Kickstarter, a major crowdfunding web site, announced a big change to its acceptance policy this week that gives artists the ability to start their campaigns immediately.
The change comes in the wake of criticism the site blocked a TV film about late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell while allowing similarly graphic campaigns to move forward.
Here is Kickstarter.com CEO Yancey Strickler announcing the change on the company’s blog:
We want creators to have the support and freedom they need when building their projects. That’s why we’re introducing a feature called Launch Now. It gives creators a simple choice: go ahead and launch your project whenever you’re ready, or get feedback from one of our Community Managers first.
The Launch Now program is available to 60 percent of Kickstarter projects now, but that number will increase in the weeks to come.
The creative team behind the Gosnell movie, which earned $2.25 million via competing crowdfunding site Indiegogo, hailed the Kickstarter changes.
“It’s a sign that maybe diversity is now being welcomed at Kickstarter. It was a huge shock that they tried to censor the truth about our project because it might have offended some of their audience,” said Gosnell producer Phelim McAleer in a statement.
McAleer still isn’t sold on the changes to the Kickstarter process.
“It’s not clear if Kickstarter are still retaining the option of closing down campaigns they don’t like after the launch – or if the campaigns post something they don’t like in updates. They threatened that with us also – it’s a huge threat to any campaign and is an effective way of enforcing censorship.”