A thread about Patreon and QAnon: Despite releasing a statement promising to tackle the problem of creators using Patreon to monetise disinformation, the subscription website is still allowing QAnon conspiracy theories to spread on its platform.
Since the announcement, Patreon purged some Q creators; but not all of them. We identified more than 15 active creators monetising QAnon content on Patreon and took a deep dive into two accounts run by well-known Q influencers. We have also alerted Patreon to these accounts.
The first account is Redpill78. Patreon has had ample opportunities to remove this account, which was flagged in an October 2020 investigation by Media Matters. mediamatters.org/qanon-conspira…
Later, following the storming of the Capitol building by Trump supporters and QAnon adherents, RedPill78 was again flagged in another investigation by Rolling Stone. rollingstone.com/culture/cultur…
RedPill78 live-streamed the insurrection from the ground on both Twitch and Dlive and shared the links (now deleted) on his Patreon account. Despite this, he is still active on the membership platform, earning around $22,000 a year from QAnon content.
RedPill78 promotes his podcast and live-stream videos on Patreon, redirecting subscribers to channels like Gab and BitChute. The post descriptions make it abundantly clear that the linked content is disinformation. He currently has 250,000 followers on Gab and 40,000 on BitChute.
The second account is Dark to Light, a 90-minute live-streaming show hosted by Laura Eisenhower, a noted QAnon propagator and COVID-19 denier and David Nino Rodriguez. The hosts claim to expose the truth by uncovering the "current process of the Great Awakening."
They frequently interview fellow big QAnon names like Michael Jaco and Juan O’ Savin on Patreon. In the Savin episode, they push disinformation narratives from voter fraud theories to the alleged threat of a mass military takeover and the supposed risks of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Besides offering exclusive content to its Patreon subscribers, the hosts also provide access to a private Telegram group. Logically gained access to the group and found a hotbed of misinformation, including scepticism around the COVID-19 vaccines & apparent Cabal arrests.
Unlike open-source platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, Patreon's monetary feature adds a challenging layer of complexity in fighting disinformation, allowing QAnon creators to hide extremist content behind a paywall.
Allowing such creators to monetise violent and conspiratorial content reduces transparency: meaning that investigative journalists struggle to monitor such content without contributing financially to the same content they are fighting.
Since its launch in 2013, Patreon has paid over 2 billion dollars to creators and relied on earning a commission – a cut between 5% and 12% of the creator's income.
When it comes to content moderation, the tech platform promises to look at the creator's work on and off Patreon. But since several Q proponents are actively spreading disinformation through Patreon, we must question the seriousness with which this principle is being enforced.
For more of our investigative work, click here: logically.ai/articles/tag/i…
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