I’m a blind creator, and I want to share my experience with Patreon’s age-verification process because it created a serious accessibility barrier.

Patreon required me to photograph my government-issued passport and take a selfie. The process depended heavily on visual positioning and instructions, making it extremely difficult for me to complete independently.

I eventually completed the verification, but Patreon then disabled my creator page after incorrectly classifying me as under 18. I am 33 years old, and the government ID I submitted confirms that I am an adult.

I contacted Patreon’s accessibility team and requested a manual review and restoration of my creator page. I also contacted its privacy team to cancel a pending account-deletion request. So far, I have received no response from a human representative and no confirmation that the deletion request was cancelled.

I understand why Patreon needs to verify creators’ ages. My concern is that the verification process was inaccessible, the result was incorrect, and there was no obvious way to obtain a prompt human review before my page was disabled.

Has anyone else, particularly another blind or visually impaired creator, experienced a similar problem? Were you able to obtain an accessible verification alternative or a manual review?

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[–] 9 points 1 month ago (1 child)

Hi car_thief, I'm not blind, nor am I a patreon user, but I do have relevant professional experience that might be useful here. I don't want to detract from the topic of sharing experiences though, so if you (or anyone else reading this) aren't interested in hearing about how you can get a response out of Patreon, please skip the rest of this post. And obviously mods, feel free to remove it.

It looks like Patreon outsources age verification to a third party, which in no way absolves them of responsibility, but it might explain why they've been slow to reply. They previously entered into a digital accessibility settlement agreement the company reached with the American Council of the Blind which outlines exactly that obligation too.

A few questions:

  • When you emailed them, did you use the subject line "Disabled Access"? It seems they require that, although the info is buried in the "Contact Us" section of their accessibility page. I just want to be sure you've not ended up in their spam folder.
  • Did you submit the privacy request through their support form? If not, do you have the option (or ability, assuming it's accessible) to use their support form to get the suspension investigated? Choose the "I have a Trust and Safety question regarding my account." in the listbox. Make sure you use the exact same email address as your account, and include the info you provided here. It also has the option to include attachments, if you're willing to provide the photo you took of your ID. But please be aware that this is not guaranteed to be securely transmitted or stored. I personally would start with the info you provided here and get a response first before doing that.
  • What region are you in? Depending on where you are, you might be able contact a professional body that deals with accessibility legal compliance, but it's very location dependent. Hopefully this won't be necessary.

I appreciate that this all asks you to do more than what you already have, and you shouldn't have needed to do any of it at all. If you are US based, you can try their phone number, but you shouldn't be required to do that either. They should have upheld their end of the deal by ensuring you had an accessible option.

I also think it's worth posting this on mainstream social media; companies like Patreon actively monitor large channels for negative user feedback. Complaining online often moves much larger mountains than you might realise, provided the complaint is somewhere they check. The fediverse certainly is not that.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 month ago

    Thank you for the detailed and thoughtful advice. I appreciate you taking the time to explain these options.

    Yes, I used “Disabled Access” when contacting Patreon’s Accessibility team. I also contacted Trust & Safety using the same email address connected to my Patreon account. The Privacy team has now confirmed that my account-deletion request was cancelled.

    Trust & Safety has finally responded, but they asked me to upload my government-issued identification again and provide another selfie while holding it. That is essentially the same visually dependent process that caused the accessibility problem and incorrectly classified me as under 18.

    I have replied requesting a manual review of the information already submitted or a genuinely accessible verification method with direct assistance. I have also explained that I will not upload my identification again until Patreon explains why the original submission cannot be reviewed and how the repeated process will be made accessible.

    I am located in Iceland. Thank you again—your comment was helpful, and I wanted to clarify that I have now tried the official Accessibility and Trust & Safety routes.

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