from Hacker News

BitChute Suspended By Patreon

by randomname2 on 12/2/18, 5:15 PM with 153 comments

  • by CM30 on 12/2/18, 6:28 PM

    This is a great example of how 'just set up your own platform' may not be the best solution to issues of censorship and what not. Because if you do, then the platforms you need for things like payment processing are also likely to ban your service for much the same reasons as before, and neutral alternatives to them are few and far between.

    Still, I guess this does provide a good use case for cryptocurrencies and what not.

  • by Joeboy on 12/2/18, 6:36 PM

    Would anybody like to fill us in on what BitChute is, in theory and / or in practice?

  • by cookiecaper on 12/2/18, 6:58 PM

    The problem with any platform that bills itself as "uncensorable" is that it will always attract the people that everyone else wants to keep as far away from them as possible. The repulsion people feel for those "deplorables", for lack of a better term, easily and automatically transfers to any platform that appears to tolerate them.

    For this type of platform to succeed it must focus on self-replication rather than too-big-to-fail uncensorability, propagating through a hydra effect that makes it easy to clone and re-spin when major hubs get brought down.

    This is basically what happened with BitTorrent. The trackers and indexes come and go, as whenever one obtains too much prominence the hammer comes down, but the core platform remains and it's reasonably easy for any interested party to pick up the pieces.

    If someone really cared, they'd run the most blase service on top of such technology and actively kick off anyone slightly controversial. As they obtained mainstream acceptance, they'd be able to focus on developing the resiliency and portability of the underlying technology. With some work into ensuring this tech becomes known and depended upon primarily for its association with positive things, associations with undesirables can be written off as an unintended side effect, but the ultimate outcome would still be free publication without requiring the control or approval of any breed of censorious supervisor.

    Not unlike the internet itself, really.

  • by ComputerGuru on 12/2/18, 7:00 PM

    I don't understand why BitChute can't moderate how the site itself appears to the casual viewer without sacrificing Free Speech.

    Free Speech does not mean they have to promote the content that is uploaded, only that they do not censor it. Allow conspiracy theorists and extremists (right or left) to post what they want.. but you don't have to feature all recent uploads on the front page. You actually don't have to feature popular or recent uploads on the front page at all.

  • by motohagiography on 12/2/18, 10:46 PM

    Payment processing is so heavily regulated and dependent on networks, it's hard to make the case that they are a normal businesses. When you have KYC obligations, you have to collect intelligence on your customers and supply it to the government, and that's not something a hotdog stand or a bookstore needs to do. Payment companies are different.

    Patreon may well be within its rights and contracts to sabotage business partners it disagrees with, but the artificial barrier to market entry of a license for processing payments makes their righteous posturing a bit vainglorious.

    I get these people don't do principle, but it's worth considering the broader impact of dispensing with it.

  • by AlwaysBCoding on 12/2/18, 6:39 PM

    This is the interview with Patreon CEO Jack Conte alluded to in the blog post. It's really extraordinary to watch.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofpbDgCj9rw

  • by egypturnash on 12/2/18, 6:43 PM

    What is BitChute and why should I care that it's being suspended by Patreon? If I go to the front page of this site I just see a default Wordpress sidebar; there is one post that shows upon the front page, and it is password protected.

  • by woolvalley on 12/2/18, 10:39 PM

    Even if patreon & friends are ok with it, they still need to avoid businesses that visa & friends do not want on their payment networks or will only allow them for a large cost. And by derivative what major regulators do not want on payment & banking systems or without a lot of onerous paperwork and gotchas.

    The classic example in this is porn, and now it's fringe right wing things.

  • by orf on 12/2/18, 6:39 PM

    As always, seems to be full of right-wing anti-semitism, fake news and outlandish conservative conspiracy theories. Just check the 'popular' tab: "Welcome to "Your" Zionist Occupied Government", "EXPOSED: Jewish Donors Granted "Access To NYPD HQ", "How the Globalists Stole Our Home". All uploaded within the last hour.

    - https://www.bitchute.com/channel/white-genocide/

    - https://www.bitchute.com/channel/zionistreport/

    - https://www.bitchute.com/channel/wayoftheworld/

  • by empath75 on 12/2/18, 6:27 PM

    Free speech means no one is forced to do business with nazis.

  • by ctyptopat08 on 12/4/18, 12:15 PM

  • by KaoruAoiShiho on 12/2/18, 6:27 PM

    This is the best thing that could've happened to them. Otherwise I would've never heard of Bitchute, now they're going to be famous.

  • by signet on 12/2/18, 6:35 PM

    Pretty sure they were banned for taking on a public political stance supporting disinformation peddlers like Alex Jones. Payment processers don't want to be associated with this kind of content for obvious reasons.

  • by bitxbitxbitcoin on 12/2/18, 6:19 PM

    Operation Choke Point still going strong, I see.

  • by beginningguava on 12/2/18, 6:25 PM

    "just build your own platform"

    The good news is that the continued censorship will fuel adoption of crypto and speed up the demise of parasitic middlemen who take a cut off every transaction