Regarding the shutdown of Patreon usage

[peorg]

Hi, I can't believe I actually registered just for posting this. I chose this subform since it seems to be the only one somewhat related, as it refers to a forum post (specifically: this one) and the removal of a donation feature from it.

First, let me say thank you to Moonchild for running the Palemoon project. It seems it is the only modern browser that runs with acceptable performance on an Intel Atom Z3735F based system which I currently try to get to a usable state as a media player/browsing device for my parent's TV. Working with 2 GB of RAM and a CPU that was even at the very low end in performance when it released is really a pita.

Now I don't intend to start a shitshow and I recognize that the decision to work or not work with Patreon is fully up to you. But I do believe that your arguments for taking this steps are flawed and I'd like to point out those flaws in a civil and constructive manner and also suggest an alternative solution that will work even if I don't manage to change your opinion on the matter at hand.

The first and very easy one to make is: Paypal also runs dedicated support for African-Americans. While they don't directly funnel money to BLM and similar organizations, they do specifically offer support for black businesses - as you can see here - some of which very like engage with and/or support BLM & Co. And following your criticism of "inverse racism", specifially supporting black businesses would qualify for that definition.

I also can't agree with your concept of "inverse racism". If you want to overcome an inequal situation, which decades of racism in the US (and of course other countries) has produced, there are only two ways if you want to solve the problem by establishing equality. 1) Strip the privileged groups off their privileges or apply their privileges to the less privileged groups too. BLM is striving for the latter option. Treating an underprivileged group better than before does not mean that the privileged group loses something. And focussing on the (ongoing) problems of the underprivileged group requires to devote more attention to them temporarily. This is why the slogan "Black Lives Matter" is a just one in a contemporary sense, while "All Lives Matter" is not, because one group has to face much harder struggles than the other. Chainsawsuit has a great comic that imo really hits the nail on the head regarding this topic, you can find it here.

To summarize this part: I don't agree that Patreon is showing bias with what they are doing. They are specifically helping out a less privileged group without harming any other group. They are also acting in both their own as well as the creators community's interest. As a Bay area tech company they are probably profiting from having a pretty diverse workforce. And diversity has always benefited creativity, which also applies to many creative projects that support themselves via Patreon. African-Americans are also part of the creative community, so helping them out of the situation they are in is very much a cause beneficial for the entire community. Your statement "creativity has no race, no ethnicity, and no political bias for or against any particular group" is absolutely true, but I do believe you are drawing the wrong conclusions from it.

You are also claiming that "aggressive driving forces" are currently causing chaos in many places. So far the assertation of widespread chaos has not turned out to be true, according to fact-checking of credible media covering the protests. There are outliers but in the end there is only a small minority engaging in violence. This is something to be rightly condemned, but there is no base to connect them to the large majority of protesters and involved organizations that execute their right to demonstrate in a civil and peaceful fashion. Also keep in mind that violent nutjobs tend to turn up at demonstrations for basically any cause.

Now, I may or may not have changed your mind, but there is a last thing Id like to mention that has more to do with your decision and less with the reasoning behind it. A part of the Palemoon supporters might even prefer using Patreon to donate money to your project BECAUSE they support BLM and similar organizations. Even if you have issues with BLM, you are stripping those people of the opportunity to support both a software project and a cause they stand for at the same time all the while you claim to speak for the entirety of the creative community by claiming Patreon doesn't represent them anymore (as I put forth at the beginning: neither does Paypal).

I really don't think that is a good solution. So if you still have issues with Patreon doing what they are doing, you could still keep using them as a service while staying true to your own point of view. Simply add a big fat disclaimer to this website and the Patreon page that states that Patreon has decided to support BLM & Co and everyone who disagrees with them can continue supporting Palemoon via Paypal. That would be a win-win solution. You keep getting supported via Patreon rather than forcing some people to use Paypal instead while those who are critical of Patreon's stance still have an alternative service to use. What do you think?

PS: Feel free to point out any grammar or spelling mistakes but please keep in mind that English is not my native language. Thank you

[Moonchild]

Although I'm not entirely sure if the Pale Moon forum is the best channel to discuss these things, you've clearly put some effort into having a reasonable dialogue (as opposed to e.g. @Women4UBI on Twitter) and I'm more than happy to engage with reasonable dialogue. This isn't a black and white situation (pun unintended), there is no "if you aren't with us you are against us" or "if you aren't with us then you must be supporting the other extreme", here.

To address your points, then:
The overall tone that I get from your post is that you seem to be under the impression I'm against supporting black people. You'd be absolutely wrong in that assumption -- in fact some of my best friends are black (and they don't mind being called black as opposed to "colored" or "African-American" or whatever other euphemistic term to refer to their skin color, either ). The issue I have is not with race; it is with extremist activism and political opportunism that negatively influences many other people's lives.

I'm well aware that PayPal offers support for systematically disadvantaged clients. But there's a difference here: providing individual support to black-owned businesses and black communities the way they've done does not equal funding opportunistic political activism, as you yourself have also noticed. They are two entirely different matters.

Nowhere in my post have I used the term "inverse racism". In fact I'm against any racism at all and didn't touch that subject in my post.
However, there is the apparent clear bias they are creating for their creators if they are going to make additional funds available to them based solely on the fact that they belong to one particular ethnic group. At least that is what I understood from Patreon's CEO in his blog post about it. That is the incorrect way to approach this issue, in my opinion.

You say Patreon is specifically helping out a less privileged group without harming any other group. Unfortunately that is incorrect. By specifically funding Black Lives Matter and "other organizations on the front line" in the current heated racism battle in the United States, they are most definitely harming other groups of people by providing proverbial fuel to the fire that has resulted in the chaos abound - and I can confirm from personal friends in the USA that it is most definitely a violent clash that makes them feel unsafe even on e.g. a short walk from home to work, let alone the risks one of them runs daily in a retail position at a gas station, to the point of a colleague already having quit the job. That is what I have issues with.

Given that, I made clear I'm seeking neutrality here: I want supporters to be confident that their donations are not implicitly being used for disagreeable/harmful goals simply because of the channel through which a donation is made. Of note, the slice Patreon takes from patrons' payments isn't particularly small, either.
You also say a part of Pale Moon supporters might want to support BLM and other "front line" activism organisations, and of course it's true that it would be convenient if that is automatic by using Patreon, but another part of them might not ever want to support those organizations. We should not be making this kind of decision for our donors. If they want to support BLM they can do so individually, but not implicitly log-rolled with a donation to Pale Moon/Basilisk/UXP/etc.

Given Patreon's firm stance ("now and forever") there is simply no way I can in good faith continue to use them to receive donations for a browser project that serves a global population of all backgrounds, ethnicities, and convictions.

Now you can fault me for trying to find neutrality in a turbulent society, if you want, but at least I make the effort to keep the choice into our supporters' hands.

[athenian200]

Since this topic has come up, I would like to go on record as supporting Moonchild's action completely from an ethical standpoint. Whether it makes us look good to others or not, it was morally the only correct thing to do.

I'm glad to hear that you've enjoyed Pale Moon so far, and come to appreciate how well it performs on older or less powerful hardware. We definitely share an appreciation for this project, it seems.

I feel that supporting minority-owned businesses as PayPal did is a totally separate issue from this, because supporting entrepreneurship and attempting to help lift business leaders who show initiative out of poverty and dependence into a position where they can help lead their families and communities to a better future is a totally different thing than supporting partisan political activism. Some of those businesses that receive aid might choose or choose not to contribute to a controversial organization like BLM. But the point is precisely that they get a choice of what to support. Support for BLM is not universal among minorities, and many have come out against their message as divisive.

Anyway, another important thing to note about BLM is that they have in the past expressed support for things like the BDS movement, and that particular movement is viewed as a threat to US and Israeli national security. This naturally makes a lot of people somewhat ill at ease with supporting them, even indirectly, and even if they generally agree with police brutality being a problem or that racism is harmful. I don't think it would be fair to put Pale Moon users from Israel in a position where they would feel uncomfortable supporting Pale Moon.

The biggest issue with Patreon, though, is that they've shown they are willing to take a portion of donations and give them to political causes donors may or may not support. Even if this particular cause weren't an issue, who is to say the next cause wouldn't be? It forces anyone that uses Patreon to worry about whether they are comfortable with indirectly supporting whatever political movement Patreon's staff have decided to get behind, rather than simply on supporting their favorite projects. It makes them seem rather unprofessional and introduces an element of unpredictability wondering what cause they intend to stand behind from one day to the next. Suppose next time they supported a vegan organization that wants people to stop eating meat, and that makes another portion of their user base uncomfortable? They're not setting a good precedent for themselves here.

[peorg]

I didn't mean to imply that you are against supporting black people, but that you are sceptical of some means of doing so. Sorry if that came across otherwise. Its your reasoning Im criticizing, not your values.

The thing im mostly referring to is this.

and don't want our page (...) to attribute to any sort of political agenda and racism, whether against blacks or the inverse against others by prioritizing any group over another.

This sentence semantically means to me that prioritizing one group is equal to acting against the other groups (which Ive distilled the "inverse racism" from, which should've been "inverse bias" of course). Which is not true. Prioritizing one group, as long as is justified by inequality, actually helps all groups by reducing the disenfranchisement of society. I've read the Patreon blog post and it very clearly argues that they are supporting black creators as a means for equality. Which to me is a sound argument, since of course the creative community is the space Patreon works at and black creators are also affected by racism. And Patreon seems to have quite a sensible approach when it comes to distributing those funds, according to the last 2 paragraphs. I also think we should keep things in proportion. Patreon is not giving away millions of dollars but 30-50k per year.

If you want to help a group to actually be treated as equals in practice rather than just on paper - laws tend to differ from reality at times - then you will need to prioritize their needs for a while to help them to build enough pressure for change. One such way is protesting in the streets because it attracts publicity. And publicity (or the effect it has on public opinion) is a pretty valuable currency in politics which you won't achieve via, say, online petitions and tweets only. Especially when going up against a systemic problem under a government that, mildly said, doesn't have the best track record in terms of fixing race relations. The power of this instrument, which historically has contributed a lot to positive change, is also the reason why the right to gather for protests is written into most, if not all, democratic countries' constitutions. Eventhough none of these protests have ever been completely devoid of some violence in their wake, be it the fight for worker's rights, protests against segregation in the Martin Luther King era or demonstrations against the Vietnam war.

I know that protests can be scary but and I empathize with your friends. But still, violent acts are not the norm but outliers. Since media tends to focus on negative news, they are likely perceptually blown out of proportion by sheer coverage. When you have a lot of protests going on in a lot of cities, you are going to proportionally hear much more about the few clashes that occurred rather than all the many demonstrations that took place without any serious incident.

Also I wouldn't measure any group by their outliers. And the same applies when asking the question whom to give money, be it directly or indirectly. Supporting black businesses might also mean that some of that money ends up in a money laundering scheme or other kinds of criminal acts, since not every business owner is a honest-to-earth person. Donating to an NGO that provides education or healthcare in some poor country with lacking infrastructure and shaky politics might mean that some of the money ends up in corruption (its even likely, cause in such countries, you often need to bribe local officials to get things done - but thats another topic). What I mean to say is: There is always a chance that money you provide will in part end up somewhere you won't approve of. The chances that BLM or another frontline organization directly and willingly funnels money to violent protesters is still next to none. BLM are not the ones adding fuel to the fire by pointing out a problem and demanding change. A violent minority on both the side of the protesters as well as on the side of the police are to blame for escalations. None of the frontline orgs have anything to gain when such things happen.

You also say a part of Pale Moon supporters might want to support BLM and other "front line" activism organisations, and of course it's true that it would be convenient if that is automatic by using Patreon, but another part of them might not ever want to support those organizations. We should not be making this kind of decision for our donors.

But you do by defaulting to the "no support" option when you could have both.

If they want to support BLM they can do so individually, but not implicitly log-rolled with a donation to Pale Moon/Basilisk/UXP/etc.

Put up a disclaimer, so people can make informed decisions about through which channel to support Palemoon. I'm pretty sure people will get that Patreon's initiative was not sparked by Palemoon, since a truckload of companies have started funding and support initiatives directed at People of Color.

But let me ask you a question: What would be an acceptable approach for you to get the US government (or any other government) to come up with sustainable solutions for systemic and institutional racism?

[peorg]

Anyway, another important thing to note about BLM is that they have in the past expressed support for things like the BDS movement, and that particular movement is viewed as a threat to US and Israeli national security. This naturally makes a lot of people somewhat ill at ease with supporting them, even indirectly, and even if they generally agree with police brutality being a problem or that racism is harmful. I don't think it would be fair to put Pale Moon users from Israel in a position where they would feel uncomfortable supporting Pale Moon.

Members of BLM - and again not the movement as a whole - have different views about other topics. Fighting against racial injustice is what unites them. Not their position regarding Israel and Palestine. As long as BLM doesn't adopt the support of BDM in general, the points this opinion article makes seem pretty convincing to me. The TLDR is: BLM is about racial injustice, some BLM members supporting a problematic movement doesn't change that and so it is not a good reason to shun the whole organization because the greater cause matters a lot. No matter what interest group you support, there will alway be people with controversial opinions in regards to other matters. E.g.: The open source community bonds over developing and promoting open source but opinions on other topics are extremely diverse.

[Moonchild]

You say violent acts are not the norm but outliers - I want to believe that, I really do, but you seem to not understand that I'm drawing on relayed first-hand accounts here, not things filtered through the media. But you can draw your own conclusions, I guess, from what reaches you through the channels available to you; you don't have to believe me.
It's kind of a side-consideration though since the main point here is as much about the principle of the matter as the severity of it.

The idea of a disclaimer is kind of ridiculous. "choose this biased option with big disclaimer about use of your donation money for political extremism, or choose this neutral no-frills and no-worries one" Not much of a choice, is it? If it needs a disclaimer it shouldn't be there.

Also, thank you athenian200 for highlighting a few more things; all good points made.

Off-topic:
Some additional stuff about wording in the post here - placed under a button to not distract from the topic at hand too much.

This sentence semantically means to me

Then you've semantically read it not as intended - perhaps due to a language barrier (although your English does seem to be pretty on-point!).

Let me split it up for you; the comma is there for a reason:
"to attribute to any sort of political agenda and racism, whether against blacks or the inverse against others by prioritizing any group over another."
So the point is not to attribute to any sort of political agenda and racism, full stop. Then further clarifying that this point is made regardless if it's against blacks or in favour of blacks, or any other group/separation you want to use. I'm not talking at all about whether or not prioritizing one group over another in any circumstance is good or bad as a whole -- since that depends very much on the context, as you pointed out and I fully agree with -- but I was talking only about the use of it for a political agenda or to facilitate racism. I thought that was pretty clear from the way I worded it, but I apologize if it wasn't entirely unambiguous.

[peorg]

I'm drawing on relayed first-hand accounts here

I don't doubt those accounts. But personal experience or a few first-hand accounts don't suffice to produce a coherent overview of the situation. This type of induction is a pretty common cognitive bias. Not sure what it was called exactly, but it might be something akin to the survivorship bias or the base-rate fallacy.

the idea of a disclaimer is kind of ridiculous. "choose this biased option with big disclaimer about use of your donation money for political extremism

No. Its much simpler. "Disclaimer: Patreon has decided to support Black Lives Matter with $25k. If you do not wish to indirectly support this movement, please donate via Paypal." Unless of course you believe that BLM is an extremist organization, which has not been my impression so far. From my perspective this solution can also be viewed as neutral, since you're giving people the choice they had until recently while leaving the judgement of BLM up to them and without deciding anything else for them.

Where the other $25k go is to be decided by an internal PoC group at Patreon. Btw. the whole blog post doesn't include the term "frontline organisation". So the other $25k and future donations of $30-50k per year might as well go to pretty "regular" NGOs.

And "if it needs a disclaimer it shouldn't be there" is a principle that works beautifully for interface design (or whenever some genius decides to install almost fully transparent glass doors into buildings which require you to use stickers to prevent people from running into them). But I don't think it is a good tool in this matter.

My question remains: What would be an acceptable approach for you to get the US government (or any other government) to come up with sustainable solutions for systemic and institutional racism? Other than protesting on the streets, since it is impossible to completely get rid of violent idiots, be it politically extreme activists, false flag operators or police officers on a power trip.

Anyhow, no matter if Patreon returns or not, I of course fully respect your decision even if I disagree with it and would already like to thank you for this civil discussion.

[back2themoon]

My thoughts on this.

1. Same-day decision: "Today, I received a notification from Patreon - We'll be shutting down Patreon". Usually not a good sign, revealing a lack of cool. I could be wrong obviously.

2. Patreon is deemed inappropriate for Pale Moon, so automatically PayPal is deemed appropriate (or "more" appropriate?). PayPal has a perennial history of financial censorship (no need for examples, easy to discover) which is in direct contrast with Pale Moon's "manifesto". Of course, Moonchild decides what that is, but PayPal's dominating position and history does certainly remind me of PM's current struggles with Google's domination.

So, the points above make me conclude that there's something a bit more about Patreon/BLM that led to this decision, and not just "a lack of neutrality". The "white lives matter too" nonsense springs to mind but again, I could be wrong. It's the "neutrality" argument that I find totally unconvincing.

[moonbat]

It's the "neutrality" argument that I find totally unconvincing.

What's complicated about this? They plan to divert a part of every donation to BLM without the donor having any say in the matter. If people want to support BLM financially, let them do it on their own instead of having it piggybacked on a donation to a different and totally unrelated cause.

As for Paypal censoring stuff - that has nothing to do with Pale Moon since it is not a political cause.

[back2themoon]

... since it is not a political cause.

Of course it is - and way more than one.

[Moonchild]

Please don't try to downplay what's going on by tossing psychology and statistics my way. As I said you can draw your own conclusions by looking at filtered media and assuming it's skewed, and assuming personal accounts are equally skewed. That doesn't give you a factual basis to use for your argument, and rather leans towards being in denial of what stares you right in the face.
But maybe your country and social bubble is far enough removed to make these convenient assumptions?

No. Its much simpler.

No it isn't. There's nothing simple about this. My point stands though that if I need to add a disclaimer to a method of donation to our projects, because the channel can't reasonably be considered neutral, then it should not be used.
You can please stop trying to hammer on it being a viable choice to offer, as it just makes you look like you are a Patreon shill desperately trying to save Patreon's face or keeping our business.

you believe that BLM is an extremist organization

BLM and "other organizations on the front line" (don't conveniently forget that other half) are by definition extremist, or they would not be on the front line. At the very least they are aggressive opportunistic political activism groups, who do not shy away from manipulation of the masses to reach their ends, which already makes them too far out there on the extremism scale for comfort, whether you want to slap the "extremist" label on them or not. I refuse to accept any downplaying of that fact.
The front line quote is from the e-mail I received, so it is very much not "regular" NGOs (whatever that means, to begin with) this 50k is going to; it goes directly onto the burning fire of racialistic hatred.

All of that remains beside the point: that regardless of what particular groups are supported here, this month, Patreon should not use our donors' contributions to fund political activism, no matter the cause.
I repeat that it's as much a matter of principle as a matter of severity.

Same-day decision

Some things really do not need more than a few hours of deliberation.

Of course it is - and way more than one.

Pale Moon is a political cause now? Get real.

[back2themoon]

Pale Moon is a political cause now? Get real.

You misread that, so I'll quote again more clearly. I was talking about PayPal.

As for Paypal censoring stuff - that has nothing to do with Pale Moon since it is not a political cause.

[Moonchild]

PayPal is not a political cause, either.

[back2themoon]

OMG do I have to spell everything out? Of course PayPal itself wasn't born as a political institution/organization/cause whatever. No one said PayPal is a political party.

But PayPal's decisions to censor this or that over the years, are most definitively political. They have blocked payments from individuals, groups, perhaps even countries. Choosing to ignore this is also political.

[Moonchild]

No, this isn't about PayPal's decisions to block certain transactions on an individual basis that they, as a regulated financial institution, have the obligation to.
Neither is this about what they decide is not stroking with their policies.
Just as this isn't about what they, as a financial institution, decide to do in individual cases for minority communities.
Have you seen PayPal's "manifesto"? It's about as inclusive as it gets.

Calling them a "political cause" and trying to twist my quest for keeping the choice where your money goes in your hands into somehow being "political" is a pretty big leap.

But let's not get too distracted with whether you think PayPal is a good alternative or not -- as I'm always open to viable other alternatives for donation (not in this thread, please, which is about Patreon).

[back2themoon]

Ok. Anyone can research on PayPal's neutrality. As for their "Manifesto" (or any Manifesto), words are one thing, actions quite another. I just want to ask a few things about Patreon and I'll stop.

"It also talks about increasing payments specifically for "people identifying as persons of color" and setting aside another large sum to specifically pay out to that group of creators (creating inverse bias)."

This indeed sounds problematic. Does it mean that if, say, I want to give Pale Moon and "Black Neptune" 5€ each:

1. PM will be getting 4.95€ and BN 5.05? Or PM still 5€ and BN 5.10€?
2. Both PM and BN will still be getting 5€, but ΒΝ will get 100€ at some point as a bonus? (all numbers are hypothetical)
3. None of the above, all creators still get what fans give them and Patreon hands over part of their profits to non-Patreon creators/groups/activists etc.?

[Moonchild]

Does it mean that if, say, I want to give Pale Moon and "Black Neptune" 5€ each

I think it'd be something along the lines of between 1 and 2, as in: PM and BN both get 4.50 (more in line with the slice taken) immediately, and then BN at some point gets a bonus paid from all those 0.50s taken, so ultimately ending up with 1. but with a delay.

[back2themoon]

Right, so I now understand your decision a bit more. If indeed things are confirmed to turn out that way, then it's a step too far from Patreon.

I still believe PayPal is nowhere near neutral just because PM won't be affected, but I'll make the switch (and look for PayPal alternatives).

[peorg]

BLM and "other organizations on the front line" (don't conveniently forget that other half)

did we read the same blog post (titled "fighting for justice)? because the one I read does not include any reference to "other organisations on the front line". not even the term "front".

are by definition extremist, or they would not be on the front line

.

I really think you are using the "extremist" label in an overly broad way. Because being "on the front line" simply means, that they organize and participate in protests on the street, exercising a constitutionally protected right. By your definition any organization that carries protests, like unions often do, would be "extremist".

My question remains: What would be an acceptable approach for you to get the US government (or any other government) to come up with sustainable solutions for systemic and institutional racism?

[MoonMadness]

My question remains: What would be an acceptable approach for you to get the US government (or any other government) to come up with sustainable solutions for systemic and institutional racism?

I think that sadly, most here simply don't want to be involved with BLM and the cause because, if they realize there's a problem, then now they have to do something about it.
I expressed the sentiment in another thread that - if you're placing the looting and damage issues above the oppression of black people, you're misplacing your concern/priority. It was not met well by "Thartham". You can go find that thread.

Sad views here indeed. But then again, go check the other thread in the off-topic forum having to do with "extermination" 'Nuff said.