There are concerns for artists and creators using the Patreon platform, after a row broke out following the layoff of some of its cybersecurity team.
It started with a LinkedIn post from one of those former employees, Emily Metcalfe, noting that “for better or worse, I and the rest of the Patreon Security Team are no longer with the company”. The post was then tweeted by privacy and information security lawyer Whitney Merrill, along with her worry about the potential impact: “Wouldn’t trust my data there.”
News site Cyberscoop has put those concerns to Patreon, which in a statement promised “the changes made this week will have no impact on our ability to continue providing a secure and safe platform for our creators and patrons… a majority of our engineers and our vendors working on security remain in place.” However, another former employee spoken to by the site disagreed with that positive assessment.
There are two headaches here for Patreon. First, if creators get spooked and leave its platform. Second, if hackers redouble their efforts to breach its security due to the publicity around the layoffs and concerns.
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