Kickstarter rolls – Kickstarter has rolled back new mature-content rules after an outcry from creators whose campaigns were affected. The platform said it changed its policy because of Stripe, which has suspended approved campaigns mid-funding. Kickstarter now says it will return
For creators who woke up to find their campaigns stalled, Kickstarter’s promise was supposed to be simple: keep funding moving. Instead, last week’s mature content rules landed like a sudden cutoff for projects that had already been approved.
Kickstarter has now retracted that new set of rules after the community pushback. The platform says it heard creators “loud and clear” and that it got the decision wrong. Under the policy it introduced. Kickstarter still allowed “romance and spicy literature. including comics. ” but it enforced stricter limits for pornographic and sexually explicit content.
Kickstarter’s explanation takes readers straight to its payment processor. In an announcement about the rollback, the platform said it updated its policy because of Stripe’s own rules. Over the past few months. Kickstarter said it had seen a growing number of campaigns it approved get suspended by Stripe mid-funding because of their nature.
When Stripe froze funds, Kickstarter said it would advocate for affected creators. The platform also said it was able to get Stripe to unfreeze their funds and continue accepting money on its behalf so campaigns could finish.
But the platform wasn’t always successful in getting Stripe’s decision reversed. That experience pushed Kickstarter toward a single standard: “close the gap” between its rules and Stripe’s, so creators would face only one set of expectations.
That plan didn’t land well with its community. In its post, Kickstarter wrote: “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.”
Now the previous rules are back. Pornography and illegal content are still prohibited. but the new framework is “less restrictive. ” described as more “bare bones and not as specific.” Kickstarter says Stripe can still suspend campaigns based on their nature. The difference is what happens next: Kickstarter says it will advocate for creators and help them adjust their projects to make them acceptable to Stripe.
Kickstarter called the approach an “imperfect temporary solution,” while leaving room for future changes to its mature content policy.
Kickstarter isn’t operating alone in this bind. Last year. Steam began banning games that violate the rules and standards of “payment processors and related card networks and banks. ” which affected titles with adult themes. Years earlier. credit card companies Mastercard and Visa blocked the use of their cards on Pornhub and even severed ties with the advertising arm of the adult website’s parent company. MindGeek.
Kickstarter mature content policy Stripe creator outcry crowdfunding adult content pornography prohibition Steam adult game bans Mastercard Visa Pornhub MindGeek