Patreon has long had a reputation for de-platforming conservative creators. The site is notorious for allowing cancel mobs to dictate their terms of service. Still, they have taken a new step in harassing artists over their political views by demanding Cyberfrog creator Ethan Van Sciver to censor himself on Twitter.
Van Sciver received an email from Patreon’s Trust and Safety department from someone only identified as Reye. The email stated that his account violates their community guidelines, which they say applies equally to off-platform activity.
The email states, “While diverse viewpoints are welcomed, there is no room at Patreon for creators who promote sentiments of discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. This is considered a violation of our Hate Speech guidelines and is not allowed.”
It further demands that Ethan Van Sciver delete a tweet he made regarding Florida’s anti-grooming bill. The tweet is from March 29, 2022 when the bill was in the news as Governor Ron DeSantis pushed back against teachers talking about sexual orientation and gender identity to children as young as kindergarten.
Van Sciver tweeted, “Disney is framing a law restricting public school teachers from presenting confusing sexual and gender concepts to children between the ages of 5 and 8 as a matter of LGBTQ rights. Hi-octane grooming. Most powerful sociopolitical lobby + most powerful ent. Corps vs. Parents.”
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The tweet is completely inoffensive and represents the views of most American parents, who see teachers pushing gender identity politics and sexuality on children as reprehensible. It shouldn’t be controversial to state it’s inappropriate for adults to be speaking on such topics to young children.
Van Sciver is clear that it’s the framing of such matters as LGBTQ rights that is the problem and does not speak on his views on any sexual orientation or gender identity. This would not constitute “hate speech” by any reasonable person’s definition.
The move shows an increasing persistence by Patreon to censor and control creators using its platform, acts which go against the core purpose of Patreon’s existence, as creators are supposed to be able to make their art and engage with customers directly without an outside entity like a publisher influencing the creations.
For Van Sciver, what he mainly produced through Patreon was exclusive trading cards of his popular character, Cyberfrog. There was nothing on the content to which Patreon could have reasonably taken exception to, so he appears to be targeted primarily because of his identity as a conservative counter-culture icon.
Instead of bowing to Patreon’s pressure, Van Sciver has decided to take his work to another platform that has a better commitment to free speech and free expression in the art. Like many other creators, he launched a Subscribe Star account in reaction to this censorship, urging his patrons to head over to the new platform rather than be subject to Patreon’s archaic rules.
Subscribe Star has so far proven that they will honor their commitment to allowing creatives to flourish without having to be subjected to the woke mob. Van Sciver stated that current Patrons will be receiving their February cards from the Patreon service and will be moving his premium trading card content to the new Subscribe Star service going forward.
What do you think of Patreon’s move to censor Ethan Van Sciver? Leave a comment below and let us know.