Patreon and Mastercard Ban Robert Spencer Without Explanation

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{snip} If you think that the banning will stop when those who are deemed “crazy” or “extremist” are all banned, you’re in for a surprise.

Yesterday, they came for me, albeit in not yet as thoroughgoing a manner as the way they went after Jones and McInnes.

A few weeks ago the great David Wood swung by my office and helped me set up a Patreon account. We made a video in which I explained that I had come into possession of what once had been a working TV studio, and that I hoped to make it into a working studio again for regular Jihad Watch videos.

The whole endeavor had barely gotten off the ground, however, when I received this email yesterday afternoon:

April (Patreon)

Aug 14, 3:20 PM PDT

Hi Robert,

My name is April and I’m on the Trust & Safety team here at Patreon. I’ve been notified by Mastercard that we must remove your account from Patreon, effective immediately.

Mastercard has a stricter set of rules and regulations than Patreon, and they reserve the right to not offer their services to accounts of their choosing. This is in line with their terms of service, which means it’s something we have to comply by.

I have paid out your remaining creator balance of $475.22 to you via direct deposit.

I’m sorry for the inconvenience and frustration this might cause.

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns — I’m here to help.

Best,

April
Patreon Trust and Safety
Monday – Friday
9am- 6pm PST

I’d been given no warning before this of anything amiss with my account, {snip}. So what violated their rules? They hadn’t explained. But when I went to my Patreon account, I got this:

So I wrote back to April:

I see my account was also disabled. Explanation, please.

No answer. Later on Twitter, however, when I announced this, Patreon responded:

Hi Robert, we emailed you earlier today which explained that unfortunately Mastercard required us to remove your account. You replied to us but if you have further questions we’re happy to keep emailing.

— Patreon (@Patreon) August 15, 2018

And:

Hey, we’ve been emailing with Robert today to explain the situation as unfortunately Mastercard required us to remove his account. We will continue to email with him if he has further questions.

— Patreon (@Patreon) August 15, 2018

{snip} They had not “been emailing” with me, never explained why MasterCard objected to my account or why they had to comply with MasterCard’s wishes, {snip}. I don’t have a MasterCard and didn’t have one attached to my Patreon account, so MasterCard really wasn’t involved — unless it owns Patreon, which is apparently the case.

Of course, what is almost certainly going on here is that MasterCard/Patreon is deleting accounts that have been smeared by the hard-Left propaganda hate group the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), despite the fact that the SPLC has been resoundingly discredited. {snip} Here, for the record, is my response to their charges, offered despite the fact that Patreon offered no chance to appeal or rebut whatever charges got me banned.

{snip}

[Editor’s Note: The article continues with Spencer’s lengthy rebuttal to the SPLC charge.]