A GlassDoor review left by an alleged former Patreon employee claims that the company told trust and safety team members to overlook pedophilic content and protect “minor-attracted people.”
Reduxx reports that a former Patreon employee alleges in a recent GlassDoor review that the company was forcing members of its trust and safety team to overlook pedophilic content on the platform and protect “minor-attracted people.” In other words, pedophiles.
Breitbart News reported earlier this month that the company had laid off its entire security and privacy team in a huge move that many were critical of, with some creators threatening to move their content off the platform in protest.
Patreon stated at the time: “The changes made this week will have no impact on our ability to continue providing a secure and safe platform for our creators and patrons.”
On August 16, a former trust and safety specialist at Patreon posted to the job review platform GlassDoor alleging that Patreon demonstrated negligence in relation to child safeguarding, titling their review “Illegal.”
The former employee worked at Patreon for over a year and claimed that management at the company had actively encouraged employees to overlook pedophilic content unless ordered to do otherwise by members of law enforcement.
The ex-employee wrote:
We are being told specifically by management and executives NOT to take down content that is illegal or was reported as sexual in nature involving minors unless the police make contact with legal or we have an order by a court.
When others try to inform management that there’s an amalgamation of accounts that are selling lewd photographs of what appear to be children, all concerns are dismissed.
The review adds that higher-ups at Patreon are “advocating for customers who are minor-attracted persons (or MAPs),” and ends by saying: “This is no way to run a company, this is no way to allow children to be exploited on our platform like this.”
In the “advice to management” section of GlassDoor, the ex-employee wrote: “Have federal law enforcement investigate the company because there’s no way what we’re doing is legal.”
Patreon responded to the claims in a blog post saying the claims are completely without merit. The blog post states: “Dangerous and conspiratorial disinformation began circulating on social media recently, alleging that Patreon has hosted child sexual abuse material (CSAM). We want to let all of our creators and patrons know that these claims are unequivocally false and set the record straight.”
The company added two points to refute the claims:
First, let us be crystal clear: Patreon has zero tolerance for the sexualization of children or teenagers. We strive to keep our community safe on all fronts. We unequivocally forbid creators from funding content dedicated to non-consensual or illegal sexual themes and regularly review creators’ accounts to ensure creators behind adult campaigns are over the age of 18. We work with law enforcement globally and partner with world-class organizations including THORN, The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), and INHOPE because we are committed to keeping the Internet safer.
Second: The important responsibility of monitoring for illegal content in accordance with Patreon’s Community Guidelines lies with our Trust & Safety team, who takes that job very seriously. The security organization, in contrast, focuses on ensuring the safety of things like user and payment data on the platform. Recent changes we made to our security organization were designed to bolster security efforts through relevant in-house and partner expertise. Those vital efforts are completely unrelated to the Trust & Safety Team’s charter to keep the platform safe from harmful and illegal content.
Read more at Reduxx here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan
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