Friday 1 December 2023

On cancelling and depriving digital artists livelihoods

An increasing issue is the tendency for financial institutions to apply restrictions to either who may have a bank account for business or political purposes or to impose terms on any organization that may use their services which not about law, financial or otherwise but more about their own values.

Last year it was reported upon that the politician Nigel Farage had his Coutts account closed and only after much investigation did it transpire that behind words around meeting requirements to have one was obvious mentioning of his politics which tend to be rather like marmite.

Groups who feel well intended trans inclusion measure disadvantage or sideline those assigned as females at birth can find certain bodies they may need access to just refuse to do business with them.

You may disagree their views but is it right to deny services on that basis?

In the modern economy many publish fiction and art electronically and they often have payment options so the creators whose works are entirely legal can make a living out of it but it isn't unknown for some payment services to refuse to provide it as they don't "align" with their values.

A more worry tendency than that is to made demands on sites that host such works to remove anything and anyone in whole categories that they *think* may be problematic even if its is legal and therefore can be sold openly in physical printed form.

That happened to a raft of self published titles and creators on Kindle, the Amazon E-book service.

This also can be connected to the likes of Apple inc, setting terms for any apps via its store which caused many issues on Tumblr even when age restrictions are in place several years back and issues on Patreon where many age play or ad/dl artists whose work was legal and had suitable restrictions in place to keep minors out just mass terminating any and all accounts with either no inspection of the persons own content or rights of appeal.

Given for a good number this wasn't some hour a day side project but actually their main income as a job to have no warning and no appeal of in effect being prevented from employment with immediate consequences financially is unjust.

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