The Kickstarter pitch for Ken Hoinsky's book Above the Game sounded relatively innocuous: He wanted to share his method for "meeting new people" -- or specifically, for men meeting women. At least until comic Casey Malone found (and reposted) reddit comments from Hoinsky that actually discussed this philosophy for succeeding with women, which advocated everything from creepy behavior ("Don’t ask for permission. Be dominant. Force her to rebuff your advances") to outright sexual assault: "Don’t ask for permission, GRAB HER HAND, and put it right on your dick." The Kickstarter description for Above the Game stated that as much as 50 percent of the content in the book could be pulled directly from Hoinsky's forum diatribes.
Today, after the online furor prompted by Malone's post, Kickstarter removed the project page and posted an explanation on their blog titled "We Were Wrong." But it wasn't just permitting Hoinsky's project in the first place that made Kickstarter wrong: It was also their hypocritical about-face and the lack of clear guidelines that allowed the project to happen in the first place.
The company first responded in a private email to Malone that was subsequently posted on his Tumblr, and called Hoinsky's reddit comments "abhorrent," while still allowing the project's funding to continue. Today, the company statement said Kickstarter's team had only two hours to decide whether to pull the project after it came to their attention and before the project ended. So Kickstarter had enough time to review the campaign and call it "abhorrent" in the email to Malone, but apparently not enough time to decide whether that mattered.
Admitting that an author's comments on reddit—a site that has taken a strong stance on free speech to controversial lengths—are "abhorrent" while continuing to take 5% is ridiculous and contradictory, but the more important point is that Kickstarter hasn't publicly clarified what is and isn't acceptable on the platform, and where they stand on various types of controversial content.
If Kickstarter wants to acts as a defender of pure free speech, then it should stick by projects they approve, even if they are "abhorrent." If it wants to define what it will and won't allow, that's the company's prerogative as well. But the guidelines that prohibit "hate speech" and "offensive material" remain vague both in their definition and enforcement, and as it stands attention and outrage sometimes seem to determine whether a Kickstarter is deemed unacceptable (see also: Tentacle Bento) rather than the nature of the content itself when the project is submitted.
Crowdsourcing companies of all kinds are going to have to take a hard stance on these topics, one way or another. IndieGoGo has some clear restrictions on some topics (no porn, weapons, etc.), but there are going to be other issues as new crowdsourced platforms emerge and existing ones grow. What happens when someone wants to organize an anti-gay rights rally? Or anti-abortion? What about nationalist events? Separatist ones? Radical groups? Religious organizations? Is erotic prose okay, but not adult graphic novels?
Kickstarter isn't the only game in town, and more platforms are sure to become specialized as others decide to incorporate crowdfunding into their services. Each online community will have to set their own standards. If a group of dudes want to create their own crowdsourced platform to develop sexist products, then such is their right. Hell, there's already an adults-only crowdsourced site. It's called Offbeatr [NSFW], and currently features a pornographic text-based adventure game, cat-girl videos, an open-source database for dildos, and a porn parody of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Cries of censorship are irrelevant; consistency is paramount.
It's encouraging to see that Kickstarter is donating more to RAINN than Above the Game raised, but if the company really wants to absolve itself of this incident, it needs to address the core issue of what is and isn't allowed on the service or else it will simply be waiting for the next controversy to prompt them again. And as the builder of their own platform, Kickstarter can determine their own guidelines, and even adapt them as community standards change -- as long as they make those guidelines clear and apply them consistently. As long as we all know the rules, we can decide which games we want to play.
Update 6/21/13 5 PM EST: Changed to clarify Kickstarter's project guidelines.
