The proliferation of crowd-funding sites has raised new issues around the ethics of online fundraising.
Probably the best-known of these sites, Kickstarter, posted a statement on its blog Friday disclosing that it had allowed someone to raise more than $16,000 for a “seduction guide” that encourages misogynistic behavior.
Under the headline “We Were Wrong,” Kickstarter reported:
“On Wednesday morning Kickstarter was sent a blog post quoting disturbing material found on Reddit. The offensive material was part of a draft for a “seduction guide” that someone was using Kickstarter to publish. The posts offended a lot of people — us included — and many asked us to cancel the creator’s project. We didn’t.
“We were wrong.