Creators, Comedy, and Community Guidelines: An Update on Owen Benjamin

Patreon has built a robust set of Community Guidelines around the content allowed on our platform and a process to ensure creators follow them. As our CEO Jack Conte has stated publicly:

“We get rigorous and specific [when it comes to making changes about the content that’s allowed on Patreon — or not — ] because we’re talking about removing a person’s income. The authority to take away a human being’s income is a sobering responsibility. It is not something to be done on a whim. And, as a creator myself, I’ve had videos taken down. I always want Patreon to put creators first. The reason Patreon exists is to give creators power and income. To give creators a voice, a seat at the table. We’re super creator-first in everything we do. … And we don’t just say that. We do it. It’s our culture. It’s how we operate. It’s in every line of code and every product that we build and every decision we make at the company.”

In line with those goals we have built policies that account for different types of creators, including comedians. Patreon values the important work comedians do and has no interest in devolving any comedian’s expression to conformity. We understand that comedians push the boundaries and that as a company we hold immense power over the creators on our platform. We don’t want to create an environment of fear for comedians that they will lose their primary source of income because of one bad joke. But Patreon also must maintain a community where people from various backgrounds and experiences feel safe on the platform.

In the case of Owen Benjamin, his past behavior has violated our community guidelines on hate speech. But as mentioned above, comedians as a group of creators require additional work on our part to allow them to create. To that end, we have highlighted the specific areas of concern to him and will work through our processes and monitor his Patreon page moving forward.

As a creator-first company, we start by educating creators to help them understand what type of content is and is not allowed on Patreon. We assume that creators have positive intent and are willing to work within our guidelines. Our Trust & Safety team works with creators one on one to provide customized feedback to help them to stay on the platform if they wish, and to assist them if they no longer wish to work within our guidelines.

Additional Information

Owen shared a select portion of the email we sent to him this morning on Instagram. For transparency, here’s the full text of that email:

Hi Owen,

I work for Patreon’s Trust and Safety team and I am contacting you because you have violated Patreon’s community guidelines.

Patreon values the important work comedians do and has no interest in devolving your or any other comedian’s expression to conformity. We understand that comedians push the boundaries and that as a company we hold immense power over the creators on our platform. We don’t want to create an environment of fear for comedians that they will lose their primary source of income because of one bad joke. But Patreon also must maintain a community where people from various backgrounds and experiences feel safe on the platform.

Tweets you’ve published (and that have since been removed from Twitter) perpetuate negative stereotypes concerning protected classes. I’m specifically referencing your tweet concerning black people and AIDS. Your recent Facebook post and live-streams about Hollywood and rape survivors also violate our guidelines. Patreon does not allow shaming private or public survivors of sexual assault. I understand you are aiming for shock value in your work. Whether or not shock value is the sole intent, Patreon draws the line at content containing hateful rhetoric and harassing sexual assault victims.

You may consider this as censorship, and be tempted to continue to act as a provocateur in defense of freedom of speech. I want to remind you that freedom of speech allows a platform such as Patreon to create a community with our own guidelines. These guidelines are designed to ensure that creators of all types can use Patreon effectively to build their creative businesses. If you choose to violate our guidelines again your page will be removed.

Let us know if you have any questions.