[tptacek]

No, it's not that simple. The platform will start out hosting I.D.W. celebrities. But if it's an open platform and it aims to avoid "censorship", then the system converges on something like Gab, a place where those I.D.W. celebrities will not long feel comfortable calling home.

[gadders]

People seem to be comfortable sharing twitter with anti-semites like Louis Farrakhan. It doesn't mean everyone on twitter shares Farrakhan's views.

[tptacek]

I don't know what you're trying to say here. I think Twitter should probably ban Farrakhan. Lots of people have in fact left Twitter because they believe it's too lax about toxic users. But nobody really believes Twitter is an anti-censorship platform; the whole premise of anti-censorship platforms is that Twitter does censor people.

But it's obvious to any user what the difference is between Twitter and a site like Gab. You have to dig to find white supremacists and holocaust denial on Twitter, through a mountain of celebrity gossip and banal conversations. Meanwhile, that stuff is showcased --- is the dominant conversation! --- on the alternative site.

And it's obvious why that's bound to happen: the users that get the most value from supposed non-censoring platforms are exactly the ones that want to broadcast hateful and alienating messages.

Unless you're comfortable talking about recipes or your new book or an upcoming lecture sandwiched between lectures about Jews controlling the media and sending all the black people back to Africa, you're not going to stick around on that platform. Peterson won't be able to do it; it'll destroy his brand.

So again my question is: how is this supposed to work? Maybe it's not really a Patreon competitor but something more like the old Deck blog advertising network, where you'll have to be yea cool to join.

[HeroOfAges]

Why do you keep drawing comparisons to social media platforms? Someone that acts as a patron to a specific content creator on Patreon doesn't have to know anything about any other creators using the platform to generate income. As the great grandparent stated it doesn't really matter. Crowdfunding and social media platforms serve different purposes and are compelled by different forces. In fact, I can't see any reason why this theoretical crowdfunding platform should ever need to disclose a full list of creators to any of its users.

[gadders]

>> the whole premise of anti-censorship platforms is that Twitter does censor people.

Yes, Twitter does censor people but in an extremely selective and politically motivated way.

I guess my general point was that just because someone publishes on Platform X, that doesn't mean they necessarily hold the same views as the majority of users on that platform.

I take your point about regular content being swamped by the crazies though. Maybe it's a problem of scale? Attract enough regular people to drown out the extremists.

[tptacek]

Attracting enough regular people is exactly the thing that never happens with these platforms, and you can see why mathematically: the people who most want the service are precisely the least regular. The platform doesn't get an even share of users; its user acquisition is sharply biased towards the very worst (and worse still, the loudest worst). The user experience of the platform is quickly dominated by them, and the platform actively repels regular users.

If you join a platform that is obviously dominated by people talking about how Jews are lizard people, others will draw conclusions about you whether you approve of them or not. Which, of course, makes it even harder to attract the regular users that you weren't going to attract anyways because nobody wants to talk about their life next to someone yelling about "the Jews."