KEVIN TRACY: Greetings. Thanks for coming at this early hour. As you may have heard, last night slightly before midnight, Brave Rewards flagged my profile. A copy of the error message is going to be provided in the transcript of my statement on KTracy.com.

I received this message after getting logged out of my Uphold account; which I use to manage all of my Basic Attention Token (BAT) cryptocurrency and have integrated into my Brave Browser. I've been meaning to release a statement about KTracy.com accepting BAT donations, but haven't yet. Anyway, this message about being flagged caught me off guard as I haven't changed any of my computer habits in probably three or four months. Being flagged now seemed odd. So, I clicked the link to learn more about Brave's process for flagging Rewards profiles.

The following is from their website:

Does that mean I did anything wrong?

Not necessarily! Brave’s flagging system can sometimes have false positives.

What happens when I am flagged?

While you are flagged, some Brave Rewards functionality may be disabled or limited. For example, if you are flagged:

• You won’t be able to verify your Brave Rewards profile
• You will not be able to earn from Brave Ads (you may stop receiving ads, and you will not be eligible to receive Brave Ads earnings payouts)

How do I get unflagged?

No action is required on your part. Your Brave Rewards profile will be automatically reevaluated on a regular basis to determine when (or if) the flag can be removed.

Feel free try again every so often to see if the flag has been removed.

In other words:

• Your profile is disabled. You can't earn crypto.
• We probably messed up.
• There's nothing you can do about it.

I understand that they don't want to release their flagging AI for scrutiny because people will figure out how to build bots to avoid detection and decrease the value of BAT and Brave's advertising program. However, providing so little information about why your profile was flagged is almost insulting. If I'm doing something wrong, I want to know so I can attempt to remedy it.

Is it a problem that I receive Brave rewards through five computers? (My main PC, my streaming PC, my Dell laptop, my Android phone, and a Linux laptop I use for experimentation? Is it a problem that I frequently bounce between KTracy Manor, KTracy.com HQ, my parents house, and my fiancee's home? Is it a problem that I frequently use VPNs to protect myself?

Did I make a mistake when I set up KTracy.com to receive BAT from visitors donating to their creators?

Does my Catholic worldview offend the progressive values of someone making the rules?

I have literally no idea, and that's what bothers me about this.

A lot of creators complain about the complete one sidedness and devastating nature of being flagged on various social media platforms. Some creators base their entire livelihood on YouTube ad revenue. When YouTube randomly decides you violated a community guideline by daring to discuss COVID or some other hot button issue in a few videos, your income is suddenly turned off and you can't afford your rent or groceries.

I would have hoped Brave, an open-source browser that respects users' privacy, would also respect users enough to promote transparency with how Brave proposes they earn income.

Obviously, we won't be promoting KTracy.com's involvement with Brave Rewards until this is resolved and explained.