Comment by Neeek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Neeek | Hacker News Reader

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Not having watched the whole thing, it sounds like this Lauren Southern (the journalist in question) was using funds from Patreon to help blockade a ship in the Mediterranean. They though the ship was leaving to collect migrants, apparently it was being used by doctors without borders for search and rescue operations.

The CEO states in the first couple of minutes that they wouldn't be supporting that kind of activity and is apparently against their terms of service. This seems pretty obviously not about freedom of speech but about what illegal activities Patreon could be accused of supporting financially.*

Does he go on later in the video to justify removing other accounts because of political beliefs? I haven't made it much further in.

*EDIT: So after watching another video on the subject, the official statement has less to do with what Patreon doesn't want to be seen funding but more about a section of their content policy stating they will not allow action that might endanger the life of another person, i.e. blockading search and rescue vessels.

s/search and rescue vessels/people smuggling vessels

Sure, assuming Doctors Without Borders is in the people smuggling business now, it is still a seaworthy vessel instead of a makeshift raft, the kind that is responsible for that drowned toddler washing up on European shores which is specifically used as an example of the possible harm that would be in breach of the company's content policy.

Picking up people 20 miles off of Libya's coast and bringing them to Italy instead of to the much (!) closer African shore is not exactly "search & rescue".

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-rescue-ita...

Ignoring your apparent political motivation to keep these people out of Europe (which is not really what is being discussed), the fact still stands that without these ships, human people are at greater risk of drowning. As I stated in an earlier post, there are better ways to stop people smuggling than letting the people being smuggled, drown at sea.

Yes, the better way is to make it clear that trying to illegally enter Europe is useless. If there is no motivation to cross the sea in a rubber dinghy, there will be no drowning people, either.

But this is apparently out of the question, for reasons of "humanity".

I'm not disagreeing with you, but we aren't talking about immigration policy here, we are talking about whether or not Patreon's content policy was violated.

I agree, it was only tangentially related due to the Patreon vs Lauren Southern situation.

One of the reasons North African smugglers put people on makeshift rafts is because they know that NGO vessels will rescue them. The African smugglers and NGOs are in cahoots - effectively making the NGOs smugglers as well.

Does that change the fact without the NGO craft, people aboard the raft are at greater risk of drowning? All of this just sounds like justification for allowing people to drown. I'm sure there are better ways to prevent people smugglers than blockading the part of the operation that prevents human deaths.

The NGO boats can rescue the migrants and take them back to Libya instead of to Italy. Why aren't they doing that?

As I mentioned in another post, where they take the people they rescue really has nothing to do with Patreon's content policy.

The irony is that the boat being used to blockade is the one actually engaging in people smuggling.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/27/anti-migrant-b...

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