Yesterday, we shared on Twitter that we do not remove creators from Gumroad if they disagree with us:
We may disagree with some of our creators. Actually, we know we do. But we’re not going to deplatform them for it.
Several times a week, we are asked if we ban people we disagree with. The answer has always been no. There are a variety of activities and products that are not allowed on Gumroad, but disagreement with our team, company, or CEO is not one of them.
This tweet meant to clarify our answer to this specific question, but because of our unfamiliarity with the context of ‘deplatforming’ and how it is used, we caused only more confusion and stress for our creators. We’re sorry for that.
This blog post serves to dispel the vagueness of our tweet and clarify our positions.
First off, we want Gumroad to be a platform for various sorts of creative expression. However, that does not mean we tolerate all types of content. We never have, and never will tolerate: targeted harassment, abusive or threatening speech, or other prejudicial material (e.g. promoting Nazism).
If you share, promote, or sell these ideas on Gumroad, it is a violation of our Terms of Service and will result in a suspension:
(iv) promotes or encourages discrimination based upon race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age;
(vi) or is abusive towards other people;
Another type of content people often complain about is sexual content. To be clear: sexual content is allowed on Gumroad (including illustrations, comics and erotic prose), though NSFW products should be tagged as such.
Explicit pornography is not allowed on Gumroad, due to policies from our banking partners. You can read about that on our page about adult content.
We hope that this clarifies where we stand on these issues. Going forward, we will make sure our tweets are more precise. While we haven’t changed our policies, we can certainly communicate them better.
If you have more feedback, please email our CEO directly: sahil@gumroad.com