I support Patreon, NOT Sargon, NOT Jordan Peterson, NOT Sam Harris.

hey guys what is up it is master chef
jet lag here wearing the chef's uniform for absolutely no reason and this is not a cooking video the recipe I seem to have mastered lately is of making completely uncontroversial statements and having the audience respond to them as controversial one of the best ways to get offended if you're watching this and you're looking for an excuse to hit the thumbs down button throw a fit and leave bunch of angry comments one of the best ways to get offended is to ignore what I've actually said and invent a totally different argument in your own mind and then respond angrily to that because then your sense of anger and offense is infinite rather than finite it's also irrelevant rather than relevant and this happened a great deal with last video I made I made a video talking about patreon funding talking about current concerns about patreon exercising its power to censor the beneficiaries of its program and I did not mention sargon of akkad even once it wasn't about serving avicad slew of comments writing in defending sargon of akkad and accusing me of misrepresenting what happened to sargon of akkad was not mentioned the video quite a few comments reacting to that um stating that I was misrepresenting the problem of what percentage of your income is collected by patreon what's not mentioned in the video I don't know what percentage the angry comments were actually based on people watching and listening to I said I think I'm gonna shorten a video probably you did you just chose to ignore what my stated position actually is and invent a whole different position to respond to there we go we're going to try to keep this real lucid real simple real direct and real honest if I were the director of patreon if I were the CEO of patreon or if I were sitting on their community standards council basically their censorship committee I would kick off serve on avicad yes I would I would kick off my low-e innopolis and I know many examples of people who are much more clearly and genuinely white supremacists racist nationalists etc people who are further to the right or further closer to fascism what have you closer to violating national hate speech laws that I would also get rid of we live in a world that is ordered by censorship in ways visible and invisible all the time when you go to the grocery store do you see pornography for sale probably not when you go to the grocery store do you see political opinions as offensive as milo gianopolous --is written on the front pages of magazines for sale probably not why the grocery store has some magazines they have some newspapers and this kind of thing grocery stores about some groceries they're not supporting free speech at the expense of the comfort and convenience my girlfriend and I just a couple days ago went into a magazine shop here in Germany and we were really surprised the way they had it set up the children's magazines and the pornography magazines were so close together that you actually couldn't stand and look at the children's magazines though seeing the pornography I'm not making an absolute claim that pornography shouldn't exist in general I think pornography should exist but the organization of our society relies the main form of censorship are private for-profit companies like the magazine store and the grocery store making the decision about what they are and are not going to expose their audience to expose their customers to and that's what patreon is doing it is no doubt true that patreon was looking for any excuse to cook to kick sargon of akkad off the platform guess what I agree with them um did they find an excuse yes they found enough violations of their uh you know Terms of Service their statements of principle to kick them off the platform and guess what the articles and sources people sent me trying to clear Sargon's name such as the New York Times article with the um completely neutral and down-to-earth title patreon borrowers anti-feminist for racist speech comma inciting revolt this gives you a sense of just how staunchly anti-serb on avicad this this article from the New York Times says this was sent to me as sargon of akkad it is proving how long I am in in my support for patreon now let's talk about what my support for patreon is real quick the first half of the video I uploaded yesterday what I said you guys real crazy is partly what I said to you guys really clearly is just smoke up um I am censored by patreon myself and I'm not real happy about it it does bring a kind of unwanted instability into my life the same kind of instability that people like Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson complained about it's true recently a couple of months ago patreon decided that my content was x-rated and so my patreon page is now in the same category as pornography if you go to join my patreon and support me you have to click through a couple of screen saying you know are you comfortable with looking at material that's only suitable for people over 18 and I received a notice from patreon that that was how my content was gonna be categorized why amazingly it's just because I the specific video of the trigger this action there part was a video that had the word cocaine in the title but it's actually against cocaine I'm not in favor of cocaine use I have several videos on this channel harshly condemning the use of cocaine normally it comes up as a kind of allegory for other things it's not really that I talk about cocaine as an end in itself but normally in parallel to other kind of ethical questions and questions of self discipline I ask well would you make the same excuses for using cocaine that you make for eating bacon and this kind of thing it comes up pretty often this channel I had a video that mentioned cocaine it is possible they also went through and looked at the videos that have advice about dating relationships and sexuality in the title but my you know my patreon was blacklisted whatever course say it wasn't deleted but it was blacklisted on grounds that obviously I could object to or be upset about but I sympathize with the other side I sympathize with the decision that they are the decisions they are making and the responsibility they are taking precisely and kicking out people like Sargon avicad I I mean many people respond to my former video so by pretending that I could not possibly mean what I actually said and therefore attacking me for some other unstated thesis I meant exactly what I said I do support patreon I think they're doing the best they can and I support censorship of precisely this kind now I'm going to quote the New York Times article I'll give a link up below the video quote patreon takes a highly personal approach to policing speech while Google and Facebook use algorithms as a first line of defense for questionable content patreon has human moderators they give warnings and reach out to talk to offenders presenting options for quote unquote education and quote unquote reform not my experience nobody asked me if I was willing to stop making such hardcore commentary on vegan activism and 21st century politics but hey I was just classified as an overage adults-only website but hey my youtube channel is too hot for patreon what can I tell you I continue the quotation some activists hope this will become a model for a better and kinder Internet again the point being here the patron is doing a much better job than Facebook and YouTube growing their quote there are no automated takedowns mr. Conte said quote as a creator myself dealing with these big tech platforms and getting an automated takedown notice there's no appeals process you can't talk to a human and I never want to do that close quote so he also has this experience being censored by YouTube I do also I could make a video talking about that I have a lot of really negative experiences being censored by YouTube and it has a chilling effect on freedom of speech as its showing affect my book talk about politics I've never had that problem with patreon I'm actually really quite you know a grateful towards patreon they don't police me in the way that YouTube does I don't face the constant sense of conflict and frustration and ultimately even humiliation of trying to talk about politics on YouTube I don't get that from patreon however patreon did make this bizarre decision to classify my content as being only suitable for people over 18 maybe they have a maybe they have a policy somewhere that if you if you mention cocaine and sleeping with prostitutes even if you mentioned them negatively even if you're talking about cocaine and prostitutes is something you shouldn't do that that puts you into the a teen category if if so probably there other probably there are conservative Christian preachers who have been censored the same way I have in to the same extent and for the same reason in terms of their checklist of what gets you what gets you kicked off and one lets you stay on okay Jacqueline Hart patreon head of trust and safety said that her team watches for and will investigate complaints about any Content posted on patreon and other sites like YouTube and Facebook that violates what it defines as hate speech that includes quote serious attacks or even negative generalizations of people based on their race and sexual orientation close quote she has said if someone heard me if someone has breached patrons policy the company contacts the offender with a specific plan which usually involves asking for the content to be removed and for a public apology the conversations with creators can quickly become complicated nuanced and well human she said so not just an automated message from YouTube or Facebook which I have also had I mentioned this on the channel before YouTube has banned me from criticizing neo-nazis by the claim that just by my quoting the person I'm criticizing I'm myself guilty of hate speech and in the video in question which you can't see on this channel it's banned most of them good luck finding it it was a critique of John Rose and when I quoted John Rose I had a disclaimer on the screen at the bottom I am only quoting this in order to criticize it you know being an auntie Nancy should not be qualified as the hate speech like actively attacking and criticizing Nazis shouldn't get you badass agent guess what that video was nevertheless censored and punished by YouTube as being hate speech so we got problems we got issues but from my perspective what patreon is doing is part of the solution it's a it's a better approach it's a significant positive contrast to what YouTube does I have lost experience with Facebook I don't really care about Facebook its platform that way but hey patreon has decided to support me quote patreon has to decide what qualifies as a sincere and thorough apology still having human moderators has changed its users behavior more than simply deleting accounts mrs. Hart said quote we handhold creators and we work with them one-on-one and nearly every creator reforms so it's quite a successful process close quote she said the work takes up a large amount of resources around 10% of patreon employees are dedicated to our team 10% of their employees are just engaging in censorship over creators interesting I'm absolutely certain that it's not what YouTube does YouTube does not want 10% of their budget going into censoring content created this month continue reading the article the site's moderators received a complaint about mr. Benjamin so mr. Benjamin is Sargon of Akkad who had risen to fame railing against diversity and feminism during the gamergate movement in 2014 mr. Benjamin used the n-word and anti-gay language during an interview posted to YouTube on February 7th patreon found I remember that quotation it has burned into the minds and memories of memory of many of us it showed that sargon of akkad is in no way qualified to be a political commentator journalists let alone a political leader and he currently pretends to do all three on the basis of his background as a video game programmer he may have been quite good at programming video games I remember years ago when he posted a video showing the video games he was working on long ago he stopped creating his own video games and became a full-time no nothing political commentator but she is very bad at it doesn't mean every single video he's done his poor I can remember seeing maybe two videos on his channel that I really respected I think he had just a good job of thoroughly reading Wikipedia articles before making those videos doesn't take a whole lot of research to make a decent video on current events and politics but the vast majority of his content I utterly despise and if I were the CEO or had executive at patreon I would also be looking for any excuse to kick Sargon off the platform they found an excuse in that racist comment in which he used the n-word and it was an angry vitriolic racist comment at length in which he repeated himself and dug himself in it wasn't some quick in passing error it revealed deep-seated negative attitudes on his part and whether or not there's any coming back from that he never made an effort to come back from that he could have make a separate video talking about that I think interesting question if your problem is in terms of public perception that you're perceived as a racist and you feel you're not a racist why don't you come out and positively state what your view of the future society is if you actually positively like black people and want black people to be an important part of the society you live in come out and say that come out and rep your set don't make racist statements and then hide in the shadows saying oh well you just ever so slightly Mis courted me and how technically do you find racism and so on the kind of evasive and dishonest agassiz engaged in and that other softcore racist engage in here on YouTube all the time he is not merely being judged in terms of guilt by association sargon of akkad has been judged guilty but the content of his character and the quality of his content which has been garbage all right I totally believe that he has only been racist and offensive due to a lack of other quality content to offer his audience I totally believe he has been provocative merely for the sake of being provocative having no other grand design or political goal rather than to get attention and be a Fame guess what bottom line is he was put in the same category as Milo E innopolis a category he completely deserves to be in and both Sargon and Milo gianopolous were kicked off a patreon I would make the same decision myself if I were the head of patreon I would not make the decision to classify this YouTube channel you're watching right now as pornography somewhat surreal but that's how they wrote the rules and that's how all of us played on them if you want to have the benefits of doing fundraising on patreon as a website on December 6 the company cult told mr. Benjamin mr. Benjamin is sargon of akkad the company told mr. Benjamin that it would freeze his account and that he could appeal mr. Benjamin objected because he said the video in question should not fall under patrons rules because it was on YouTube close quote complete nonsense most of the defenders seem to think that patreon has no right to judge who you are politically and what you're doing that they have no right to judge whether or not you're entitled to use patron as a website on the basis of statements you make outside of pager on those are not the rules of the game we play there not if you are running for mayor if you are a politician in a small running for mayor it doesn't matter if you made a racist statement in a restaurant or if you made a racist statement on local community radio or if you made it an interview to the newspaper doesn't matter if you made a racist statement to the security guard at the front gate of your house if you are making intentional public statements in this case it wasn't even so you said privately he didn't get into a fight with his ex-girlfriend and yell racist statements at her something that happens there have been people on YouTube who had this problem they made racist statements in a totally personal non-public non political context that they're just mad at their ex-girlfriend not the situation here he was making contrived normally scripted political statements on YouTube he is being judged for that he is speaking very much in the same sense that on politics the same sense that someone running for mayor is making scripted and a semi scripted intentional political statements and he is being judged for those statements that's what we all gotta judge him for and the team at patreon judged in the same way there is absolutely no reason why they only judge you for what you said with in patreon if they did that then the worst and most vile neo-nazis of whom there are many and I've seen many examples kicked off page one the worst neo-nazis could simply separate their lives and have some of their content on one platform some of the other and still do fundraising through patreon that's not what they want so they judge you by what you say publicly whether or not it's on their website whether or not it's on YouTube Facebook or anywhere else okay but he did get the right to appeal for mr. Benjamin the timing was surprised and quote my brand has been politically incorrect for years close quote he said in the video which he later posted to his YouTube channel called the patreon witch trials mr. Benjamin who did not respond to requests for comment has eight hundred seventy thousand subscribers on YouTube and more than three thousand subscribers on patreon from which he had been making around twelve thousand dollars a month Wow many of his videos to show a static cartoon or series of images with his voice speaking against movements for gender equality now that is a just close quote pause here I do think the New York Times has been really unfair in terms of how they characterize you know mr. Benjamin's content sargon of akkad speaks on all kinds of issues how many videos has he done on brexit and EU politics I mean he doesn't just talk about gender equality anyway that that is really unfair he became a general political commentary channel I can remember him commenting on the politics of Cuba and Venezuela I mean he's covered a lot of content and he does deserve credit for that he deserves to be described by a journalist in the New York Times with more accuracy objectivity and fairness than that so I'm not I'm not a fan of this New York Times article either but nevertheless I continue quote more recently mr. Benjamin has moved from the fringe towards the heart of the new right in October he posted an hour-long interview with Steve Bannon president Trump's former chief strategist mr. Benjamin did not respond to attempts to engage him in the reform process mrs. Hart said so mrs. Hart is a member of the censorship committee over at patreon quote quote his response to us when we told him about the reform process was to nitpick and say quote a quote within a quote I was being anti-nazi close quote mrs. Hart said quote you cannot say those words in our platform it doesn't matter who you're to direct directing them at his removal from patreon immediately stirred up others on the site so you can read the whole article if you want to I am NOT going to go on any further it closes with what I think is the utterly true fair reasonable and accurate comment that most of these people who are reforming patreon pardon me most of the people who are quitting patreon rather than reforming their content rather than reforming their behavior in order to get in line with the to my mind very reasonable demands and the patreon says to your committee most people who are making grandiose gestures and leaving page one are doing so simply because they can quote drum up support for your cause when there is some kind of public debacle of this kind they're making a grandiose gesture out of what otherwise would seem like a kind of shameful retreat I think most of these people including Sam Harris and including Jordan Peterson I think they are afraid to try to live up to the standards patreon wants you to live up to I think they are afraid to live up to the expectations of their audience and to actually deliver on the promises that committed to when they started their patreon pages respectively including most obviously in mr. Jordan Peterson's case that he is terror of actually having to live up to starting his own University an unbelievable promise he made and there were much more deep there were more details but exactly what that university was supposed to be what kind of credential is supposed to confer so on and so forth I think we'll be waiting a long time to see him deliver on those patreon promises he is now in the same situation of someone on Kickstarter whose letdown his source of public support and this is an occasion for him to slink into the shadows for involved not just something that just seemed as if he's making his tip to seem as if he's taken the high moral ground in rejecting patreon when he's neither living up the expectations that the website imposed on crater nor living up the expectations of his audience that is that