
Being collateral damage in the culture wars of the West - dragonbonheur
https://medium.com/@therealsexycyborg/shenzhen-tech-girl-naomi-wu-part-2-over-the-wall-and-into-the-fire-5e8efc5c1509
======
jessaustin
_In April of 2018, when Vice Magazine’s lawyers pressured Patreon to drop my
account, I had no other options that would enable me to keep my YouTube
channel going._

ZOMG that's so evil! She complained that you didn't respect her desire to
remain anonymous, so you destroy her livelihood? Why would any source trust
Vice to safeguard her anonymity or indeed to do anything they promised after
this saga of shitty behavior? Answer: they rely on sources not knowing
anything about them, because after all the sources don't have the iron control
of the social media "conversation" that Western journalists have.

[EDIT: removed speculation]

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
Well, ok, but why did Patreon agree to drop her account? That seems like
important context.

~~~
jessaustin
Patreon's deplatforming policies are capricious and draconian because they
have to keep financial partners happy, and the policies of those partners are
capricious and draconian. Those with enough social media and commercial power
can deal (in fact if TFA is believed it appears they can actually _steer_ the
machine of injustice). The author of TFA cannot deal, which is the entire
point of TFA. We always knew in our hearts that "twitter as help desk" was
unjust at some level. This is a concrete example of that.

[EDIT:] Now that I've read to the end of TFA, she buried the lede! This woman
has been subject to _so much_ shitty behavior! She was the third customer of a
Patreon competitor, "SubscribeStar", and one of their largest customers, so
the bastards just _shut down the entire site_. Now it appears that it's back
up:
[https://www.subscribestar.com/posts/7863](https://www.subscribestar.com/posts/7863)

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
Again, okay, but which specific deplatforming policy did they use in this
case?

~~~
SexyCyborg
Covered here: [http://medium.com/@therealsexycyborg/shenzhen-tech-girl-
naom...](http://medium.com/@therealsexycyborg/shenzhen-tech-girl-naomi-wu-my-
experience-with-sarah-jeong-jason-koebler-and-vice-magazine-3f4a32fda9b5)

~~~
xrd
I have a solution to your Patreon issues, see my other comment below. I would
be very interested in talking to you if collecting Ethereum is an alternative
you are considering.

~~~
barry-cotter
[https://www.subscribestar.com/naomi-wu](https://www.subscribestar.com/naomi-
wu)

Here’s another, better alternative, that actually works, right now.

------
mc32
It's sad that an organization like the NYT would engage in unbecoming behavior
to protect one of their own's bad behavior (going against an agreement not to
basically doxx someone) and going so far as character assassination because
what Naomi Wu claimed went against the NYT's narrative.

~~~
barry-cotter
This is the New York Times. This is not unusual. Journalists shit on people
who can’t hurt them all the time. The New York Times is different only insofar
as it can shit on more people from a greater height. Journalistic ethics is a
lie.

------
tareqak
There really should be a way to "roll your own Patreon" for individuals.
Whatever your individual viewpoints on each of the de-platforming incidents in
the recent past, having them all be lumped into one service makes it easier to
take down and disrupt the users of said service. I don't think Bitcoin is
necessary yet given the amount of additional complexity for the average
creator and average patron, just a separate web page that allows for recurring
subscriptions.

~~~
xrd
SexyCyborg (and others): I would love for you to check out
[https://finneyfor.com](https://finneyfor.com). It is Ethereum based (not
Bitcoin), but specifically designed to remove the problems that so many
Patreon users have dealt with AND something that an average blog reader can
use without understanding cryptocurrency at all (beyond getting some on an
exchange like Coinbase).

"FinneyFor facilitates collecting Ethereum (ETH) from your customers (readers,
fans, or otherwise). FinneyFor does not require your users have a special
browser, nor browser plugins. Collection happens on your site, but requires no
server side components."

FinneyFor works with Jekyll and WordPress. Would appreciate any feedback,
positive or negative.

------
towaway1138
Sad story. And just one more stake in the heart of NYT's credibility.

------
masonic
Jeong was already infamous for defending[0] the U. of Virginia rape hoaxer[1].

[0] [https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/11/04/report-jury-
rules-...](https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/11/04/report-jury-rules-
against-rolling-stone-in-fake-uva-rape-story-lawsuit/)

[1] [https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/08/03/flashback-new-
york...](https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/08/03/flashback-new-york-times-
bigot-sarah-jeong-defended-uva-rape-hoaxer)

------
justaguyonline
Found the story as written by SexyCyborg in the post very hard to follow, plus
it felt a little too self serving to take 100% at face value.

I'll admit though, I saw her once on Hacker News the first time she went
viral, later read that Reddit "expose" and then promptly never thought of her
again. It took a while to walk back what I thought was happening so I could
understand what was going on.

This video [1] helped me get the actual context of the article.

The West honestly doesn't come off well in this, but neither does China
really. More of the same "are the people with power over others using it with
decency and respect?"

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0dkwwV_iaw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0dkwwV_iaw)

