Kickstarter’s ban of NSFW material is already coming to an end. Just days after the market-leading crowdfunding platform started taking projects including NSFW material off the site, a new release confirms the company is reversing course.
According to a new blog post from Kickstarter COO Sean Leow, the site will no longer be policing the content of campaigns on behalf of its payment processor Stripe.
“The updates to the rules were primarily driven by requirements from our payments processor, Stripe. Stripe operates under its own legal and compliance requirements separate from Kickstarter’s own rules,” Leow wrote. “And even Stripe’s rules are dictated by a larger system shaped by financial institutions that govern how money moves globally. Under this system, many platforms – including other crowdfunding and creator monetization platforms – struggle with how to create space for mature content while getting the creators of that work paid without friction.”
Now, Kickstarter only expressly prohibits “pornography and illegal content.” Under the new rules it previously introduced, NSFW projects were hit heavily by rules that included the banning of artwork featuring implied nudity, lingerie, and other “spicy” content popular with an ever-growing cadre of creators on the platform.
Ultimately, the scenario itself seems to be one where there’s one party that walks away without a win. You have the NSFW creators themselves, which are increasingly popping up at a fervent rate, oftentimes out-earning most safe-for-work projects on the platform.
Prior to the change in policy, Discordia Publishing, an indie publisher who successfully funded the adult Cherry Pop Tart 40th Anniversary collection on Kickstarter, told the Beat that they were actually in favor of toning things down.
“For one thing it’s not a ban. It’s a toning down of explicit imagery and language. Which frankly, was badly needed. Especially in the Banner Images typically seen on the platform,” Publishers Gavriel Discordia and Starr Mignon wrote. “Creators simply need to have more tact with their images and innuendo in their project script. It’s just ‘Spicy’. It’s not ‘HARDCORE KINKY EROTIC ADULT SMUT!’”
They noted that Zoop’s new adult portal, Dooz is set up to run spicier content. “We will also be utilizing Dooz for some of our own book launches, but not for any reason having to do with Kickstarter or Stripe. The Zoop/Dooz platform also provides warehouse and fulfillment services, which Kickstarter doesnt mess with, and we want to let Zoop/Dooz handle some of our more overwhelming tomes.”
Discordia noted that their “spicy campaigns” had run without problem even after the Kickstarter ban, “and we didn’t have to make any changes to our projects, because we already tone it down. And always have, compared to some of the up and coming creators who use extreme imagery to get attention. Hey, you guys! You were never getting a Project We Love boost, or any email blasts, with that dirty banner image anyway! We love Kickstarter and wont stop working with them EVER! In fact Discordia Publishing will be doubling up releases from our volume of book drops in past years.”
Leow’s full note to Kickstarter creators and backers can be seen below.
Last week, we released a set of updates to our rules around mature content. It was our first time publishing a set of detailed, specific guidelines for adult-oriented content on Kickstarter. And honestly? We botched it. The rules didn’t land the way we intended, and the response from our community let us know loud and clear that we got it wrong.
Our goal with these updates was to give creators more clarity upfront so they could make informed decisions about their projects before launch. The actual impact was the opposite for some. More confusion, more uncertainty, and real fear that a platform that you have counted on to provide space for your creative expression was turning its back on you.
You deserve better. So, we’re going back to the drawing board, and yes, that means we’re going back to our previous rules.
First, we owe you a clearer explanation of what happened.
Why we created the new mature content policy
The updates to the rules were primarily driven by requirements from our payments processor, Stripe. Stripe operates under its own legal and compliance requirements separate from Kickstarter’s own rules. And even Stripe’s rules are dictated by a larger system shaped by financial institutions that govern how money moves globally. Under this system, many platforms – including other crowdfunding and creator monetization platforms – struggle with how to create space for mature content while getting the creators of that work paid without friction.
And that’s what we were running up against. Over the past several months, we’ve seen a growing number of campaigns that had already been approved by Kickstarter get suspended by Stripe mid-funding. When that happens, it’s devastating. A creator’s project can be frozen with funds in limbo, sometimes weeks into a campaign they’ve spent months, or even years, building.
Whenever that happened, we advocated for those creators directly with Stripe, and in some cases, we were able to get mid-campaign enforcement reversed so creators could finish their campaigns. We fought those battles because we believe in the work and because creators deserve to see their campaigns through.
We recognized, though, that enforcement against Kickstarter-approved campaigns would continue, and that meant there could be more cases where our advocacy for creators wouldn’t result in the reversal of a suspension.
Faced with the realization that creators would continue getting caught in the gap between our rules and Stripe’s, we thought that the best path forward was to close the gap, giving creators one set of rules to work within, versus having to navigate two different policy philosophies.
That was the intent, but the decision we made was an abandonment of the core counterculture, f*ck the establishment spirit of Kickstarter, and it left our community vulnerable.
What we’re doing now
The decision we made wasn’t the right one, and in an attempt to create rules that could work across both Kickstarter and Stripe, we rolled out something that was too restrictive and too far removed from what we actually believe.
So what are we doing now? We are removing the new mature content guidelines and reverting back to our previous guidelines, which prohibit pornography and illegal content. This rule is bare bones and not as specific as we’d like it to be, but it does mean that certain content – like child sexual exploitation and abuse material, for example – remains prohibited. Those lines don’t move.
This isn’t the easiest route. It means that at any point, whether that’s before launch, while a campaign is live, or after it ends, while a creator is still collecting pledges made via Pledge Over Time or Late Pledges, Stripe can still suspend a campaign that Kickstarter has approved. That’s the reality of operating within a payment system we don’t fully control. When that happens, we will advocate for you as we have been, and we’ll do our best to help you understand what adjustments you need to make to your project to make it supportable by Stripe, but we can’t guarantee the outcome. To help creators understand what Stripe allows, we’re adding a note about their policies and a link to their guidelines to our rules page, so you have full visibility into the broader landscape of rules you’re operating in before you launch. We’ve also put together this guide to help creators understand common review triggers and make informed decisions about how they present mature content publicly on Kickstarter to reduce the risk of disruption.
Though this route is an imperfect temporary solution, it allows us to stand in what we believe in and use the space between our rules and Stripe’s rules to keep fighting for creators. That means continuing to push Stripe for flexibility, clarity, and consistency, working to carve out exceptions where we can, and finding solutions that don’t leave creators feeling censored before they’ve even launched.
We could have done this better. We’re going to keep working to earn back your trust, and we’ll keep creating the space that bold, boundary-pushing creative work deserves.
