Update: Kickstarter has reversed their decision and Megaton Man: Multimensions is now live. As we expected, Kickstarter is claiming that they were attempting to comply with US trade restrictions against Iran which doesn’t pass the smell test, but it’s approved. You can read Kickstarter’s reversal below and then the original article below that.
Don Simpson has posted that Kickstarter has “not approved,” aka censored, his next crowdfunding project, Megaton Man: Multimensions. The reason given is that one of the contributors is located in Iran. The reason given was “safety and trust.”
Milo Trent is on the cover of Megaton Man: Multimensions and contributes four pages out of the 214 in the book. Trent is also located in Iran.
Simpson was sent an email from Kickstarter Trust & Safety after their review process where they asked for two more pieces of information. The questions asked were:
- What is the nature of your engagement with individuals in Iran, if any?
- What is the nature of your engagemnent with entities in Iran, if any?
After Simpson’s publisher reached out to Kickstarter, the crowdfunding platform declined the project.
In their rejection letter, which you can read below, Kickstarter points to its Terms of Use, in particular section 13 which basically states they can make changes to their Site and Services whenever they want, they can decide who’s eligible to use Kickstarter, they can reject/cancel/interrupt/remove/suspend any project, they can withhold funds, they can also force refunds (interesting, maybe they should do that for the scams/failed projects that regularly run on the site), among other things. They of course aren’t liable for any of the damages concerning that.
Section 13 does link out to Community Guidelines and rules for starting projects. Neither of those mention anything about Iran. In a search of the entire site, we can’t find any mention of Iran being banned from Kickstarter.
There’s a list of prohibited projects.
There’s a list of who can use Kickstarter and the countries they need to be from. In fact, it tells how those not in those countries can open a business in the US using Stripe Atlas.
If Kickstarter is doing so under so guise of “American sanctions,” it’s permissible to send money to individuals in Iran as long as the individuals are sanctioned or the institution is not sanctioned. But, that’s not for Kickstarter to enforce in this case since the individuals are in the US, it’s those individuals managing the project that must comply with any rules and regulations.
Both Don Simpson and his publisher are located in countries approved and listed.
Kickstarter is open to backers worldwide. Nearly anyone from anywhere can support a project as long as they have a major debit or credit card and a Kickstarter account.
Apparently, Kickstarter is happy to take money from anyone worldwide, but if you’re from certain countries, fuck off for unknown reasons.
