Buy Me a Coffee deletes the account of Ukrainian blogger and volunteer Serhii Sternenko

The crowdfunding service Buy Me a Coffee has deleted the account of Ukrainian blogger and volunteer Serhii Sternenko. He shared a screenshot of a letter sent to him by the company on his X page.

It says that after reviewing the content on Sternenko's Telegram channel, Buy Me a Coffee found violations of the platform's terms and policies. Therefore, they have “no choice but to take down” his account.

“As a small company, our options in situations like this are quite limited, but we want to do what we can to reduce your impact. To help minimize any disruption this may cause, we will pay out the remaining balance in your account,” the letter reads.

Image from X by Serhii Sternenko

Sternenko believes that this was done because of his assistance to the Ukrainian military in the fight against the russian army. However, he noted that he does not use this service to raise money for the army. The money from the Buy Me a Coffee account goes to the development of the blogger's YouTube channel, he wrote on X.

In the Buy Me a Coffee thread, the team replied that they serve thousands of Ukrainian authors. And the only time they have to delete someone's account is when they “explicitly violated our TOS or the policies of our payment partners.”

However, the company was unable to explain which exact terms or policies of the platform Sternenko violated. Previously, Buy Me a Coffee limited withdrawal options for Ukrainian bloggers registered on the platform.

Buy Me a Coffee has not publicly commented on the reasons and timing of the restrictions, but the responses from their support team have been posted online.

In 2023, another American crowdfunding service, Patreon, deleted Serhii Sternenko's page. In general, the platform, although it supports Ukraine in words, actually blocks the accounts of Ukrainian activists and charities, while not creating such obstacles for many outspoken russian propagandists.