "Click the Allow button so that our data deletion partner, Transcend, can view your Patreon account — they must have access to the account to erase it." - What the hell is "data deletion partner", first time hearing this term?
5. Click Confirm.
6. Just when I thought that's it, they sent me an email "You've recently made a request to erase your data from Patreon. Please verify that you made this request by clicking the link below.". Of course, this step is not described in their support page [1].
7. This doesn't remove the account, but adds it to queue so my account will be removed sometimes in the following 30 days. Incredible!
[1] https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/204605915-Dele...
I'd personally wait to jerk my knee a little longer.
How much more smoke do you need to convince you that there is a fire?
This is disgusting and wrong. I don't care if it's legal. I don't want a company I give money to doing this.
Patreon needs to step up, clean up their act and publish a credible and sincere apology, otherwise I'm fairly sure a sizeable amount of people will make sure they are done for. Myself included.
Edit: looks like this case is similar to the story of the "boy that cried wolf"; just because allegations of child abuse has been misused a lot, doesn't mean it can't be true in this case. Please read the whole article and do your own research. This stinks. https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.patreon.com
The alternate explanation of "grumpy ex-employee trying to make trouble for their former employer because even if the allegations are untrue, having the feds tromp around in your private data is a bad day for everyone involved" is hard to discount here.
I have discovered HUNDREDS of allegations going back a decade. I found different glass door posts from a couple of years ago talking about child porn, HUNDREDS of Trustpilot reviews from Patreon users saying that they have reported CP and been ignored, in many cases those reporting CP had their accounts suspended. I have spoken to a number of people who have told me that they have repeatedly tried to report what look like organised CP rings on Patreon, only to be ignored time and time again. There is also petition signed by 95k people to try and persuade Patreon to stop monetising CSAM content, the signs are all there.
Am not sure how much more smoke needs to billow out of this tech company before people realize that there is a serious problem over there.
1. Patreon has over time managed to remove the obvious and explicit CSAM content, i.e. real photographs and films but also in some part in art form.
2. Patreon has teamed up with reputable (?) organizations like THORN and INHOPE that are offering counter-CSAM service. Why this hasn't been more effective is so far a mystery to me, but Patreon can at least hold them up as a sign of innocence.
3. What is left is in a shady gray area, that isn't obviously CSAM to flyby visitors to Patreon, but that on deeper inspection obviously are catering to, encouraging, and profiting off CSAM addicts.
4. Patreon has a vast number of creators that have common interests with Patreon and they will vehemently attack anything that blemishes the platform, as that could possibly affect their own bottom line.
5. The latest story making the headlines about the reasons for the sacking of the security team is not completely verified and could be largely made up. Which gives Patreon a loophole to issue strong denials, all while studiously avoiding to address issue of the accounts that operate in the gray area mentioned above.
I believe the association with THORN and INHOPE are great steps, but I can see that they have not had much affect on the rising number of reports and allegations over the last few years, the problem seems to be increasing under their watch over Patreon. The cynic in me thinks they are convenience camouflage and nothing more.
On the subject of Patreon creators vehemently attacking those who blemish the platform, I have seen the opposite to be true, the prominent creators from the infosec space that I have spoken to have told me that they are really worried about this. For the most part they have gone quiet, nobody wants to create content and build audiences alongside paedophiles, and these allegations are just allegations at this point. One of them (DarknetDiaries) showed me evidence of people canceling their subscriptions and stating the reason was Patreons child porn issue in their exit surveys, they can't be the only creators seeing people vote with their money.
The former security team have gone quiet, understandably. I have been told that they are bound by very generous exit packages and very tight NDA's, you also have to assume that they have been verbally warned against responding to these allegations publicly. We just do not know if the firing of the security team is connected to the allegations online, but in my view security talks to trust and safety all the time, their workloads overlap, I think it was common knowledge internally that they had a massive CP problem.