Patreon was key to the rise of late-2010s right-wing personalities, facilitating a recurring income for stuff published elsewhere on the 'net. The place where bigots, grifters and harceleurs took money was no longer the place where they earned it, a form of jurisdictional arbitrage that allowed them to play by one set of rules for performing and a different set of rules for profiting. Likewise, Patreon didn't have to publish what it paid for, and services such as YouTube and Twitter didn't have to pay for what they platformed. Finally, at long last, Patreon has banned conspiracy theorists.
Why are we taking this action?
While Patreon does not propagate this content directly, there are a small number of creators on the platform who have supported the QAnon conspiracy theory with their work. Because of this, and the fact that we have seen a number of other online platforms become overrun with pages and groups actively focused around QAnon disinformation, we are taking action. In an effort to assess and combat this growing threat, Patreon's Policy and Trust & Safety teams have individually identified the creator accounts that have engaged in spreading QAnon-supporting disinformation.
Barely a week before the election likely to bring an end to the Trump era in American politics, how about that.
