Porn makers aren’t happy with Patreon’s restrictions on the funding and creation of pornography through its crowdfunding site.
A cohort of grot makers have joined forces and signed an open letter challenging Patreon on the recent clarification of its policy to ban the sale of pornographic content and the offer of sexual services on its site.
“We ask creators to flag themselves as Adult Content if they create any content that has mature themes such as sexuality or graphic violence. When you are flagged as Adult Content your page is removed from our search,” Patreon’s policy says.
“We also require that all public content on your page be appropriate for all audiences. Content with mature themes must be marked as a patron-only post.
“You can’t use Patreon to raise funds in order to produce pornographic material such as maintaining a website, funding the production of movies, or providing a private webcam session.”
But the letter, according to the BBC, criticises Patreon for effectively betraying some of its members who use the site to fund sex-based and ‘adult’ work.
“We know people who would be homeless if it wasn’t for making porn on Patreon – and it’s not a small number,” the letter says.
“Your fuzzy position on ‘adult content’ versus ‘porn’ gives you the freedom to discriminate at will.
“And it makes content creators live in fear of that discrimination, itself leading to self-censorship of important viewpoints.”
Jack Conte, Patreon’s chief executive, posted on Twitter that he’ll provide a thorough response to the letter shortly.
Regarding changes to our content policy: I hear you, I read the open letter. I’m working with the team to have a thorough response by 2mrrow
— Jack Conte (@jackconte) October 25, 2017
For the time being it looks like the funding of porn and related content is off the menu for Patreon.
Pornography has always been a lucrative and influential industry; it was largely credited for the success of Blu-Ray over the competing HD Video format, as the latter failed to be open to pornographic video leading to porn studios throwing their support behind Sony’s Blu-Ray format.
Related: Watching porn securely
Has Patreon made the right decision on adult content? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
