May 20, 2025

Mid-year policy updates & fireside chat with our VP of Trust & Safety

As we approach the midpoint of 2025, Patreon’s Policy Team is back with updates on key developments shaping the platform — including opportunities to connect with our team, proposed updates to our Community Guidelines, and new developments that reinforce platform safety. In a live conversation, Eric Han (Patreon’s VP of Trust & Safety) and Courtney Duffy (Head of External Affairs & Strategic Engagement) discuss Trust & Safety work happening at Patreon and highlight how creator feedback can help influence the team’s work.

As part of this update, you can chat with the policy team in our #policy-live-qa channel in Patreon's Creator Community Discord server. This channel will remain open for additional Q&A until Tuesday, May 27 at 10AM PT / 1PM ET / 6 PM BST.

Policy proposals for your consideration

We’re proposing the following updates to Patreon’s Community Guidelines:

  • Introduction section: A minor update to reflect Patreon’s growing role as a platform for media, community, and creative business.

  • Live Video and Live Audio: New guidelines outlining expectations for creators and members during live broadcasts to help ensure that livestreams and live chats remain safe and welcoming. These updates clarify that all live content must follow our Community Guidelines, and emphasize the shared responsibility of creators and members in maintaining a respectful environment.

  • Podcast syncing: New guidance for creators using podcast syncing and syndication tools. The proposed language reinforces that these works must comply with our Community Guidelines, must not endanger members, and must not be used to evade age restrictions or distribute harmful, deceptive, or copyright-violating content.

Additional developments

In addition to these proposals, we’ve made progress in a few other areas, including new resources for creators and safety-focused partnerships.

Creator support resources

  • Responding to creator feedback: Public preview guidance for Adult/18+ creators

    Adult/18+ creators have recently asked for resources for the safe use of public previews when selling digital works through Patreon Shops. In response, we’ve published a new Help Center article outlining what’s allowed in product previews and how to stay compliant with our Community Guidelines and Commerce Guidelines. Public previews — including images and descriptions — must be free of nudity or sexually explicit material, even if the full product is paywalled. This helps keep Patreon accessible and compliant with payment processors.

Key safety partnerships

Patreon continues to invest in industry-wide efforts to keep creators and their communities safe. Here are two recent collaborations we’re proud to share:

  • StopNCII.org partnership to combat intimate image abuse:

    Patreon has joined StopNCII.org as an industry partner, reinforcing our zero-tolerance approach to non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII). Led by SWGfL, this initiative lets individuals create digital fingerprints (“hashes”) of their images so platforms can detect and block unauthorized sharing. This partnership strengthens our ability to protect privacy and support those most vulnerable to image-based abuse.

  • GIFCT membership to counter violent extremism online:

    Patreon also recently became a member of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), a nonprofit that brings together tech companies to prevent terrorists and violent extremists from exploiting online platforms. Founded by Meta, Microsoft, YouTube, and X, GIFCT includes 30+ platforms working to prevent harm through collaboration and knowledge-sharing. Patreon will contribute to and benefit from this cross-industry work.

  • Ongoing online safety collaborations:

    These partnerships build on our long-standing collaborations with organizations like the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Thorn, and the Tech Coalition. They strengthen our ability to combat online safety challenges and protect creators and fans from emerging threats.

Public policy advocacy

  • Advocating for the Patreon community on Capitol Hill

    Courtney Duffy from the Policy Team recently joined the Internet Works coalition in Washington, D.C. for a day of tech policy advocacy. The group met with Congressional offices to discuss issues impacting creators — including content moderation, privacy, competition, and platform liability — to ensure mid-sized platforms like Patreon are considered in future regulation.

Staying connected

Thank you for your time, feedback, and continued engagement. Your insights help us shape a safer, more supportive Patreon — for creators and fans alike.

These efforts are part of our ongoing Creator Policy Engagement Program (CPEP), designed to ensure creators have a voice in the policies that affect them. Your feedback plays a vital role in helping us evolve Patreon’s policies to support a safe, inclusive, and creator-first environment.