Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad) was banned from Patreon this month for comments not made on the platform. This appears to contradict Patreon’s own statements and some of its actions may arguably violate several laws including the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). That is not just an academic problem, because according to its public website Patreon has a business entity in the UK (archive) – Patreon DLC, Ltd. 8 Soho Square, London, Greater London, W1D 3QL. Sargon could (and arguably should) take action on it. Before I turn to that issue though I would like to remark upon the matter of Patreon ands its CEO Jack Conte knowingly allowing the distribution of illegal child pornography on the platform – at least until I asked VISA and MasterCard to investigate.

I first took a journalistic interest in Patreon last year in my first article and it is worth a brief recap. Lauren Southern, beautiful and extremely capable Canadian journalist had been banned for allegedly endangering the lives of refugees. Incidentally Lauren has now been vindicated – a ‘sting’ recording made on her behalf of an NGO official has proven her correct (archive). Many of the alleged ‘refugees’ were in fact fraudulent migrants facilitated by unscrupulous ‘charity’ workers who groomed them to lie. The only people endangering lives were those helping them make dangerous sea crossings to, at best, an uncertain welcome.

However, my interest arose from the illegal content available on the Patreon platform. A whistleblower sent me a link to the page of a creator called, ‘Waysin’. The page showed a number of censored and blacked out cartoon style drawings of young, underage boys and tentacles. The images were legal, but it was made clear that for a fee the user could view the images without censorship – that is pictures of clearly underage pre-teen boys being bestially raped by tentacles. Such images are criminal to produce, distribute or possess in many states, including Taiwan where the creator of the material said that he lives. For bonus points, Waysin said openly on the public page that he knew the images were illegal in his jurisdiction. Needless to say, I reported the page to Patreon. I did not view the private section – for the avoidance of doubt no unlawful images were viewed or downloaded preparing this article.

The point of time when I made the report is where things become … appalling.

I sent a formal letter to Patreon on 8th August 2017 – it was emailed as a PDF to the Patreon press email and directly to the CEO Jack Conte. The legal, off-the-shelf email tracking service I use showed it was viewed at least 38 times by 10 August 2017 by the operator(s) of the ‘press’ email address at Patreon. It was viewed at least once by the operator of Conte’s personal email address at Patreon. When my article went up I emailed Jack and Patreon again. This was viewed 67 times by the press team by 15th August and 4 times by Jack’s email address. It is beyond doubt that Patreon and Jack Conte personally knew. However, more than two weeks after my initial report on 24th August 2017 the page was still up. Real people had read my email, looked at the page and thought it was okay to leave it up. Bestiality child rape pornography admitted to be illegal on the front page of Waysin’s Patreon account.

On 24th August I contacted executives of VISA and MasterCard. Patreon were knowingly allowing the distribution of illegal child pornography on their platform and its laundering. That’s a big no-no for VISA and MasterCard as their rules expressly forbid merchants engaging in transactions which are illegal in any jurisdiction in which they take place – which Waysin admitted he was. For Patreon to allow the page to remain was also knowingly facilitating international money-laundering.

MasterCard and VISA were happy to help. Both immediately asked Patreon’s acquiring bank to investigate. Below I include a very helpful response from a Senior Vice President of Mastercard. VISA and MasterCard do not deal directly with merchants like Patreon, instead they deal with large intermediaries – banks in this case, which are known as ‘acquirers’.

Not long after the response from the card networks, ‘Waysin’ finally disappeared from Patreon. The investigation did not end there however. My article of 2017 dealt with a wide variety of other objectionable materials on Patreon such as cannibalism and rape fetish images. The card networks forced Patreon to clean house – which was reported by various media such as Slashdot (archive) (although they did not realise who was ultimately behind it all). The purges likely cost Patreon a 5 to 6 figure sum in revenue in the short term and 7 figures in the longer term.

Supposedly ‘woke’ Jack Conte had been willing to let the most unspeakably depraved imaginable images of screaming, crying children being unnaturally raped circulate on his platform. Willingly. Knowingly. In that day, Jack Conte showed the world his moral centre. Patreon should have taken down the ‘Waysin’ page the day they read my report. Instead they allowed the money to continue to flow into the pockets of the author of the vile child rape material.

Nothing has really happened since then to change my view of Conte’s character. A few months later there was a controversy over fee changes proposed by Patreon that would have substantially increased costs of small donations (archive). There was an outcry and Conte, as cowardly as he is despicable and greedy, backed down (archive).

In response to the furore over the banning of Lauren Southern, Conte posted a video and repeatedly clarified that Patreon would not ban users for conduct outside the platform. Fast forward to this year, and this month UK politician Carl Benjamin (pen name Sargon of Akkad) was banned. He was the last to know – he discovered this not by contact from Patreon but when his fans started messaging him en-masse. Apparently, third party journalists contacted Patreon and were given reasons for his ban. In summary, Sargon was said to have said the word, ‘n***er’ on a video not linked or promoted on his Patreon. To give context, his use of the word was criticising neo-Nazis not attacking non-Caucasians.

The banning itself was extremely problematic. Firstly, as a matter of contract law Patreon appears to have banned Sargon for reasons outside its terms and its CEO’s stated clarification of those terms. They did not give him notice nor an opportunity to make representations. This may be a breach of contract (although that would be for a court to decide).

Furthermore under the GDPR Patreon is not necessarily entitled to just announce the reasons it has banned someone – indeed to announce they have been banned at all. They did not seek Sargon’s consent to disclose the information nor did they give him an opportunity to make representations on that.

Under the GDPR, data controllers must have a lawful basis to process data – with the most commonly used one being consent. It is quite reasonable for Patreon to seek and for users to give, permission to process data about their speech on its platform. However it seems extraordinary for a firm to be able to monitor or deal with complaints about its users’ discourse in any context on any platform worldwide and then disclose their findings to arbitrary third parties without consulting the subject of the processing. That is quite Orwellian. Yet that is what Patreon now appears to claim it can do. Consent of course is not the only basis for data processing – Patreon could try to justify the model by claiming it was processing the data to fulfil its vital interests. That argument however, might be a stretch.

The difficulty Patreon faces it that the European Convention on Human Rights outlaws political discrimination – even going so far that the European Court ruled in favour of a member of the British National Party in the case Redfearn v United Kingdom. In those circumstances, Patreon might find the argument risky. Again – that would be for a judge to decide. However, if the GDPR was breached, Sargon would be entitled to damages for his substantial financial losses and also damages for hurt feelings. These could easily reach 5 or 6 figures.

Another concern I have about Patreon is that it allows users who have genuinely promoted political violence to remain on the platform with no action at all. A good example is Katherine Cross. Cross, a male-to-‘female’ transgender person, is an extremist who publicly advocated and defended violence against, “Nazis” (archive). Aside from her articles on the desirability of violence, her Twitter profile pinned post (archive) has a picture and caption calling her, “decider of who gets punched”. This has been pinned for over a year, according to archive.is.

Aside from ‘Nazis’ a second target of Cross’ criticism is Israel. Reporting on a statement by Hilary Clinton, Cross tweeted, “*rolls eyes* And she launches into a speech apologising for Israel’s military aggression, asserting that they don’t “invite” attacks.” (archive). As far as I understand this tweet, it means that Israel invites attack. Another Cross tweet (archive) also described, “defending Israel” as an, “unfolding tragedy in American foreign policy”.

The ‘punching Nazis’ meme has been popular with the left for some time now. Such arguments might be seductive to a child, but the reality is that a lot people who have been punched as ‘Nazis’ are in fact anything but. The clumsy self-righteous arrogance goes well with the sort of mindset that criticises Israel for defending itself.

The term ‘Nazi’ has frequently become mere hyperbole in the modern age, applied to Conservatives, authority figures, out-of-fashion liberals and even (ironically) Jews. As an example, transgender activist Tara Wolf (a male-to-‘female’ transgender not unlike Cross) was convicted earlier this year of assaulting a 61-year-old feminist in Central London (archive). Regardless of where you stand on the issue of transgender access to bathrooms or sporting events – the female victim concerned was by no means a ‘Nazi’.

Disturbingly, Wolf’s justification for her misogynist assault was rhetoric remarkably similar to Cross’s own. In court, Wolf tried to claim self defence until video footage was produced and Wolf had to admit attacking the victim from behind (archive). Wolf attempted to fortify this argument with the statements, “People like her want to kill me”, “they are fascists” and “they were meeting to have a hate rally”. This is the real world manifestation of the so-called argument for punching “Nazis”. It means adult males physically assaulting elderly women from behind and then claiming self-defence.

The far left has taken the ‘punching Nazis’ meme as justification to assault a wide variety of people, imagining themselves as real world Indiana Joneses whilst in reality they beat up women, the elderly, disabled and non-Caucasians who do not conform to their stereotypes. The reality of the current debate on the recognition of transgender persons is that the main opponents of activists like Cross are feminists. Nazis are a small group and transgender persons are not their priority. The majority of the violence perpetrated by transgender activists is assaults upon women.

Cross is so concerning that in 2015 a UK Conservative MP sent her details at my request to then Home Secretary Theresa May to be considered for inclusion in a list of extremists that the UK government was considering setting up. The fact that Cross remains on Patreon is a scandal. The Oxford dictionary definition of terrorism is, “The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims”. By that standard Cross openly advocates terrorism and is fund raising for said advocacy on Patreon.

Looked at on its face, Patreon’s behaviour has at times been in clear breach of the laws of multiple states. The company has breached its terms of business with its transaction suppliers and acquiring bank. Patreon treats creators in an unjust and cavalier way. This need not continue.

One thing that frustrates me about the Right is that so few of them sue compared to the left (with a few honourable exceptions like Vox Day). This is especially frustrating when US and UK governments have worked so hard to put judicial Conservatives on the bench! I have never regretted bringing a court case. Ever.

There are several avenues we as a movement can pursue against Patreon. Firstly, Sargon could man up and sue them. There are several potential claims worth investigating. Regulators in Britain can fine companies up to 4% of global turnover for breaches of the GDPR. Sargon could complain to the regulator – the Information Commissioners Office, without putting himself at risk of costs and I am happy to help pro-bono.

Furthermore, financial companies in Britain and their payment partners are heavily regulated. If a CEO of a bank in Britain knowingly allowed paedophiles to use banking facilities to distribute illegal pornography and launder the proceeds they would be toast. Just making them take it down is not good enough. If it was a bank they would be stripped of their approved status and ruined in the banking industry. I see no reason why it should be different with a payment firm like Patreon.

There is nothing to stop concerned people writing to the British Financial Conduct Authority demanding that VISA and MasterCard be stopped from dealing with Patreon until Jack Conte is no longer at the helm and has divested himself of his shares. Demanding that extremists like Katherine Cross who advocate violence be removed with the paedophiles. Demanding that if it wants to trade in the EU and UK, Patreon must be forced to comply with our laws and stop affronting common decency.

Finally, Patreon is simply not a good prospect. How dare some private company choose to control all its users political speech? Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Patreon’s Jack Conte and Apple’s Tim Cook are corporate CEOs. They are not gods, nor prophets nor great philosophers. Who made them the arbitors of what can be said? I would fear to try to build up a following on Patreon if it could be taken away in a moment when I said the wrong thing (for example, “Jack Conte knowingly allowed the distribution of child pornography and also laundering of the proceeds”).

Gab.com has its flaws. I do not agree with, nor like, all the Nazis on the platform. However, I consider the idea of arbitrary speech control by virtue signalling private corporations to be far worse. Gab is filling an essential niche and if it can restore its payment processing it will continue to grow. The extremist left demand society accept new and radical ideas with little evidence behind them – or face fists and baseball bats. They must not be allowed to control the internet.

These allegations (including a draft article) were put in writing to Jack Conte and Patreon’s legal team. At the time of writing, both emails have been repeatedly viewed but no denial has been received of any of the allegations.

I have written to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) setting out my concerns about Patreon, and users are invited to politely email them to ensure those concerns are investigated. The Chief Executive of the FCA is Andrew Bailey and the emails to use are andrew.bailey@fca.org.uk, consumer.queries@fca.org.uk. The public email for Patreon’s CEO is also jack@patreon.com.

Text of email –

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Dear Mr Bailey,

I am writing to ask the UK FCA to investigate Patreon, a multinational funding company for ‘content creators’. Patreon operates in the US and UK and has a UK based entity at – Patreon DLC, Ltd. 8 Soho Square, London, Greater London, W1D 3QL. I am concerned about them because Patreon has been dilatory and failed to promptly remove creators who openly break the rules and in at least one case openly admitted they were distributed illegal child exploitation material. This would appear to be money laundering the proceeds of illegal child pornography. Patreon also allows authors who openly advocate terrorist violence to collect funds. I am especially concerned at the personal failings of Jack Conte, the CEO of Patreon.

I understand Sam Smith, the editor of Matthew Hopkins News has written to you on this topic with evidence documents and I note his articles linked below –

(2017) http://matthewhopkinsnews.com/?p=5222 and

(2018) http://matthewhopkinsnews.com/?p=6235

As Patreon trades in the UK, partnering with UK financial institutions and multinational ones such as MasterCard and VISA I would like to back the call for investigation of Patreon. Even if Patreon is not regulated it is facilitated by partners who are and who can be compelled to cease doing so by the FCA.

Kind regards,

[name]

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