Crisis Averted? (Patreon)

Man, this last week or so has been a real rollercoaster ride.

So more information has come to my attention in the last few days regarding Patreon's changes to their guidelines. 

For one, there is a big discussion going on in the US right now about protecting under-age people from adult content. Several states have passed legislation requiring sites like Patreon to have some form of age-verification to protect children from adult content.

The consent discussion is related to this - wanting it to be clear that people participating in such content have clearly given their consent to be a participant.

Master Card, therefore, has put in place new rules requiring that sites, such as Patreon, conform to their rules regarding age-verification or be severely fined.

I am perfectly fine with all of that. I support the concept of protecting children from adult content.

And this seems to be the driving force behind the recent changes. Changes that I happen to agree with.

However, they also updated the wording of various rules related to the age-verification changes. This appeared to me to be changes that were not necessary, and that Patreon did voluntarily - i.e. not just to support the new age-verification system.

This seemed disingenuous to me, and made me feel like they were trying to get rid of adult content and not just protect children from it.

However, I have since had conversations with other artists regarding this matter. Namely SitriAbyss and Karacomet. If you don't know them, then I highly recommend their content:

https://www.patreon.com/Tseudonimm/posts

https://www.patreon.com/SitriAbyss/posts

Karacomet, in particular, has been to Patreon's Discord and asked for clarification regarding the new rules. According to Kara, they are specifically meant to address AI generated images and Deepfakes. More specifically, AI and Deepfake images that portray real people who have not given their consent to the image.

Kara was told that 3D generated comics are not banned under the "new rules", which aren't new at all. They are just clarifications of the existing rules to try to make them more clear.

So it appears that we are safe! :D

However, I am going to be extra careful moving forward as I do not want to violate any of the rules. In fact, I never did want to violate any of Patreon's rules.