🐱 Alt-right “comedian” asked his fans to sue Patreon. It backfired

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/patreon-suing-owen-benjamin-fans/

Owen Benjamin has managed to get 72 of his fans sued by Patreon.



Last October, Patreon banned Benjamin, an alt-right commentator and self-styled “comedian”, for violating its policies against hate speech.


The alt-right is a loose collection of conservatives that harbor white supremacists.
Patreon’s ban came in the midst of a flurry of other platforms kicking him off as well.
Benjamin has been banned by YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, for anti-Semitic and other hate speech. Earlier this year, the Daily Dot reported that he had tried to sneak back onto YouTube and Twitter, got caught, and summarily booted again.
According to court documents, Benjamin subsequently filed a $2.2 million claim against Patreon for banning him. He later upped his demand to $3.5 million.


He also got 100 of his fans, also known as “bears,” to file separate, identical claims against Patreon for kicking him off the platform.
Court records state that Benjamin used the multitude of individual claims, all of which were filed by his lawyers, as leverage to attempt to convince Patreon to settle. It refused.
Now Patreon is suing 72 of his fans.
“This lawsuit is about keeping hate speech off of Patreon,” the company told the Daily Dot via email. “We won’t allow former users to extort Patreon, and are moving these frivolous claims to court where they belong.”


Unlike the prior claims, the suit against Benjamin’s fans is filed in California state court.
Patreon’s previous terms of service required claims to be submitted to arbitration, like Benjamin’s $3.5 million cause of action. An update to its terms of service that went into effect on Jan. 1 both prohibits users from filing claims based on the platform kicking off someone else and requires any who do so to pay the company’s attorney’s fees and costs, court documents state.
Benjamin’s fans’ claims against Patreon were filed on Jan. 6, according to court documents.
Thus, if Patreon wins the suit, Benjamin’s fans could be on the hook for a significant sum, which may negatively impact their ability to chip in for the $1.5 million ranch in northern Idaho that he’s lately been begging for cash to buy for himself.


Owen’s lawyers are not representing his fans in the California lawsuit. They are now represented by Marc Randazza.
Randazza told the Daily Dot that Patreon changed its terms of service after being notified by the 100 people that they intended to file a claim in arbitration, as required under its previous terms of service.
He characterizes the case as being about “access to justice” and the “erosion of class action rights.”
“What this case is really about is how every one of us is getting fucked daily by these companies that shove arbitration clauses into their mandatory contracts.


“That’s why I’m thrilled to be involved. … Otherwise how in the fuck are any of us supposed to stand up to billion-dollar companies?”

 

[CaesarCzech]

It hasn't backfired. Holy shit these retards went Allah Ackbar and the explosion actually scored a direct hit. The arbitration judge has refused to dismiss all thr actions and under california law Patreon must pay for all the arbitration hearings. Something they would not have to do if they had allowed in their contract to use the courts. hoisted by their own underwear, straight up the flag pole.

See Whites ARE superior. We even do the Allahu Ackbar better than Muslims.


More seriously this got to hurt this is the equivalent of Austrian archduke being killed by pigeon who took shit on him.

 

[Kulee Baba]

This is going to be great for all the people who enjoy rise and the usual proceeding falls of demagogues. Owen Benjamin, like the late Charlie Manson is a talented guy. I mean not a headlining act talented but without a doubt a totally competent middle act performer. Because he now has a cult that just thinks every crazy thought in his head is the word of god he is going to be one amazingly arrogant motherfucker who doesn't need to take his meds.

Hopefully they'll livestream when the FBI raid the Bear Compound.

 

[AnnLurker]

So which A&N regulars got nailed because of this?

You think any one here has cash to afford a frivolous lawsuit to start with? Ain't like we got Daddy Thiel backing us up like you, Dawg.

 

[Getting tard comed]

What it sounds like is that Patreon will have to front $10k for the claimant's legal fees. Each claimant. So if 300 people brought suit, Patreon is on the hook for $3m in legal fees, not even including their own.

To put it another way, Pateron will have to finance arbitration lawsuits against themselves.

It's even worse. Seeing as they most likely will lose the suit when the judge actually writes his judgement on this injunction Patereon sued for which he tentatively denied Patreon will have to pay the legal fees for the 72 people they sued. What this means though is that the arbitration that has already been going on, the arbitration Patreon has most likely been losing(why else sue for an injunction to stop it) continues and Patreon has to pay for all of it -$250. Lawyers in Cali doing this charge anywhere from $400 - $1000 per hour. That doesn't include filing fees or service fees or the 12% tax on everything that applies when using the arbitration service they mandate you use.

On top of that since Patreon decided to file 1 lawsuit against 72 people they just breached their own contract again and have opened themselves up to another round of arbitration attacks for breach of contract. And since they decided to draw attention to themselves by getting that hit piece written in the daily dot people un related to Owen have now been made aware of this avenue to hit back with.

In other words it doesn't matter if Owen and his bears "win" the arbitration. Patreon has already lost and probably isnt around this time next year.

 

[WinchesterPremium]

Apparently God favors children, fools, drunks, and fools drunk on kerosene.

I saw a recap. Not only did that retard score a direct hit - but he scored a direct hit against any technocrat based in Silicon Valley. If 2000 people sue Apple for banning someone off of iTunes, Apple has to pay their legal fees for arbitration. Additionally Apple has to hold in escrow the portion of the suit for arbitration. Apple and Google can easily afford it. Patreon, Paypal, and Twitter can't.

I have no doubt this law will be annulled or removed ASAP. It's a major kink in the armor of the technocracy. Death by a thousand fans.
Use it while you can.

No it didn't lol. Basically what happened here was Patreon shooting themselves in the foot by requiring aberration in their TOS. Aberration is a way to solve things outside of courts, so basically they said "if you want to deal with this we'll deal with it outside of the court". Its a settlement rather than a lawsuit.

If you try to sue normally and use the court instead, you have to pay your own legal fees unless you win. If you sue Apple, they could go for a lawsuit instead and bypass the problem entirely. If the lawsuit was frivolous they'd even make you pay for your opponent's legal fees.

 

[Getting tard comed]

Apparently God favors children, fools, drunks, and fools drunk on kerosene.

I saw a recap. Not only did that retard score a direct hit - but he scored a direct hit against any technocrat based in Silicon Valley. If 2000 people sue Apple for banning someone off of iTunes, Apple has to pay their legal fees for arbitration. Additionally Apple has to hold in escrow the portion of the suit for arbitration. Apple and Google can easily afford it. Patreon, Paypal, and Twitter can't.

I have no doubt this law will be annulled or removed ASAP. It's a major kink in the armor of the technocracy. Death by a thousand fans.
Use it while you can.

The law isn't going to change anytime soon. California is called commiefornia for a reason. They aren't exactly business friendly and the reason Patreon sued for an injunction on the arbitration was due to a law signed a few months ago that mandates arbitration fees be paid within x amount of time by the company upfront otherwise they are in default and essentially lose. Remember these companies chose individual arbitrations because they did not want to get hit by large class lawsuits like the tobacco industry and the fast food industry got hit with. I doubt they choose to go back to that.

No it didn't lol. Basically what happened here was Patreon shooting themselves in the foot by requiring aberration in their TOS. Aberration is a way to solve things outside of courts, so basically they said "if you want to deal with this we'll deal with it outside of the court". Its a settlement rather than a lawsuit.

If you try to sue normally and use the court instead, you have to pay your own legal fees unless you win. If you sue Apple, they could go for a lawsuit instead and bypass the problem entirely. If the lawsuit was frivolous they'd even make you pay for your opponent's legal fees.

Arbitration* is an extra court option to have a lawyer or judge attempt to mediate a situation. The arbiter gets paid for doing this service. Since Patreon has mandated the use of the JAMS arbitration system there are also fees involved that may not be there if you hired a small lawyer to do it. Consumer protection laws in California mandate the company, in situations similar to this, have to pay all arbitration fees after the consumer/customer pays an initial $250 fee. So yes. Patreon does have to pay "legal" fees.

 

[Orange Rhymer]

No it didn't lol. Basically what happened here was Patreon shooting themselves in the foot by requiring aberration in their TOS. Aberration is a way to solve things outside of courts, so basically they said "if you want to deal with this we'll deal with it outside of the court". Its a settlement rather than a lawsuit.

If you try to sue normally and use the court instead, you have to pay your own legal fees unless you win. If you sue Apple, they could go for a lawsuit instead and bypass the problem entirely. If the lawsuit was frivolous they'd even make you pay for your opponent's legal fees.

I believe they changed the TOS after 'The Bears' started their accounts, and modified the TOS when Patreon started suing to prevent court/arbitration costs. The judge called them on it: parphrase
"...You changed the rules mid-game..."
Which means the legal community is finally noticing the TOS changes every 30 days to these companies.

 

[Glad I couldn't help]

I thought this was about Sargon.

What's Sargon's name? Carl Otis Winslow?

The Soyfather of Applebee's is Carl Benjamin. Made the same mistake myself, seeing they have the same last name and are poli-cows.

Well, let's see:
-Moon landing denier
-Believes that the trans rights movement is part of a eugenics conspiracy run by Bill Gates to lower the world population?!?! (I know how people here feel about transpeople, but c'mon. That's just flat out looney-toons.)
-He also seems to believe that HIV is a hoax.
-Is a creationist who doesn't believe that dinosaurs ever existed.
-It also looks like he falls in with the Holocaust denier crowd.

So I think someone's been drinking turpentine. (I just wish Steve Byrne would stop defending the guy, even if it's just kind of half-assed)

Owen: *see a history book*

Hey it's a choose-your-own-adventure book, where you choose which events happened or not. I love those!

 

[DrunkJoe]

So I just caught up on this and seiously the bat shit crazy Owens and his fans are taking the first big blow to big tech in Silicon Valley? Fucking clown world continues. So are the other people's fans kicked off pre 2020 gonna finish off patreon now?

 

[KingCoelacanth]

So I just caught up on this and seiously the bat shit crazy Owens and his fans are taking the first big blow to big tech in Silicon Valley? Fucking clown world continues. So are the other people's fans kicked off pre 2020 gonna finish off patreon now?

This isn't the first blow, I think there was a lawsuit against twitter some years ago that played off a previous Californian ruling that privately owned public spaces (like malls) can't arbitrarily inhibit free speech of people in those public places.
There's a thread here about how patreon changed it rules so that it essentially owns the works made by people who use its platform. It also shows that patreon goes through the works and social media of its users and forces them to delete anything patreon doesn't like in order to keep using the platform.
These kind of practices may get them in hot water with Californian courts.

 

[I can't imagine]

I believe they changed the TOS after 'The Bears' started their accounts, and modified the TOS when Patreon started suing to prevent court/arbitration costs. The judge called them on it: parphrase
"...You changed the rules mid-game..."
Which means the legal community is finally noticing the TOS changes every 30 days to these companies.

Even beyond that, it's questionable if their change to the TOS would even be enforceable. Generally speaking, you can't have a contract of adhesion (a "take it or leave it" contract) where one of the conditions is "you can't sue us for not performing the service required by the contract", since it would be considered unconscionable. In other words, it's a clause in the contract that no reasonable person would ever agree to if they weren't forced to do so in order to receive the service.

Realistically, the only thing they can avoid this in the future (assuming the judge's decision stands) is to eliminate the arbitration clause entirely, which is very much something they would rather avoid.

 

[Titos]

Owen failed to get a thread on here multiple times because of how chronically and uninteresting he is despite his total spergery.
He runs his fanbase like an insane cult, he burned his kids books in front of his kids in a nazi style bonfire for having dinosaurs before encouraging them to the same and told them to drink turpentine to rid then of "toxins" that cause homosexuality.

He makes it so he seems like he's only in it to help them and be their friend, but he has wielded them as an autistic personal army on many occasions like when Nick Fuentes didn't fully agree with him or when Porsalin made his documentary.
Just a malicious human being.

>Drinking turpentine
Dude watched The Lighthouse and thought "monkey pump" was some kind of endorsement?

 

[Haramburger]

Lefty payment services have to open their coffers:
(archive: http://archive.is/t98ck)

Update: Patreon lost. The judge applied well-established law and denied Patreon's motion / sided against them in their lawsuit against Owen Benjamin fans. Patreon will now be forced to arbitrate 100+ claims, and pay up front fees of up to $10,000 per arbitration.

You can read the court order in the Patreon case, ruling against Patreon, here. https://t.co/y0fGXbFMLY?amp=1

To say that Patreon faces an existential threat to its business, given the cost they face, would be an understatement. Here's why: https://www.cernovich.com/patreon-mandatory-arbitration/

Sargon of Akkad could end Patreon if he had his followers file actions similar to the one Owen Benjamin's fans did. That's it. That would be the end of Patreon.

 

[Buttigieg2020]

So Owen Benjamin just accidentally fucked Patreon using California Law?

Now that’s a 2020 moment

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

Looks like something just backfired.

https://kiwifarms.net/threads/patre...nder-california-law.66175/page-2#post-7020593

https://kiwifarms.st/attachments/29-07-2020-denial-of-preliminary-injunction-pdf.1484115/

 

[Big Brown Schlub]

As much of a lolcow he and his fanbase are, I can't help but respect the bitchslap Owen "Guys, Nukes Aren't Real!" Benjamin and the (totally not gay) bears gave to Patreon.

 

[Fluoxetine Man]

WTF, I love Owen Benjamin now!

 

[Ahriman]

Apparently God favors children, fools, drunks, and fools drunk on kerosene.

I saw a recap. Not only did that retard score a direct hit - but he scored a direct hit against any technocrat based in Silicon Valley. If 2000 people sue Apple for banning someone off of iTunes, Apple has to pay their legal fees for arbitration. Additionally Apple has to hold in escrow the portion of the suit for arbitration. Apple and Google can easily afford it. Patreon, Paypal, and Twitter can't.

I have no doubt this law will be annulled or removed ASAP. It's a major kink in the armor of the technocracy. Death by a thousand fans.
Use it while you can.

Well it would be a real, real shame if, uh... Donald Trump Jr's followers on Twitter were to sue Twitter in unison, now that he has been banned for some silly arbitrary reason.

I mean, we really wouldn't want that to happen, don't we?

It'd be a terrible, terrible thing! I hope no one reads this, or get some incendiary hashtag like #SueTwitter trending! oh gawd, it'd have tremendous, tremendous implications!

 

[Focken Kiwi]

As much of a lolcow he and his fanbase are, I can't help but respect the bitchslap Owen "Guys, Nukes Aren't Real!" Benjamin and the (totally not gay) bears gave to Patreon.

I don't care who's doing it. I want to see Patreon get its ass rammed in.

 

[Ahriman]

Beanie Man weighs in