Patreon and Mastercard ban Robert Spencer without explanation
(Image thanks to Caldron Pool, which has a good article about this)
Recently Alex Jones and Gavin McInnes have been banned from various social media platforms, in a desperate attempt by the Left to ensure that the 2016 election results aren’t repeated in 2018. Some people say it doesn’t matter that these men were deplatformed, because they don’t like what they say, and what’s more, these are all private companies. They are indeed private companies, but they have a virtual monopoly today over the means of communication, and once they start banning people because they don’t like what they say, they’ve set a precedent that is inimical to the survival of a free society.
If only approved viewpoints can be aired, we live in a totalitarian state, not a free society, and the effects of this will reverberate in our lives in ways we cannot imagine. 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, which at the time consisted of that single video announcing the initiative, along with a note announcing that I would be starting a livestream (I had planned weekly livestreams, “This Week In Jihad,” and recorded one and a half, the second one being cut short by a bad hotel connection. This nascent series will now, of course, be discontinued). That was it. 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
This was plainly disingenuous. 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, and didn’t answer my request for an explanation. 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. The SPLC defames me as a “hate group leader” and “anti-Muslim extremist.” 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.
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) Falsehoods about Robert Spencer
“Robert Spencer,” https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/robert-spencer
- “Spencer is one of the most prolific anti-Muslim figures in the United States.”
I am not “anti-Muslim.” I oppose jihad terror and Sharia oppression of women, non-Muslims, and others. I am no more “anti-Muslim” than foes of the Nazis were “anti-German.”
- “A career anti-Muslim figure, Spencer has devoted much of his life to writing books, countless articles, and producing other content all with the goal of vilifying and maligning Muslims and the Islamic faith.”
My goal is not now and has never been “vilifying and maligning Muslims and the Islamic faith.” My goal is to convey Islamic doctrines and beliefs accurately in order to help people understand the phenomenon of Islamic jihad terror.
- “He considers these texts to be innately extremist and violent, and refuses to acknowledge nonviolent passages and centuries of adapted interpretations.”
Actually, I’ve published online a commentary on the entire Qur’an, including the nonviolent passages, and written extensively within it about nonviolent interpretations of various passages. That’s here: https://www.jihadwatch.org/quran-commentary
- “Spencer argues that extremists, like Osama bin Laden and ISIS, are the most authentic interpretation and practice of Islam, despite being actively rejected by the overwhelming majority of the world’s Muslims. He brushes this fact off by bombastically claiming the majority of Muslims, either do not understand their own holy book or are masking their extremism.”
I’ve never made such claims, and have in fact spoken of a spectrum of belief, knowledge, and fervor among Muslims that accounts for why most do not wage jihad.
- “By painting Rauf as an extremist who was striving to build a ‘victory mosque’ to celebrate the destruction of the World Trade Center, the two leaders of SIOA sought to block the project while portraying all Muslims as radical – an assertion simply not supported by facts.”
Rauf had links to the Muslim Brotherhood — see here: https://www.nationalreview.com/2010/07/raufs-dawa-world-trade-center-rubble-andrew-c-mccarthy/
We never stated or implied that “all Muslims” are “radical.”
- “Spencer also attacks individuals and organizations that claim to represent mainstream Muslims. This is most commonly done through accusations of those entities acting as secret operatives to destroy the West.”
In reality, I merely note the abundantly documented ties of groups such as CAIR to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. See, for example, here: https://www.investigativeproject.org/2340/federal-judge-agrees-cair-tied-to-hamas
- “Spencer is known to have associations with European racists and neo-fascists. However, he claims that his contact with them is merely incidental.”
I have no associations with European racists or neo-fascists, and never have. I have had some associations with people who were falsely accused of being racist and neo-fascist.
- “In Spencer’s 2017 book Confessions of an Islamophobe, a memoir that among other things dives into the nuances of being an anti-Muslim hate monger, he reveals he has no plans of slowing down.”
In reality, the book explains why opposing jihad terror and Sharia oppression do not make one an anti-Muslim hate monger.
“Muslim Basher Robert Spencer Shows White Nationalist Colors,” https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2011/11/09/muslim-basher-robert-spencer-shows-white-nationalist-colors
- “Proving yet again that nothing is beneath him, anti-Muslim propagandist Robert Spencer has put himself firmly in the camp of open white nationalists with an article published yesterday in Crisis magazine, a conservative Catholic publication.”
I am not a white nationalist, openly or secretly, and that article simply criticized multiculturalism. It did not discuss race at all.
- “Spencer’s piece is punctuated with a recommended reading list that might have been taken from the bookshelf of John Tanton, the racist architect of the modern nativist movement.”
I had nothing to do with the compilation of that reading list, and did not see it before the piece was published. None of the books on it are genuinely racist; they’re simply against mass migration of non-Europeans into Europe, the devastating effects of which we are seeing now.
- “Anthony M. Esolen’s The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization, which was published by the white nationalist Regnery Press…”
Regnery Publishing is not “white nationalist.” It is a leading mainstream conservative publishing house that has published books by numerous mainstream conservative figures, including David Horowitz, Dinesh D’Souza, Ann Coulter, etc.