Kickstarter Takes Down Super Creepy Seduction Guide, Donates $25,000 to Anti-Violence Fund
After a slew of online outrage, Kickstarter has finally come to its senses and deleted the offensive/dangerous sexual assault guide that was oddly disguised as a "seduction manual." Created by a Reddiotor by the name of Ken Hoinsky, the campaign was raising money for a book called Above the Game that advised men to ignore the concept of consent when interacting with women by giving rapey advice like: "Don’t ask for permission. Be dominant. Force her to rebuff your advances." In a blog post, Kickstarter apologizes for taking too long to cancel the project and made a promise to never let this happen again.
"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." Read the explaination on their blog post.
Although the influx of cash that was initially donated to the project has already been handed to the creator and can't be taken back (hmph!), Kickstarter has decided to donate $25,000 to RAINN, an organization that campaigns against sexual violence.
Kickstarter is also taking a serious pledge to never let projects that encourage violence against women (or anyone else) get funding or advertisement on their site. They are also going to think twice before they allow another "seduction guide" to crowdfund its way to book shelves near you.
"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," they said.
The organization also maintains its comitment to creating safe spaces online for everybody, including women.
"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."
If your support this decision, tweet it out!
Sample tweet: @Kickstarter Thanks for taking down campaigns that glamorize violence against women. Glad to know ur building safe online spaces for women.
Do you accept Kickstarter's apology? Let me know on Twitter: @feministabulous
