Our first 2023 policy update

Our Policy team is back to share what we’ve been working on in the first few months of the year. These updates are part of our Creator Policy Engagement Program (CPEP), which we built two years ago to inform and involve creators in our policymaking.

We have three developments to share with you this quarter:

Proposed policy update

Non-consensual intimate imagery, often referred to as “revenge porn,” is illegal in many parts of the world, and there is no place for it on Patreon. Our Trust & Safety team is extremely diligent in enforcing our current Community Guidelines to combat this sort of content.

This quarter, we’re proposing additional details to give creators more clarity around what constitutes non-consensual intimate imagery. For example, this may include intimate or sexual depictions of real people shared without consent, content depicting non-consensual intimate or sexual encounters, and so forth.

At the same time, we want to empower creators whose work includes survival stories, educational resources, and/or advocacy. The proposed policy would clarify that these examples are permitted on the platform. If you have any questions about this topic, language you’d like us to clarify, or other types of content we should carve out exceptions for, we’d love to hear from you.

An update on Patreon’s efforts to keep teen creators safe

We are committed to keeping Patreon safe for everyone, including teens on the platform. Users under the age of 13 are not permitted on Patreon, and those between the ages of 13 and 17 may have accounts with the permission of a parent or guardian. Our team regularly reviews the measures we have in place to ensure the protection of our teen users.

Here are a few recent updates on our efforts:

• We joined the Tech Coalition, a global alliance of organizations committed to a safer internet for kids.
• We responded to the UK communications regulator’s call for evidence about promoting minor safety online.

On March 28, our Trust & Safety team leader on minor safety will join our Policy team to co-host a live stream discussing these efforts. We are proud of our guidelines, tools, resources, partnerships, and advocacy that promote online safety for teens, and will continue to share these developments in the future.

Addressing artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence, or AI, has taken the world by storm. Patreon’s Policy team recognizes both the potential and challenges of these developments and wants to be thoughtful about crafting related policies that are not anti-technology, but are creator first.

We’re excited to talk to creators in the coming weeks and months to better understand the range of views on this topic within our creator community. We’re focused on transparency, privacy, accountability, and ethics as we seek to establish a creator-first policy that addresses your concerns without impeding creative uses of the technology. We’ll continue to update you, so keep an eye out for future CPEP updates.

Join the conversation:

Live stream: Join us for our policy live stream on Tuesday, March 28 (11AM PT // 2PM ET // 7PM BST). When you RSVP, you can also submit any questions you’d like the team to address. And if you’re unable to join us live, we’ll share a recording following the event. (The live stream will take place in English.)

Discord: We’ll keep the policy conversation going in a dedicated Discord Q&A channel on Patreon's Creator Community Discord server for one week following our live broadcast. Check out #policy-live-qa to join in.

Email: You can always email your input and questions to the team at [email protected].