Comment by BuleBule | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BuleBule | Hacker News Reader

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HOLY SMOKES AT LEAST. In my view someone needs to go to prison, in my view they have enabled crime rings to distribute child porn on the platform for over a decade. Patreon needs seriously investigating by law enforcement, they KNEW about this for years and did not act. Their recent statement said nothing, and clearly indicated that they do not see a problem, its a scandal.

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.

Yes, I'm just now also discovering a disturbing pattern that goes back quite some time. I really wasn't aware of any of this before. If I'm allowed to speculate why this doesn't get more traction (and why the post was quickly flagged and my comment here was downvoted to oblivion), these are the reasons I come up with:

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.

Things seem to have gotten a lot worse over the last few years, the reports and allegations shot up dramatically since 2020, there are just too many reports of those reporting CP having their accounts suspended, with the reported creators allowed to continue over the last few years to believe that this isn't a deliberate policy.

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.

OK thanks, interesting.

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