2021 Q3 creator policy update

Update: Informed by the input of hundreds of creators, Patreon’s quarterly guidelines updates are now finalized and live. Further down in this post, you’ll find some of the team’s takeaways from creator feedback.

Update on Creator Policy Engagement at Patreon

In April 2021, Patreon launched our new Creator Policy Engagement Program (“CPEP”) to help involve creators in shaping the Community Guidelines and policies that affect them. Through CPEP, our Policy Team aims to propose policy updates on a quarterly basis and solicit creator feedback before those policies are finalized. We also host live Q&As to hear directly what’s on creators’ minds.

Members of Patreon’s Policy Team hosted a live Q&A with Patreon creators in April.

Since the spring, hundreds of creators have gotten involved in CPEP, allowing us to incorporate your thoughts on policies to keep teen creators safe, support creators who have emerged from the criminal justice system, and more.

The next round of CPEP is upon us, and we are excited for your input in the coming days on this quarter’s proposed policy updates, including: 

Financial Advice

As the finance community grows on Patreon, we’re exploring updates to our guidelines to help us comply with consumer protection laws in certain regions that require financial advisors be certified, and to encourage patrons to check with financial advisors before acting on financial advice content they encounter on the platform.

Chargebacks

Chargebacks are initiated when individuals, or in Patreon’s case patrons, reach out to their financial institution to dispute a transaction. Sometimes, chargebacks can facilitate fraudulent activity, which harms creators and Patreon alike. Our proposed update would state that patrons who file excessive or fraudulent chargebacks may be suspended from supporting new creators, or from accessing Patreon altogether. 

We plan to incorporate your input into policy updates which will be finalized and announced later this month. Here are several ways to share your thoughts through CPEP:

• Join the Policy Team on Tuesday, August 3 for another live Q&A. (Thanks to creator feedback shared at the April Q&A, we’ve moved to a more inclusive events platform that accommodates live captioning.)
• Email the team at CreatorPolicy@Patreon.com.
  
  
• Sign up for office hours with our Head of Creator Policy Engagement.
  
  
• Stop by our designated #policy-live-q3-2021 Discord channel in the 24 hours following the live Q&A. 

How creator feedback informed our policy

Opportunity for additional education on chargebacks
Creators on the whole supported both policy proposals, which focused on financial advice and chargebacks. The latter update is designed to protect creators against fraudulent and excessive chargebacks, and some creators asked for more information around what chargebacks are. As a result, we included a link in our guidelines update to a full blog post on what happens when a patron files a chargeback, what Patreon does to respond on your behalf, and how you can help us limit them.

Focused adult content policy programming 
In each of the first two rounds of the Creator Policy Engagement Program, creators expressed the desire to better understand the nuances around Patreon’s adult content guidelines, as well as external factors considered in policy development. To continue educating our community on this subject, we're planning to devote our next policy live event to addressing Patreon’s adult content creators specifically. We look forward to connecting with this community on September 23rd.

Thank you for your continued candor and engagement in shaping Patreon policy. If you have additional questions or comments, you can always reach our Policy Team at CreatorPolicy@Patreon.com, or sign up for policy office hours with our Head of Creator Policy Engagement. We’re excited to continue this collaborative policymaking in the months and years to come.