Log inTFBTV SUSPENDED FROM PATREON
Hey SubStars! Thanks for switching over and saving my ass. Also, per your suggestions, I will be creating an Utreon account shortly.
Today, Patreon suspended TFBTV from the platform. While it appears to be more of a technical mixup related to Patreon simply not receiving my emails and vice-versa, this is still another example of anti-gun scrutiny that Patreon applies to firearm content creators. My message to our Patreon supporters this morning explains in more detail below:
---Begin Message---
***TFBTV Suspended from Patreon***
Hey everyone,
Today's the big day! Patreon has suspended TFBTV. If you check my last email about this, that's most of the story up until this point.
After sending that email to you Patrons earlier this week, hundreds of you moved to SubStar - thank you for that. Shortly after, Patreon sent me another email about my violating community guidelines. Maybe they noticed that hundreds of you switched to SubStar, maybe it was coincidence, but the gist of the email was this:
1) You aren't allowed to have raffles/giveaways that are not public.
2) "Your About section, Goals, and some posts involve giveaways with elements that are in violation of our guidelines, can you please update these sections?"
3) "Additionally, and as per the example on this post [post where I gave away a Franklin Armory binary trigger which she apparently confused for a gun], I also noticed that your giveaways sometimes involve guns."
My response:
"Hello Morgan!
I did not receive your first email, but I did receive the second email and I will attempt to address your concerns;
First, on my Patreon, I either run contests [contests are not subject to the same rules as raffles] or raffles. While raffles are completely legal in my state of Louisiana if they are under $250, I understand that they still do not meet Patreon's guidelines. Therefore, my raffles are always open to the public. If I have a raffle post that is not public, please let me know and I will either make it public or remove it. To be clear, if I have a raffle or giveaway, it is open to the public and there are no advantages given to Patrons. If there is a raffle post that is closed to Patrons only then this is completely an oversight or accident on my part, as I intend for giveaways to be completely free to enter with every entrant given an even chance.
Second, please let me know where in the "About section, Goals, and some posts" I have violated any guidelines and what I can do to change them. It is not clear from your email what is wrong with those sections. I previously went through this same routine with Abel several years ago and I modified the " About section and Goals" to come into compliance, I have not changed them since, so I assumed they were fine still.
Third, I do not post gun giveaways on Patreon. The post you linked to was for a trigger, not a gun, although that can be perhaps confusing if you are not aware of the difference. Out of an abundance of caution, I deleted the post so as to get back into compliance as soon as possible.
As a side note, although I do not give away guns on Patreon, I could find nowhere in Patreon's guidelines where gun giveaways are expressly forbidden - the only prohibition I saw was against illegal weapons. I am a criminal lawyer and I have actually written a book on the legality of firearms, so I do not nor would not give away illegal firearms, but I could not find at any point in Patreon's guidelines where this is prohibited. All I found was this:
"Illegal activity:
We don’t allow pages that collect money for an illegal purpose, or that encourage others to break the law. Creators may not promote illegal weapons, drug manufacturing techniques or distribution, or property crime."
Please let me know what I need to do specifically to ensure compliance.
Thanks again-"
Apparently, this email was never received by Patreon, because they sent me an email last night that said:
"Since I haven't heard back from you or seen any changes made to your page, I am going to close this ticket. I also applied a temporary suspension to your page so you can complete the required changes in private."
So at this point, it appears to be a mix up that will probably get rectified. But that still doesn't change the fact that Patreon, while facially tolerant of the firearms community, bears an anti-gun bias (for example, referring to them officially as "weapons") and arbitrarily applies rules to gun content creators (e.g., gun content creators can't offer completely legal promo codes or even gift cards to sporting goods stores, while another sport-related channel could). It's a bad look.
Again, I am not telling you to boycott Patreon or leave them altogether. I would just ask that you consider moving your TFBTV support from Patreon.
Thanks for all your help, guys-
James
---End Message---
Today, Patreon suspended TFBTV from the platform. While it appears to be more of a technical mixup related to Patreon simply not receiving my emails and vice-versa, this is still another example of anti-gun scrutiny that Patreon applies to firearm content creators. My message to our Patreon supporters this morning explains in more detail below:
---Begin Message---
***TFBTV Suspended from Patreon***
Hey everyone,
Today's the big day! Patreon has suspended TFBTV. If you check my last email about this, that's most of the story up until this point.
After sending that email to you Patrons earlier this week, hundreds of you moved to SubStar - thank you for that. Shortly after, Patreon sent me another email about my violating community guidelines. Maybe they noticed that hundreds of you switched to SubStar, maybe it was coincidence, but the gist of the email was this:
1) You aren't allowed to have raffles/giveaways that are not public.
2) "Your About section, Goals, and some posts involve giveaways with elements that are in violation of our guidelines, can you please update these sections?"
3) "Additionally, and as per the example on this post [post where I gave away a Franklin Armory binary trigger which she apparently confused for a gun], I also noticed that your giveaways sometimes involve guns."
My response:
"Hello Morgan!
I did not receive your first email, but I did receive the second email and I will attempt to address your concerns;
First, on my Patreon, I either run contests [contests are not subject to the same rules as raffles] or raffles. While raffles are completely legal in my state of Louisiana if they are under $250, I understand that they still do not meet Patreon's guidelines. Therefore, my raffles are always open to the public. If I have a raffle post that is not public, please let me know and I will either make it public or remove it. To be clear, if I have a raffle or giveaway, it is open to the public and there are no advantages given to Patrons. If there is a raffle post that is closed to Patrons only then this is completely an oversight or accident on my part, as I intend for giveaways to be completely free to enter with every entrant given an even chance.
Second, please let me know where in the "About section, Goals, and some posts" I have violated any guidelines and what I can do to change them. It is not clear from your email what is wrong with those sections. I previously went through this same routine with Abel several years ago and I modified the " About section and Goals" to come into compliance, I have not changed them since, so I assumed they were fine still.
Third, I do not post gun giveaways on Patreon. The post you linked to was for a trigger, not a gun, although that can be perhaps confusing if you are not aware of the difference. Out of an abundance of caution, I deleted the post so as to get back into compliance as soon as possible.
As a side note, although I do not give away guns on Patreon, I could find nowhere in Patreon's guidelines where gun giveaways are expressly forbidden - the only prohibition I saw was against illegal weapons. I am a criminal lawyer and I have actually written a book on the legality of firearms, so I do not nor would not give away illegal firearms, but I could not find at any point in Patreon's guidelines where this is prohibited. All I found was this:
"Illegal activity:
We don’t allow pages that collect money for an illegal purpose, or that encourage others to break the law. Creators may not promote illegal weapons, drug manufacturing techniques or distribution, or property crime."
Please let me know what I need to do specifically to ensure compliance.
Thanks again-"
Apparently, this email was never received by Patreon, because they sent me an email last night that said:
"Since I haven't heard back from you or seen any changes made to your page, I am going to close this ticket. I also applied a temporary suspension to your page so you can complete the required changes in private."
So at this point, it appears to be a mix up that will probably get rectified. But that still doesn't change the fact that Patreon, while facially tolerant of the firearms community, bears an anti-gun bias (for example, referring to them officially as "weapons") and arbitrarily applies rules to gun content creators (e.g., gun content creators can't offer completely legal promo codes or even gift cards to sporting goods stores, while another sport-related channel could). It's a bad look.
Again, I am not telling you to boycott Patreon or leave them altogether. I would just ask that you consider moving your TFBTV support from Patreon.
Thanks for all your help, guys-
James
---End Message---
I made the switch, sorry James still not that kind you handsome SOB
Just made the switch and canceled all my Patreons
Move complete hitter…
New subscriber here. Fuck those ass hats. They allow Antifa to run fundraisers and we all know where THAT money's going. Well, except for the fake communists there spending it on hookers and blow. I held off supporting TFBTV for too long. Sorry about that.
Fuckers.