Kickstarter Apologizes

Below is the full post Kickstarter made after their decision not to pull the PUA Kickstarter that was pushing a pro-assault agenda. The project was funded reaching many times over its initial goal. Casey Malone brought this to everyone’s attention after pulling the rapey comments the creator, Ken Hoinsky, made on Reddit (I know you’re all shocked). The Kickstarter page was pretty innocuous, but I’ll confess I didn’t watch Hoinsky’s video because…gross and creepy. Also, I’m familiar with the Pick Up Art (PUA) mentality, which is rooted in entitlement and privilege. Entitled to women’s time, attention, and bodies so I have no interest in anything that these people have to say.

Malone brought Hoinsky to the attention of well, Twitter, the feminist blogosphere, etc. Jezebel had a few great pieces on all of this. Kickstarter after receiving an onslaught of tweets and people reporting the page decided they should respond by doing nothing. On Reddit, Kickstarter responded directly to Malone’s post with,

“This morning, material that a project creator posted on Reddit earlier this year was brought to our attention and the public’s attention just hours before the project’s deadline. Some of this material is abhorrent and inconsistent with our values as people and as an organization. Based on our current guidelines, however, the material on Reddit did not warrant the irreversible action of canceling the project.

“As stewards of Kickstarter we sometimes have to make difficult decisions. We followed the discussion around the web today very closely. It led to a lot of internal discussion and will lead to a further review of our policies.”

This response, while not exactly awesome, I can understand because current policies and the comments were made on Reddit not Kickstarter. My immediate thoughts went to, well how are you changing your policies? The skeptic in my thinks the project making just over $16,000 (8 times the goal) might also have something to do with it since Kickstarter takes a percentage.

Regardless, Friday, Kickstarter released a post apologizing for their lack of response. I'm kind of optimistic about this (ignoring the assumed Reddit/libertarian backlash) because it is an indication that online mobilization can yield results.

We were wrong

Dear everybody,

On Wednesday morning Kickstarter was sent a blog post quoting disturbing material found on Reddit. The offensive material was part of a draft for a “seduction guide” that someone was using Kickstarter to publish. The posts offended a lot of people — us included — and many asked us to cancel the creator’s project. We didn’t.

We were wrong.

Why didn’t we cancel the project when this material was brought to our attention? Two things influenced our decision:

• The decision had to be made immediately. We had only two hours from when we found out about the material to when the project was ending. We’ve never acted to remove a project that quickly. 
• Our processes, and everyday thinking, bias heavily toward creators. This is deeply ingrained. We feel a duty to our community — and our creators especially — to approach these investigations methodically as there is no margin for error in canceling a project. This thinking made us miss the forest for the trees.

These factors don’t excuse our decision but we hope they add clarity to how we arrived at it.

Let us be 100% clear: Content promoting or glorifying violence against women or anyone else has always been prohibited from Kickstarter. If a project page contains hateful or abusive material we don’t approve it in the first place. If we had seen this material when the project was submitted to Kickstarter (we didn’t), it never would have been approved. Kickstarter is committed to a culture of respect.

Where does this leave us?

First, there is no taking back money from the project or canceling funding after the fact. When the project was funded the backers’ money went directly from them to the creator. We missed the window.

Second, the project page has been removed from Kickstarter. The project has no place on our site. For transparency’s sake, a record of the page is cached here.

Third, we are prohibiting “seduction guides,” or anything similar, effective immediately. This material encourages misogynistic behavior and is inconsistent with our mission of funding creative works. These things do not belong on Kickstarter.

Fourth, today Kickstarter will donate $25,000 to an anti-sexual violence organization called RAINN. It’s an excellent organization that combats exactly the sort of problems our inaction may have encouraged.

We take our role as Kickstarter’s stewards very seriously. Kickstarter is one of the friendliest, most supportive places on the web and we’re committed to keeping it that way. We’re sorry for getting this so wrong.

Thank you,

Kickstarter

What this really comes down to is a serious lapse in judgment on Kickstarter's part. They are attempting to right it after the fact, but had they pulled the project when they were alerted to the issues then this would be unnecessary. I'm not super impressed with Kickstarter lately. Between the whole Garden State thing and this. There has to be a better way to fund projects.