Back in 2019 we covered the censorship that was hurting the sex toy industry. One of the offenders was Kickstarter, which later changed its ways and became more welcoming.
But it seems like the company has regressed. “Sexual pleasure” is now a banned concept for rewards, though Kickstarter says pleasure might be fine as long as the product is not designed for “insertion or penetration.” I want to know what’s going on over at Kickstarter HQ but I fear nobody is having fun.
[Link: Kickstarter’s new rules | https://www.kickstarter.com/rules | Kickstarter]
It sounds like it’s just insertable toys, so it might be a liability thing if they’re afraid people are selling unsafe toys? Who knows. That’s a really weird distinction and definitely one that payment processors don’t make.
Does Kickstarter have liability in general for Kickstarted projects? I’d kind of assume that that’s on the specific project. I can’t imagine that Kickstarter is in any kind of position to really do a domain-specific evaluation of whether a given project is in line with local regulations.
IIRC, no, they don’t. They put the onus of proving the project is legit on the project maker and on the backers to be vigilant not falling for too good to be true projects.
Over the years kickstarter has become just another big marketing platform for big brands (for their niche) and pushing out smaller projects.
As a former serial backer, over the years I “only” have backed 40 or so (I don’t remember the exact number and don’t want to check now) and only 2 that failed to deliver. One, in hindsight, is blatantly a scam and kickstarter didn’t do anything about it. The other one that didn’t deliver is just mismanagement. At least it looked like it. Could still be a scam.
It sounds like it’s just insertable toys, so it might be a liability thing if they’re afraid people are selling unsafe toys? Who knows. That’s a really weird distinction and definitely one that payment processors don’t make.
Yes liability. That makes sense.
Nope, Monster Girl Academy got the axe too.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krazykrow/monster-girl-academy-3-succubi-oni-centaurs-and-more
Another article confirmed it was payment processors again. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Does Kickstarter have liability in general for Kickstarted projects? I’d kind of assume that that’s on the specific project. I can’t imagine that Kickstarter is in any kind of position to really do a domain-specific evaluation of whether a given project is in line with local regulations.
IIRC, no, they don’t. They put the onus of proving the project is legit on the project maker and on the backers to be vigilant not falling for too good to be true projects.
Over the years kickstarter has become just another big marketing platform for big brands (for their niche) and pushing out smaller projects.
As a former serial backer, over the years I “only” have backed 40 or so (I don’t remember the exact number and don’t want to check now) and only 2 that failed to deliver. One, in hindsight, is blatantly a scam and kickstarter didn’t do anything about it. The other one that didn’t deliver is just mismanagement. At least it looked like it. Could still be a scam.
I really have no idea, and this would probably be jurisdiction dependent anyway.
They do allow things like food, which it seems would come with more liability anyway, if they can be held liable for kickstarted things.
Why would Kickstarter be liable for someone else project.
That’s like trying to sue UberEats for delivering food that gave you food poisoning.
You can’t really legalese yourself out of being liable if it can be shown you knew of an issue and did nothing to prevent it.
Now apply that to politics.