Kickstarter Apologizes: 'We Were Wrong' to Fund Rapey Project

Kickstarter just published a thoughtful, effective apology for allowing a slimy pick-up artist to use the site to solicit funds for a “seduction guide” that reads like a how-to for sexually harassing and assaulting women. Here’s the company’s explanation — entitled “We were wrong” — which includes a vow to ban “seduction manuals” forevermore.

In the apology (pasted in full below), Kickstarter says it didn’t cancel the project immediately because of a heavy bias towards creators that “made us miss the forest for the trees” and limited time to make the unprecedented decision. Kickstarter can’t defund the project after the fact, but it’s officially removing “seduction guides” and all similar material effective immediately, since it “encourages misogynistic behavior and is inconsistent with our mission of funding creative works.” Kickstarter is also donating $25,000 to RAINN.

“We take our role as Kickstarter’s stewards very seriously,” the company wrote in a blog post. “Kickstarter is one of the friendliest, most supportive places on the web and we’re committed to keeping it that way. We’re sorry for getting this so wrong.”

Dear everybody,

On Wednesday morning Kickstarter was sent a blog post quoting disturbing material found on Reddit. The offensive material was part of a draft for a “seduction guide” that someone was using Kickstarter to publish. The posts offended a lot of people — us included — and many asked us to cancel the creator’s project. We didn’t.

We were wrong.

Why didn’t we cancel the project when this material was brought to our attention? Two things influenced our decision:

The decision had to be made immediately. We had only two hours from when we found out about the material to when the project was ending. We’ve never acted to remove a project that quickly.

Our processes, and everyday thinking, bias heavily toward creators. This is deeply ingrained. We feel a duty to our community — and our creators especially — to approach these investigations methodically as there is no margin for error in canceling a project. This thinking made us miss the forest for the trees.

These factors don’t excuse our decision but we hope they add clarity to how we arrived at it.

Let us be 100% clear: Content promoting or glorifying violence against women or anyone else has always been prohibited from Kickstarter. If a project page contains hateful or abusive material we don’t approve it in the first place. If we had seen this material when the project was submitted to Kickstarter (we didn’t), it never would have been approved. Kickstarter is committed to a culture of respect.

Where does this leave us?

First, there is no taking back money from the project or canceling funding after the fact. When the project was funded the backers’ money went directly from them to the creator. We missed the window.

Second, the project page has been removed from Kickstarter. The project has no place on our site. For transparency’s sake, a record of the page is cached here.

Third, we are prohibiting “seduction guides,” or anything similar, effective immediately. This material encourages misogynistic behavior and is inconsistent with our mission of funding creative works. These things do not belong on Kickstarter.

Fourth, today Kickstarter will donate $25,000 to an anti-sexual violence organization called RAINN. It’s an excellent organization that combats exactly the sort of problems our inaction may have encouraged.

We take our role as Kickstarter’s stewards very seriously. Kickstarter is one of the friendliest, most supportive places on the web and we’re committed to keeping it that way. We’re sorry for getting this so wrong.