Californian politics.

read about the fella that started it all he is an Alt right activists who loves peddling hate speech.......l have a way of dealing with those kinds of people and it is to tell them what l think of fascist and rascist politics , then tell my friends and colleagues why l have blocked the person ( s ) and then report them to whichever provider they are on.......scum of the earth these people our country has had problems for years with the slimeballs in the British National Party , the EDL , UKIP , even the tories themselves ..........l support cooperatives and think that Patreon and groups like Crowdfunders do a great job in these times of austerity and hate politics very much like the early cooperators did .......

John Catterall

Patreon is a system that deals with Youtube un listed videos, those that cannot be searched for. The brown stuff hit the rotating air mover as a knee jerk reaction to BLM and terminating some accounts, with the aid of the ridiculous USA legal system it has snowballed :( If my $2 goes missing in the final month due to Patreon going bust then it does not matter, until then it is busines as normal :)

I'd have to say "Stay". I don't provide much but I'm glad that it helps you to produce the great (and it is great) content free of the "I have to tone down my content to avoid demonetization" fear that other channels suffer from.

Shaun Runham

We will follow you don t worry

I see a small problem while trying to explain to my wife why am I subscribed to onlyfans. OTOH, once Clive is there I could find a reason to support other creators there 😀

Jasmin Redzepagic

The whole case against Patreon smells like someone butt hurt. It’s like the common misconception that ppl have free speech in the us by law when it only regulate governmental bodies from sensoring people. Not companies. Don’t jump ship. Patreon is not going down. They have a legal department to handle this stuff for a reason and won’t go under. They have made a statement that they are in no financial trouble regarding this.

Yeah, and even if more people attempted arbitration now they'd be doing so under the changed terms of agreement so it's irrelevant.

Randi Tastix

There may be many more ways to support creators but patreon isn’t the little guy anymore

Cerity

Read as: snowflake who believes and PREACHES the world is flat. There’s a face on both sides of a snowflake

Cerity

I vouch for stay, better the devil you know, than the one you dont. Good call having a pre-prepared backup plan though.

Anton

Exactly. Plus last I checked 72 x 10k is 720,000 so where the figure of "millions" in arbitration fees comes from I'm not sure. Maybe the 10k is just an initial fee. Plus also Patreon may well be able to run one arbitration as a test case, and have the other 71 fall over. Cool username. Hail Eris!

They don't. Patreon could decide they don't like Clive's beard and ban him tomorrow and nobody would have a legal standing to do anything about it. Especially now that the procedural exploit in the ToS has been patched. We'd all follow the beard, of course, just like Sargon's fans are free to follow his... Uh, what does he have, again? Smarm and a propensity for treating women badly?

George Dorn

Even if the injunction fails and Patreon has to do individual arbitration with every claimant, that's not a win for the plaintiffs. It's being reported that Patreon will be forced to pay $10k for each arbitration (not to the plaintiffs, to the arbitration company). But that's assuming that the arbitration company, which would like to continue to do business with Patreon and other tech companies facing similar problems, doesn't cut them a deal.

George Dorn

No Patreon has not lost that lawsuit, though to be fair there are so many frankly hysterical reports from know-nothings on line I don't blame you for getting that impression. A California judge refused Patreon's application for a preliminary injunction (court order) to stop a group of about 72 users from pursuing arbitration. That is all. The judge hasn't even refused to grant the injunction - he's just said he's not going to do so on a preliminary basis but he's waiting to receive further submissions. Now actually my view is the judge is probably not going to grant the injunction at all. But even assuming so, all that means is that the 72 users can pursue arbitration. That doesn't mean they will win. Only that they can try. So this "loss" is not a big deal. But various (I suspect) highly emotionally invested and/or not very bright people are making it sound like it's the end of the world. It's not even the beginning of the end of the world.

I'm definitely going to keep doing that.

Big Clive

I watched an interesting pod cast. Patreon has apparently lost that lawsuit and if that is true..... many creators could lose monies from their donors. Bears careful watching.

I’m not sure how the fans have standing over what content is allowed to be displayed on their website.

Michael Gilchrest

It's hard to find non-hysterical sober reports of the facts of the case but from what I can find your instincts seem correct to me BC. I think that this is probably a minor procedural bump in the road for Patreon, which its detractors are playing up as if it's a major win. Yes I'm a lawyer but not a US lawyer, for what it's worth.

Didn't have a clue this was even a thing! I hope things change for the better for everyone. From the response I see so far, you have a strong following.

MarkM

Just ignore California, I live here and the nuts don't live far from the almond trees.

Michael Wellman

Honestly that's not 100% true - this is around the removal of users who were previously supported, and who made patreon popular (read: adult content) being booted off due to patreon wanting to be more family friendly. An understandable business move, but also I can see why creators and fans are annoyed.

Totally support this, Clive - stay with Patreon unless it becomes truly untenable.

Charles

if you move , then i will move to whatever platform that you use to support your work

Having literally just subbed to you via patreon, I really don't care what the platform is - the important part is that you keep analysing/dismantling electronic nonsense :P

To be completely honest it makes no difference for me, I don’t even really engage in Patreon material. As long as I have a platform that I can donate I’m happy.

It doesn't matter to me what site it is. As long as you still keep putting up great content ill still keep supporting.

This is the first time I've heard of this. Then again, I'm usually behind on Internet Drama. Often the only real winner in these court cases are the lawyers anyway.

this thing is just from some snowflakes, who can not stand that not every idea is covered by free speech, at least in a commercial context.

Andreas Dorfer

What wingnuts don't get, in their myopic understanding of how the world works, is that they're not actually demanding the right to be wingnuts. They already have that right and nobody can take it away.

George Dorn

I am quite new to Patreon and only currently subscribe to one other person. It don't mater the platform I would switch to follow as long as I could afford to do so.

Broxie

This is merely a ploy from some snowflake who needs some butt hurt salve to get over his problem. The terms of service were clearly violated, and got called on it. He thinks that he can sue. This is at very least a frivolous lawsuit.

Rocco Rizzo

Send everyone that sued Patreon a free gift to thank them for their efforts to keep it real, like maybe Foamy Whoofler Bidet!

Jim

I don't care about Patreon, I'm backing you...

Everybody stuck at home for months now, some of their wingnut conspiracy pushers getting bounced, they must rage and demand the right to be wingnuts.

Glad you mentioned it, I had been a little worried since I read that

Kevin Hardisty

There's no possible outcome to the case that will hurt your bottom line, Clive. Nor will it affect 99% of users or creators on Patreon. It _might_ spell the end of forced arbitration, which would be a good outcome, and it might cause more competition to Patreon to appear (another possibly good outcome, though many competitors are really skeevy). But most likely the case will accomplish nothing but make some lawyers some money. There's just no world in which Patreon's anti-hate ban includes you, nor a world in which the lawsuit puts the banned hate-mongering grifters back on the platform.

George Dorn

This is definitely a nothing-burger. Some alt-right snowflakes with hurt feelings abusing a system to get "revenge" on Pareon for kicking their creator off the platform for breaking their rules. I'd say there's a 50/50 chance they end up having to pay Patreon for all the fees in the end.

Brooks Andersen

Exactly what I was going to say. This is nothing more than some alt-right snowflakes that got their feelings hurt because their creator was kicked off the platform for breaking Patreon's rules.

Brooks Andersen

How do these lawsuits damage 'cancel culture'? Patreon is taking the hit, assuming there is a hit to take.

George Dorn

Personally I have a bunch of other issues with Patreon and would love to see more options out there, including something that’s easy to self-host or have a group of folks self-hosting. But network effects make it difficult for people to want to leave. I don’t feel like the level of conversation between patrons is a reason to specifically avoid fragmentation though (but having to update multiple places with the same content will likely be quite annoying all the same).

fluffy

I'm new to Patreon, and not seen this issue reported elsewhere. But I thought that Patreon was somewhere which had the USP that *it wasn't YouTube* and there wasn't the petty censorship that is rife on that platform. I know that big business will always be this way, but why does a relatively small and successful company want to follow down the same path?

AlfaGuy

Watch the Leonard French (a lawyers) take on it.

Reid Fishler

If you follow actual lawyers chats about the case, it will probably cost them $1-2M, which I'm sure they have. It's not the end.

Reid Fishler

What platform did she go to?

Just be careful you don't get too sexy Clive, You'll have to switch over to OnlyFans.

CasualKitty

Agreed with Mark Gray ... backup plan, and wait to see what happens. Some significant people have left Patreon ... might be wise to see what they've done and investigate that platform in case of disaster.

When Patreon ditched Naomi 'SexyCyborg' Wu, i was very close to leave this platform. But that meant the other creators would also suffer. I would follow the creators i support to any another platform.

You could write a script to do it, lol

Unless you’re one of those suing you can’t know that. For pete sake there are flat earthers ... when we have real time satellite observation 24/7 around our solid cheese filled Earth

Cerity

This is a reasonable suggestion

Cerity

This is first I've heard of this and will likely blow over. Very different to the uproar Patreon caused a few years ago when it was about to charge a 35c fee on every pledge,

Seán Byrne

This was news to me, but frivolous lawsuits are what the US does unfortunately. They also do polarised politics to the extreme, and the whole QAnon/Alt-Right movement is the inevitable consequence of leaders like Trump playing anti-mainstream cards. Having a backup plan to contact us patrons in case Patreon does fall on its sword is a good plan, for the same reason that having a backup to YouTube is a good plan (Lbry and/or FloatPlane fit that bill). Other than that, I wouldn't be overly concerned at this stage.

Mark Gray

It appears to affect only those falling outside what Patreon deems to be acceptable: their platform, their choice, they chose not to take the money for a service. While Clive might be a bit naughty at times :-), he's not an edge-case of acceptability given the broad spectrum of folks on Patreon. That being said, it seems like it would be advisable to have another conduit to be able to contact folks as a fallback. Could be as simple as a Twitter account that usually just posts when a new video is available (with comments off) but can be repurposed for other announcements should the time ever come.

Philip Holland

Policies may change like when they moved mostly to monthly sums, and aggregated payments for each subscriber... tax and per transaction fees on $1 didn’t stick around very long. However VC makes interesting moves, wasn’t it 2 or 3 months ago grubhub had a page fora pizza shop where the item was below cost so the owner MADE MONEY on each order

Cerity

Probably just a temporary blip.

Dave Curran

Patreon suffered because of 2 things. They were a victim of their own success. They grew too fast and employed too many people so the company is now top heavy. 175 employees and a 50,000 square foot place in San Fransisco. But what the hell do they actually do? They don't host the videos, they literally just collect money and redistribute it. You could have 10 employees in a small office doing the same work. The 2nd issue is a plague affecting all big tech companies these days, they love injecting their left wing politics into everything and that quite often involves muting and censoring people who don't have the same views. You piss off enough people and they'll find an alternative.

evilution

Thinking about this, I was surprised when a creator who signed up here said well this was good five years but we’re going back to a place that can go critical mass for content creation ⁉️⁉️ five years and its been like almost nothing moving. I’ve not been exposed to those needing to use Subscripe star or gab, I think you’re fine staying here as its NOT Facebook, 😂

Cerity

I vote for retention of Status Quo until such time as the US legal / financial systems conspire to break Patreon . With luck Patreon will rise Phoenix like without the troublemakers.

Mr B Shepherd

Cash in the post....

Ryan Coleman

FloatPlane started life as a Linus Media Group project and still has close ties. I guess that means it's Canadian-owned - probably a good thing right now!

Mark Gray

Thanks for the update and for your reliably calm approach, BigClive. Happy to support whatever judgement you make.

Julian Sharp

The US really is out of control. The guy who asked his fans to sue is a creationist, anti-semitic, holocaust denier and anti-vaccination. He thinks HIV is a hoax, that the earth is flat and that the Moon landing never occurred. Textbook psychopath along with the original 100 fans that sued.

Ðementation

It'll probably blow over. Stay put ;-)

Just to also throw my hat in the ring, I'm also a big fan of Floatplane

Dr. Obvious

A patreon subscriber facebook group could also be a good temporary backup if the worst happens ?

Jesse_Fish_45

LawfulMasses did a video on this I suggest watching, https://youtu.be/cEngOVt3keo . The judge rather gleefully ripped Patreon a new one and forced it to pay for arbitration fees. As arbitration contract clauses go, it wasn't particularly egregious, in fact it tried to be semi reasonable. Unfortunately, that reasonableness is what got them in trouble. The company, while forcing arbitration on its users, does promise to pay for all arbitration fees, win or lose. Now it's getting hit with thousands of nuisance complaints, that have to go to arbitration, at several thousand dollars apiece. Ethically, at least, I think it's an abuse of the legal system. I've seen people do something similar to television preachers, dial bombing their 800 numbers with automated modems, costing them thousands in telephone costs. I think they might have gone to prison, can't remember for certain.

Paul Ste. Marie

I think its good business, most people are not extreme either way so if you are running a mass platform you don't want to get tarred with the extremist brush, that's a one-way ticket to obscurity and you may be able to function to a fringe but you will never have that mass appeal.

I wouldn't trust Dave when it comes to anything involving cultural politics. He's kind of icky when it comes to that.

Adam Christensen

Floatplane is a good platform for content creators, AFAIK it's similar to Patreon but is a bit more focused.

I can understand Patreon wanting to distance themselves from political extremists. What is worse, evicting a few nutcases or leaving your company open to the criticism of enabling hate crime.

Dave Davies

Stick with Patreon. Skimming the comments, I think I have an idea of what's going on. It's not a big deal and deplatforming extremists and hate isn't cancel culture, it's due diligence.

Adam Christensen

WHAT PLATFORM LETS YOU KEEP THE MOST MONEY I WOULD GO WITH THAT ONE :-)

private platform so in the US it basically boils down to "my yard my rules"

juenger1701

It will be interesting to see how far they get with the case, this doesn't just affect Patreon but any platform (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook etc) where users are banned. I cant see the likes of Google idly standing by and watch a frivolous lawsuit risk their bread and butter, there is a lot of money at stake.

can you set up an account that we can send money to like a Swiss bank account :-)

You cannot change every time some random sh!tstorm hits the internet. Without knowing about eh case in question: The problem is that it is often a bit random because we live in a complex world. When all the wrong things happens at the same time, you got a storm. There is a leagal system that handles it. In the US it might not be totally fair, but it is more fair than an internet mob. Also, any company makes mistakes. They are made up of tiny little people just like you and me often working under great pressure. A simple mistake or oversight may lead to this. Usually nobody are evil.

Simon Mikkelsen

Or to IOM, whichever is further.

Patreon is a private company. Surely they can decide who to accept and who not to accept. If they are successfully sued then the earth really is flat and I am a sheeple.

Hopefully it will blow over, but if needed I can change platform easily enough.

Mike Hughes

I would be surprised if Subscribestar will be around in even 2 years, in its short lifetime its nearly been taken down several times and suffers from the stigma of been a place for bad pornography. You would be crazy to ditch a mainstream platform for such unstable minnow, sure use it as a backup just in case but I wouldn't put all my eggs in that particular basket.

I think there is at least an argument for the likes of facebook and to a lesser extent Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube to be considered as public infrastructure due to their ubiquity, but I agree they really don't have a case for Patreon

Or maybe the exact intended crowd, for some of the more "niche" productions at least! 😂

Ditto.

castirondude

whatever is going to happen will happen so no point in getting worried about it till it happens then we just move on or stay. We will just have to wait and see.

I had not heard of the lawsuit but I have several people that I personally supported on Patreon who were ousted and moved to Subscribestar, so I would recommend a preemtive move

castirondude

If I invite you into my house for a cup of tea and you promptly do a jobbie on the carpet I will tell you to get out and not darken my door again. My house my rules, same for Patreon, same for YouTube et al. Companies do decide what they want to present to their customers, that is freedom. If the customers don't like they become ex-customers. Its like telling a right-wing newspaper they must print stories to pander to their left wing readers and vice-versa, most of us are sensible enough to decide what companies and platforms we use that are compatible with our principles.

I pay tax on my Patreon subscriptions. If it is a possibility that I can GET something that non-patreons can't get, I need to pay tax. So Patreons-only videos is a goodie that I need to pay tax for. For creators they will need to fill in reports on how much they earn and it's the creators country that will have rules if it's taxable income. This is not a problem for me. More info: https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043055071-New-Sales-Tax-Requirements-on-Patreon

Which is to say, do what is right for you, but I don’t see any reason for you to close down patreon as an option, and if you did the only alternative I’d feel comfortable with is direct contributions via PayPal.

Patreon have been doing some shitty stuff over the last few months, good to see they haven't "just gotten away with it" I'll follow you wherever you go. You're one of the last few creators I support on this site.

Stefan Kent

As my son says. It's no use dwelling on it. Most things won't come to pass and those that do you probably couldn't make a difference to anyway.... As he backs up all the video's used on his channel!

Andrew Donaldson

Don’t be an early mover or pick a side unless you really want to alienate some percentage of your fans. I haven’t followed any of the situation, but IMO moving to a free speech platform will lump you in with a cesspool of racist bigots.I hate the consolidation of online platforms, and fundamentally disagree with arbitration clauses.. but think service providers should get to choose who they associate with and enforce their rules as they see fit.

I am going to speak on a logical view about this hype and hysteria. After reading about the case, I hardly doubt anything will happen because of this as it seems to be a mounting being made from a molehill. With most form of social media, there is always pros and cons and that includes that "hurty" words or a political agenda which may get your banned. As the original article stated that the account holder tried to sue and get his patreon followers to also sue and they tried to sue 72 of them did show they are not the dogs bollocks and this will probably teach them a lesson. I don't think anything will come from this and will patreon will still continue on as normal.

Cancel culture at its best. Don't worry Clive I will continue my support no matter what.

Charles Bruckner

Hi Clive.. From what I've been hearing it's mostly about people that aren't following rules and using Patreon for what it's not intended for. Like political drama to make a buck. Also have heard that Patreon was going to start taxing creator supporters . Don't know how true that is. Clive just keep up the great work! We've got your back!

Although I haven't read into the current situation and regardless of that, as this is an income stream for you I'd try and move to at least 2 platforms if not 3 and balance your "donaters/subscribers" over those. This might sound extreme but having your income dependant on the whims and venture capitalists of one platform is a risk. Also I tend to think that if there was ever a need to move en-mass from one platform then there is likely to be reduced income based on the general inertia to remain subscribed to a channel and when prompted, see this as an opportunity to stop. Just my sceptical and paranoid thoughts ;-) ..... reminds me I must have a think about cancelling that gym membership.

I mean, VAT is the government’s taxes, hardly anything to do with Patreon...

If you do jump platforms or just want to expand i would strongly recommend Floatplane (https://floatplane.com) since it also protects you from youtube shenanigans as it can handle video hosting. They are also agnostic to what you post with a stong hands off policy.

I'm quite happy to move elsewhere is the need arises. As you say, it's probably a load of hype. We shall just have to wait and see.

First I've heard about it, but it sounds like a load of nonsense to me. These kinds of frivolous lawsuits are a dime a dozen, and rarely come to anything.

I don't think the frivolous lawsuit will kill Patreon but the subsequent fallout could damage it, the platform has lots of venture capital and if they was to remove their support due to bad publicity etc it could spell trouble in the future.

We trust you to do what's best Clive Nd I don't really mind if we have to change platform

This is not bad at all. Patteon needs to learn that they are not gods, they cannot decide what is good or bad to their customers. This kind of events will promote the use of alternative services and break the monopoly. I would love to see the same happening to YouTube, a lot of things would get much better for everyone...

elias

I hope we can find a better way to show our appreciation. Yes Patreon is the easiest way to keep in contact with subscribers, but they take their cut of your hard work, and I notice that patrons are also subject to a 25% vat charge on contributions, which I wouldn't mind, but it wouldn't surprise me if you are also required to pay tax on any contributions. At the moment it would seem prudent to stick with Patron, "better the devil you know" as they say.

Hold fast it will blow over.

I don't think anything will come out of it. I don't know where they get the idea they have a case. It's a service provided at terms agreed to by the user (content creator), and the service provider may end that service if they see their terms violated. There is no right to make money on Patreon. It's a bad state of affairs , where a private company/interest is granted sole jurisdiction over something that can be considered a public good or infrastructure - but that's the way of our times, and applies for YouTube, Fecesbook, Twitter etc... So stay on Patreon. And we all must exert political pressure to regain control over public good (the Internet and its channels of distribution) and take away control from uncontrolled and unaccountable private interests. NONE of these companies should be allowed to hold the monopoly like they are currently doing. Split them, control them, gain control.

horrovac

I'll follow this channel to the ends of the earth.

Michael Thompson

Will BigClive be the first electronics video channel on OnlyFans? With a name like that he might not attract the intended crowd.

Elliott Krimchansky

The arbitration is really just a rod to beat Patron with IMO. The end goal is to ensure in future that they police their users less based on political views, not to destroy them.

I saw Dave EEVBlog getting all excited about it - it's all speculation right now - I guess we just wait and see.

Kevin Leah (AKA Zoinks!)

As you say, just wait and see. You have a potential back up plan and we'll leave it to you 👍

Thanks for your opinion.

Peter Stimpel

Good plan.

Jeremy Impson

Exactly. I would not worry about it at all Clive.

Chris Muncy

Haven't seen anything but I don't really follow much news. I doubt the lawsuits will make a difference, certainly not soon - these things take years to get through the courts.

Mark Trombley

Cancel culture run amok.

Witold Witkowski

Wait and see what the fallout is. I trust your judgement and will support you here or elsewhere, if you choose.

Simon York