Free games listings for subscribers pulled

While my last update stated that I was adding additional benefits to the channel, I've realized that the termination of the Patreon page was likely a targeted attack on my channel & therefore am also pulling one of the benefits from the channel, this being the same one that I expect was used as a basis to get Patreon to terminate my account.  I find it highly unlikely that my Patreon page would get terminated only days after I started streaming again & I can think of at least 3 individuals that have aggressively attacked my channel in the past (these 3 really only being the tip of the iceberg, there were many others that have been banned from my channel in the past for smaller attacks) & because it appears the game giveaway listings were the basis on this possible attack, that benefit is getting pulled until I can get to the bottom of it (which in all honestly, I doubt I will be able to get to the bottom of, seeing as Patreon is taking the "block & ignore" approach to the situation after this case of creator victimization, which if my assumption is accurate, upgrades the situation to a matter of revictimization).

2 of the individuals I believe could have been capable of this were also Twitch streamers (their channels kind of dead as of late, but still Twitch streamers that had Partnership status...which I find ironic that individuals with that type of disposition are rewarded for bad behavior...) when their organized attacks against my channel started (one of those I have a recording from their own channel where they are organizing one of these attacks with friends over his Discord & viewers in his Twitch stream, making false reports against my YouTube channel after they found it, first taking time to search it out while still live on his own channel), the 3rd individual not expected to have the brainpower for this (a young & very childish individual) that has only managed to get himself banned over multiple Twitch accounts in many of the channels that I was supporting with hosts (and that also supported me as a streamer; that individual literally following through the hosts on my channel to attack me by name with false information in those channels for years & I have IRC logs to back up that statement over many of those known attacks, known meaning there are probably many others I'm not even aware of; at least 6 Twitch accounts that I know of were banned from other channels in attacks through this same manner, as well as a few failed attacks on my own Discord that were mostly foiled by the locks I have in place to prevent such attacks on it, resulting in bans on each of those accounts from my own Discord & eventually managing to get himself banned from the Official Fortnite Discord after I brought these attacks & the logged history of those attacks to the attention of one of their moderators).

In any case, I may bring this benefit back if I ever get to the bottom of who was behind it (already expect I know who it was, but currently unable to prove it, not that his nature of gloating, along with his friends being too verbal for their own good will eventually get that out in the open, at which point I'll be taking him to court for damages cause by slander, or at least whoever was responsible once I figure out who it was), being highly unlike that Patreon is going to reverse their decision on the matter given their reactions on Facebook against my own Facebook account, as well as their refusal to respond to  email responses sent to them over the support ticket opened when they emailed the account closure notice, but this benefit could also be brought back if Patreon has a change of heart (although my opinion of Patreon at this point is they have a heart of ice, not expecting that to thaw out any time soon).

Patreon makes it clear, account termination is final

When I woke up on 7/22/2021, I checked some of my previous posts regarding the Patreon account termination & found that Patreon decided to take counter-measures against them on Facebook, this came in the result of not only deletion of the comments, but also a BLOCK on my account to comment on their page.  I already expected comment deletions, this is why I kept backups (all except the comments regarding the video response of their actions).  The posts I had backed up to this point were as you can see here:

While I expected I would need to create a testing account on Facebook to verify the deletion of the comments (noticing that I couldn't see any other comments on that post either while logged into my account), I attempted to do so through a Firefox private browser (the same method I use for embedding Twitch chat into my videos, since Twitch discontinued functionality in Internet Explorer), which verified that it wasn't a full wipe of comments on the post, but my comments directly (with what appeared 2 other posts from other individuals were also deleted or outright blocked, as the post count was at 3 posts before I made my comment, which means 2 others were not showing):

It wasn't until I looked at the mobile app on my phone that I realized they had also blocked my ability to react to their post on Facebook, so pretty much a full block (at least as far as business pages are capable of on Facebook):

This is the first time EVER I have seen a business page (of course I can't really consider Patreon as a business anymore, so I'm using this term extremely loosely at this point) do something like this.  It made one thing BLATENTLY clear however, they had no intention in backtracking on their decision to terminate the account, so I was going to have to go through with what I stated in that response to their email, as well as many other publications that was posted prior; it was time to start publishing Patreon reviews & boycotts to my personal site...

Of course to truly verify that this was a block (and not just disabling those options for everyone), I would have to create a new testing account on Facebook to verify the removal of the comment & reaction functions were indeed only affecting my account, something I didn't feel like it was worth the effort to get done, at least not until the new publications were up on my personal site.  Clearly I have no intentions in sharing anything of theirs anywhere on the web (unless it were to mock them, which I'm not going to lower myself to that level of childishness, stating the facts is enough to get the word out without having to be immature about it), so with the lack of functionality on the page in it's current state (even if it is assigned by account), I decided it was time to add this business page to my business block list:

One other thing of note is that the reviews that were previously mentioned in the video embedded in the past post to this blog (the response to Patreon over their decision to terminate the account), I still have the ability to delete or revise those reviews myself (even the BBB review once published), but I fully expect rather than Patreon attempting to correct this issue, they will instead look to retaliate through forced removals & account penalizations (of course this will result in further publications to my personal site when they happen).  While it's clear they are not going to reverse their decision by their actions on Facebook, if I see they do make amends for their mistake, the boycotts can be removed, however reviews to my personal site NEVER get removed, only updated if something in that situation changes (which would explain why trying to print some of them would result in over 50 pages being printed on a single review, which doesn't say much as videos can't be printed to paper, only their digital representation, not the content in the video itself).

UPDATE:  I made one final attempt to see if they had anything to say about this & whether any attempt has been made to reconsider their actions, this came in the form of a final email on the same support ticket they opened when they terminated the account:

UPDATE:  Additional contacts were made to individuals that created an account specifically for the purpose of supporting my channel through Patreon (luckily I had 3 forms of contact outside of Patreon for the one individual I know did this), informing them of what had happened & that if they weren't supporting any other individuals on that platform, they might as well deactivate their account (better than giving Patreon the chance to abuse the payment information that is still on there, not that I expect deletion of those accounts would fully remove it; publications of hacking of sites with payment information would prove that even information on deleted accounts could still be compromised if still in the site's logs).

Patreon account closure, "claimed" violation of ToS

As I was going over proofreading of the last post, I got an email from Patreon stating that they were closing my creator page under the claim of violation of ToS:

Note that certain details have been censored in this screenshot of the email

 

The expectation of this action is they were looking at what was being supplied directly over Patreon (the game giveaways) & not at the offsite content that the page was originally created for (namely, my Twitch channel).

Even though I was intending on doing a stream, this closure of my Patreon creator page (as well as the negation of funds & rewards that would have been assigned by account for funds that were donated to other creators on Patreon, an indirect penalty after the actions that were taking against my creator page, seeing as they were on the same account) sidetracked my plans to do that stream on Twitch & instead I spent over an hour writing & proofreading the response you see below before sending it to them:

Note that certain details have been censored in this screenshot of the email

In this response to Patreon, I stated that the benefits were better if subscribing to my Twitch channel through Patreon rather than directly through Twitch.  The reason for this was you got 1 channel point (via StreamElements) per cent spent on Patreon (while I was considering lowering this in response to transfer fees, I never did take this step), where you only got what was calculated as streamer revenue on Twitch (which was less than 50% of a Twitch subscription unless it was a Prime subscription, Prime subscriptions gave a flat rate of 250 points back for a tier 1 subscription; Twitch cheers still gave 1 points per bit cheered, there was no deduction here).  Additionally, if you were paying an additional $5 over what a subscription would cost on Twitch, you were allowed to request a gift subscription (from myself) to the channel (which gave more points back over subscribing directly to the channel over Twitch, seeing as gift subs gave a higher cut towards the streamer than a paid sub paid directly by the viewer).

With the termination of the creator page, the final month's perk of being able to request a gift sub is also negated, however points gained by those that were supporting the channel through Patreon will remain on those accounts (with no deductions or lowered rate prior to termination of the account).

Even though specific details were given regarding offsite perks in the response to their termination email, I doubt there will be any reversal in their decision, so all that will remain at this point will be the lower point rewards on direct subs to the channel (as well as tips through StreamElements once I get my account set up for them again, which will be lower points back than cheering directly on Twitch).

On the off-chance that Patreon does decide to backtrack their decision & choose to reinstate the account, I will be making changes that should have been done some time ago, that meaning that points back to subscribers over Patreon will be taking a cut to account for transfer & collection fees (points back to subscribers will still be higher than it would be for subscriptions directly on Twitch however...that is, if Patreon realizes they made a mistake in their decision & choose to reinstate the account, not that I expect they would with the response I sent them).

While the response to their team only details what was to be expected on my personal site, this blog & my channels, it did not detail other publications that I'm intending on publishing once the main articles are published to my personal site (with all evidence I can gather together regarding what has happened, as well as their part in supporting creators committing illegal activities & have yet to be held accountable for their actions...).  There are plenty of other sites that also allow reviews from the public (Google Maps, Google Play, the Better Business Bureau, the Federal Communications Commission, among others that may come later).  They have a choice at this point to look at the additional information that has been provided to them thus far & take another look at whether their actions were correct, otherwise their actions will be made a public matter to inform the public as such, which I can only expect a cover-up to hide these facts, which will only result in further publications in response to their actions, only to lead to what I can expect as building distrust of the Patreon platform, which will only lead to less income for them through those creators (as well as possibly an ultimate shutdown of the platform).

Remember Patreon is a platform that benefits by providing a funding platform for "creators", however in providing this platform, they also pull the reigns on who is considered a "creator" through restrictions they set, even if the termination of those that were following the rules are a misunderstanding on their part where they didn't have all the details.  Patreon only benefits through providing this platform by taking a small portion from the creators that choose to trust their platform & not to be taken advantage of or to be incorrectly penalized (remember my account did get incorrectly marked as adult-content back on 10/19/2019 & never did get corrected).  If people lose trust in Patron as a legitimate "creator" funding platform, that word is going to get around & any potential income that Patreon could be putting in their pocket will dry up.

Do I think this will be enough to push Patreon to the breaking point & force a shutdown?  No, not really...  It's clear the termination of my creator page was a hair-trigger decision where no additional research on offsite rewards was done prior to the decision being made (people can claim free games with those points, not that anybody has actually taken advantage of what's in my StreamElements shop yet) & much like big name gaming companies feel their decisions take priority over their customers when developing their games, I fully suspect that Patreon will continue terminating creator accounts, regardless of the reason for the decision may have originally been made & not looking back on their decisions, even in the case of litigation...

If the account does get reinstated, I will give an update at that point, but otherwise it should be expected that I will no longer be seeking to be doing any form of business through Patreon or anybody else who may be running through them...

UPDATE:

Video response to account termination:

 

Patreon changes incoming...maybe

Shortly after making the following post to my Patreon creator page, I got an email from Patreon linking to this site.  It seems that our grievances have been heard, while I'm not going to hold my breath on it, it's possible that they are going to make changes in the future to stop misdetections & false classifications as has happened in the past.  I still will not be seeking to remove the misclassification of my creator page as previously stated, I will wait to see if they are going to do it themselves & show any relevance as to why I received this email.  Back when I attempted to appeal the decision, I made a suggestion that non-adult content creator pages should allow specific posts to be self-flagged as adult-only so those posts would be restricted & not the entire creator account; we'll see if anything like this happens now that it's become obvious they are aware of the problems with their auto-flagging system.

One other thing to note is I did a whois on the domain for this site that has the video on it, it appears this domain was only registered in February of this year (updated March 20th), it's only now that people are coming forward that they are making it a point to state that what's happening is unacceptable & unfair to those that spend their time creating content & getting shafted by penalties as a result of faulty heuristics that will misclassify their pages & expunge them from any method that would still give them a findable existence on the web.  We'll just have to see if anything happens in the near future to correct this, Patreon has made changes in the past to try to adapt for these shortfalls (some good, some REALLY bad), only time will tell...