Patreon runs a business. You'd force them to do business with people they have no desire to do business with. You're the authoritarian in that picture. There's no reason to think that there's any mysterious group forcing Patreon to act.
I'm neither of the right nor the left, this is a choice of the business, they chose not to do business with someone being actively hateful. Not someone taking a political stance, but someone spewing out prejudice, hatred and bile. I fully support them.
(I cannot reply to the below, being rate limited. The cake thing is discrimination on who someone is, not what they do. Different things. And this is hardly a freedom of speech issue, nobody is denying them the ability to express themselves, I am not obligated to bring you lemonade and let you shout hatred from my front yard in the name of FoS. )
I don't think anyone is calling for forcing Patreon to do anything. They are just looking for an alternative that doesn't behave like Patreon.
It's like Free Speech. You can't just allow free speech for things you want to hear or it's not free.
Patreon has chosen to not allow free speech, and it's their right as a private entity to do that. The market should decide whether or not to support this principle.
Another company could come along and say that they won't discriminate against people based on political ideology or anything like that, and a lot of people would support that, even if it means the company would be helping projects they find offensive.
If you can discriminate against someone based on their political views, or even ... "something they once said" -which seems to be the substance of all this patreon deplatforming and nazi-calling, you can do so based on their race, sexual habits, color of their shirt, gender, religious identity, ethnicity, cut of their jib, or what city they live in. So, like, welcome to the legal arguments used by "whites only" restaurants and hotels in the south under segregation.
FWIIW someone like Ron Paul who is a "freedom speeches zealot" agrees with you that the whole public accommodation thing violates the rights of businesses.
Freedom Speeches™ is just like weaponizing the 14th amendment (equal protection clause) to protect corporations. I have to tolerate racists, pedophiles, rapists, thieves because corporatists have feelings too.
When we have to tolerate intolerance, everything falls apart.
"So, like, welcome to the legal arguments used by "whites only" restaurants and hotels in the south under segregation."
Uh huh.
Punching up vs punching down. It's about the power imbalance. These specious false equivalence arguments always ignore the context.
When Freedom Markets™ zealots (like Ron Paul) weaponize the Bill of Rights, it's in the service of corporations, not people.
"Punching up/down" is not a legal principle; thank goodness, though it sure looks like Patreon is punching down at marginal figures. Nor are "intrinsic traits" any kind of legal principle. Nor are religions, ethnies, language choice, sexual habits, anything any more intrinsic than political beliefs, not that this matters as a legal principle.
Your views as to what is good or bad are not absolute, and, I hate to break it to you, there is no legal principle behind them other than that which used to back up blasphemy laws. We decided as a society in the 1960s that there's no such thing as blasphemy, and that providing a public accommodation means you have to serve everyone who isn't violating the law.
Yes I agree with you, people like you and Ron Paul attempt to weaponize civil rights at the service of corporations, not people. Look at you telling me that Patreon has every right to deny service to people you disagree with. I'm pretty sure if they denied service to, say, atheists, you'd change your mind!
Corporations are people and have the right to speech, above all else, when it serves the plutocrats, hate mongers.
But they're godless oppressors of free speech whenever they refuse to serve haters, thieves.
Which is it?
Pick a side.
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No.
Patreon is protecting its brand. No different than Apple, Disney/ABC, Hobby Lobby, reddit, Hillsong. What you'd call "discrimination", because apparently there's a shortage of outlets for hate speech.
I also noted that brands are a proxy for trust. If Patreon bans haters, that's a signal to me that they are the kind of people I want to do business with.
Whereas I'm voting with my dollars. If I disagree with Patreon's choices, I simply don't do business with them. What the Freedom Markets™ call the market place of ideas.
But apparently I'm not allowed to make such choices for myself. Because Freedom Speeches™. My bad.
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Look at you, telling me that there are no ethics, morality. Just what's legal vs illegal. Aka might makes right, dog eat dog.
I am on the side of the post 1960s consensus in the US. Corporations which serve the public must continue to serve the public, without arbitrary tyrannies on things like political beliefs or sexual practices, or face civil rights lawsuits. If you can make a christian baker bake you a gay cake, you can make Patreon work with ... pretty much anyone. That's what we've been doing post civil rights and post legalization of pornography. Seemed fine with most people!
If you want a might makes right world, which, whether you're capable of understanding it or not, is what you're advocating for, you should at least figure out which side has the guns and tanks. Pretty sure it ain't Patreon censors!
As I said, if some schmuck (an individual business owner) has to bake a cake with a message he profoundly disagrees with, because not doing so violates someone else's civil rights, Patreon (an actual corporation) can suck it up and allow people to make contributions to people who use harsh language on youtube. It's really quite simple.
> welcome to the legal arguments used by "whites only" restaurants
You don't control your gender, you don't control your sexual orientation, you don't control your race, you don't control where you are born, etc...
Theses aren't the same as being a Nazi, which you certainly control. You decide to push racist propaganda. You aren't born with that speech, you chose to do it. You chose to hurt people with that speech.
That guy that was removed from Patreon is free to use another platform for its hate speech and use Patreon for something without hate. You can't simply change your skin color to be able to go to a "whites only" restaurants.
Would you mind if instead Patreon was removing videos showing a murder? What about child pornography? I'm curious to know where's your line.
I'm not arguing that these folks shouldn't be able to say their piece, and shouldn't be able to get contributions from their followers, however hateful and misguided
Just that the likes of Patreon are under no obligation to help them out.
Patreon runs a business. You'd force them to do business with people they have no desire to do business with. You're the authoritarian in that picture. There's no reason to think that there's any mysterious group forcing Patreon to act.
I'm neither of the right nor the left, this is a choice of the business, they chose not to do business with someone being actively hateful. Not someone taking a political stance, but someone spewing out prejudice, hatred and bile. I fully support them.
(I cannot reply to the below, being rate limited. The cake thing is discrimination on who someone is, not what they do. Different things. And this is hardly a freedom of speech issue, nobody is denying them the ability to express themselves, I am not obligated to bring you lemonade and let you shout hatred from my front yard in the name of FoS. )