Paypal’s new policy sounds like it will bring it in line with other “woke” companies – or does it?
There’s been a lot of talk about Papal’s newly-announced policy on “misinformation”:
The financial services company, which has repeatedly deplatformed organizations and individual commentators for their political views, will expand its “existing list of prohibited activities” on November 3. Among the changes are prohibitions on “the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials” that “promote misinformation” or “present a risk to user safety or wellbeing.” Users are also barred from “the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory.”
The company’s current acceptable use policy does not mention such activities. The Daily Wire reached out to PayPal for definitions of the added terms, although no response was received in time for publication.
But today Paypal released this:
PayPal on Oct. 8 said it was not implementing a new policy that would have enabled the company to seize money from users who allegedly promote “misinformation” or “hate.”
“An AUP notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information. PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy,” a PayPal spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.
“Our teams are working to correct our policy pages. We’re sorry for the confusion this has caused,” the spokesperson added.
Say what?
Quite a few people had threatened to quit Paypal over this policy, which may have caused Paypal to back off. Whatever the cause of today’s announcement, it’s difficult to believe that the “misinformation” policy was posted in error initially by some rogue actor at the company, as Paypal appears to be saying in this latest release.
I use Paypal because, having researched other forms of payment, I decided it was the best way to handle contributions to the blog compared to all the other methods. I hope that remains the case, because figuring out and implementing an alternative to Paypal is another task I’d rather not take on. The other thing is that any company can go the censorship route at any time; that’s just a fact of life these days.
It must have dawned on them that they would have got the bejabbers sued out of them had they tried that policy.
The infection of banks and financial institutions (including the odious PayPal) by the pernicious and toxic virus of “woke-ism” is one of the most alarming developments of the last several years, analyzed very well by Vivek Ramaswamy in Woke, Inc. Meanwhile, many at the Fed (including Bostic) are obsessed with “equity” and D.I.E., while, just a few days ago, Treasury (assisted by Kamala the cackling hyena) announced a new committee of 25 dedicated to enforcing what it calls “racial equality”, and rumors swirl about the possibility (albeit not imminent) of a new CBDC, intended to grant the state complete hegemony over financial transactions. The goal of the left is to attain control over and surveillance of all elements in the lives of the citizenry, including their finances.
Paypal sent me an email that linked to a new Terms & Conditions document with this language (notifying me that they can fine me $2500 for bad language) on 10/8/22 at 17:04 UTC.
It is an “error” that they haven’t stopped making.
They’re lying.
They did not anticipate the backlash. But lawyers and programmers are working day and night to devise a different way to sieze the money of people they don’t like.
Whether or not the announcement was sent in error, it seems certain that some at PayPal, or at a law firm hired by PP, did draft the language. It’s hard to imaging why any company would spend resources on such an effort unless they had some intent to actually implement it.
I worked for PayPal for close to twelve years. The policy change didn’t surprise me, but the reversal sure did. Seeing how brand is managed internally, I absolutely do not buy the “Oops, we sent out the wrong policy,” line. That policy was written, re-written, and then vetted eighty-six different ways from Sunday by Legal, Marketing, Compliance, and the potted plant by the third-floor restroom before being published. My gut says that if PYPL stock was still at the $300 price point that it was in mid-2021, there would have been rejoicing in the (virtual) aisles at the prospect of conservatives leaving the platform.
PayPal is facing the first actual competition they’ve ever had in the likes of Square, Woo, Shopify and the gang; they don’t want to lose their first-place position in the online payment space. eBay payments are also going away in 2023 short of some new arrangement, and that combined with the prospect of having to potentially report tens-of-thousands of account closures made them blink.
PayPal started as a company to combat the access to banking as a gateway to managing money. The vision was to be the first choice for the “unbanked”. Thiel and Musk, for all their faults, would no longer recognize the company they started.
One of the lessons I have really tried to drill into my kids and other young people, is the fragility of the concept of trust. I’m sure most parents do this. Kids learn how to lie at an early age, but it takes some time for them to grasp the concept of ‘trust’, and its unique value. And the lesson is, of course, that ‘trust, once broken, never fully mends’. The broken vase can be glued together, but it’s never the same again, even though to all appearances, it’s still a vase. Maybe that’s why it’s one of the most highly rated virtues – because it is so easily devalued, it’s notable when it is intact for long sustained periods.
For their behavior during the Canadian Trucker’s peaceful protest, Paypal deserves nothing less than the departure of their customers en masse and utter, disgraced bankruptcy. Sounds like they might be feeling a little like the Coyote, just before he looks down. Good.
Let them do it. All it will do is open the door for another payment processing service to prosper.
It’s the same thing with Twitter. No one is actually making money posting to Twitter. So why does ANY right-.leaning person continue to post to a platform that censors and discriminates against people like them?
“…to sieze the money of people they don’t like.”
Can someone kindly remind me why/how anything like this can actually be legal (that is, lawful)?
I mean I can understand kicking you off a platform for whatever (even though that sort of thing is most dubious)…but actually stealing your money?
Sounds to me like “the audacity of slippery slope”….
Surely it is correct for Neo to look into the charge and to give PayPal’s side of the story.
One quick question though: has PayPal ever denied service to a conservative for some obscure “community standard” or “the SPLC says they are bad” reason?
Isn’t that also fair play for this story?
Aggie, I know that GoFundMe behaved shamefully during the Canadian trucker protest, but I don’t recall hearing about PayPal’s behavior in that context. Can you explain what they did?
JimNorCal; Ilana:
Paypal has shut down accounts in the past, mostly for COVID lockdown skepticism but also for advocating free speech. See this, for example, as well as this.
Thanks neo.
And there are many more examples.
“Paypal’s new policy sounds like it will bring it in line with other “woke” companies – or does it?”
If you parse the latest controversy narrowly and if you accept the company’s explanation at face value, then PayPal is possibly an unfortunate victim of a misunderstanding.
I don’t think you come to that conclusion if you’ve been paying attention over a period of years. I think you conclude that yes, PayPal *is* in line with other Woke companies.
Prediction: If Elon Musk does get Twitter, he will add a payment service to it.
Along with a lot of other things…plenty that a creative & entrepreneurial thinker could do with the platform and the market position.
There was an article In Barrons this morning asserting that Musk overpaid for Twitter. I don’t think the author understands the concept of Real Options.
There were a lot of people who didn’t grasp that Amazon was going to be a lot more than just a big bookstore.
That policy is theft, flat out.
It’s one thing to charge a fee for writing checks that bounce using an older world scenario. It’s another thing entirely to say will will take $2.5 grand of your money because we don’t like the way you think.
It’s bad enough that entities like paypal and even normal banks can make you a non-financial entity because of your legal line of work, but it appears their legal eagles took a pause and really thought about it. In my view though, this pause is tactical because they are trying to find a legal way to steal.
They are no better than your common pick pocket or, using today’s environment, the thieves who hack your bank account and steal all your money, electronic money.
Oh, this is exactly what lots of US government folks, mainly leftist Democrats, are working towards. No cash, all electronic, all digital, all trackable, all subject to their whims and desires which will include only spending on things they deem correct.
That correctness inherently means you will have no financial means if you are a heretic.
I too am unaware of any legal basis for PayPal seizing account holder’s funds. It also seems like a clear 1st Amendment violation. If correct, that begs for numerous class action lawsuits.
But even if PayPal has rescinded its announced policy, anyone who values free speech and liberty should stop doing business with them.
REDACTED, as someone familiar with the field, can you recommend a payment system … considering both the basics like competence, security and the like but also being willing to serve customers in a neutral fashion without hectoring people about social issues?
On a similar issue, plenty of conservatives have been dumped by their banks for little or no reason. My sister sent me a note, could be useful for someone someday (I have no connection to this organization whatsoever)
“… been in the planning since 2019 and will be starting soon out of Dallas Texas. They are buying an existing bank with four locations there. It will be called ProLife Bank. The website is prolifebank.com.
Not endorsing, just relaying the info.”
GB: “… anyone who values free speech and liberty should stop doing business with them.” (PayPal)
Personally, I think that’s too strong. At this point in our struggle to re-imagine a nation with freedom there are too many firms to boycott. We can all boycott our special peeves but you can literally spend every moment of your life researching companies, finding those worth dumping and attempting to find the least/worse to get the services you need.
It’s too high of a hill to climb, in my view.
Though … I did close my PayPal account today LOL. It was dormant for some years because I got upset at their policies a while ago. Thus, not a Big Moral Stand in my case to close the account.
Neo, thanks! My original question was about if/how PayPal penalized those Canadian truckers who were protesting. I didn’t see any such examples in the links you sent – or did I miss them? Did PayPal target the Canadian truckers?
Would be agreeable if a class action suit put PayPal out of business.
Ilana:
The truckers weren’t using Paypal, as far as I know. They used GoFundMe, and here’s what initially happened to them at GoFundMe’s hands. Later, the money was returned, but only because of public pressure against GoFundMe. See this.
I am honestly concerned enough about all this – because I utilize Paypal to process payments for my books, at local markets. I blog for a somewhat conservative-inclining website, and my books – mostly historicals and some contemporary comedy, although they are not confrontational about it … can be construed as conservative.
What if Paypal decides that processing sale of my books is beyond the pale/paypal?
What then, o wolves?
Guess I had better begin researching another way to process sales. My main bank is Texas-based, and they have an excellent means to process written checks.
But who still does checks…
JimNorCal:
“…as someone familiar with the field, can you recommend a payment system … considering both the basics like competence, security and the like but also being willing to serve customers in a neutral fashion without hectoring people about social issues?”
Unfortunately, PayPal has a very comprehensive set of options for both personal and business use so it’s going to depend a lot on exactly what portions you’re looking to replace. For direct person-to-person payments, Apple Cash is the closest and it’s actually easier to use — provided everybody has an iPhone. Stripe and Square work very well in the merchant space, and their in-person experience was much better than the last time I tried a physical PayPal transaction.
In the on-line payment space, the market is ripe for a direct competitor. Unfortunately, entering the market is far more difficult than it was in 1998. Both consumer groups and PayPal have dramatically changed the regulatory landscape since, almost requiring somebody like Thiel or Musk to pony up a large investment just to deal with the legal compliance issues.
Personally, I’m going to use Apple Cash for my friends with existing devices and just go back to good old dollar bills for those without.
@Ilana: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/02/16/canada-sanctions-34-crypto-wallets-tied-to-trucker-freedom-convoy/
Paypal was one of the ones that followed the edict without disputing it or taking any opposing action, ratting out their customers.
There are a couple of pay services like GiveSendGo that (I think) are Christian-based and have pretty robust protections for their users. Some of the Jan 6 defense teams are using them.
It’s hard for me to imagine how this works.
So if neo posted an article on her blog which PayPal decides is misinformation and neo has $2500 at the moment in her PayPal account, PayPal could just scoop that money up and keep it?
I understand the question is academic now, but was this a realistic scenario?
I don’t see how it could possibly be legal. It’s plenty bad to censor people or deny services, but to outright take their money…
How does that work in our legal system, assuming we still have one?
JimNorCal,
Thanks for the info re ProLifeBank!
GB: “… anyone who values free speech and liberty should stop doing business with them.” (PayPal)
I agree. You don’t have to; it’s a free country (or used to be). But why give them your money? You are financing “the rope that will hang you.” You don’t need to “spend every moment of your life researching companies”, just do what you can (if you want to). That’s the beauty of the free-market system: competition.
The gist of the comments on the Legal Insurrection article I mentioned up-thread, was that PayPal’s action was based on their Terms of Service, and it would be too much trouble and expense to fight them legally.
I saved a couple links from the comments, but haven’t checked them out thoroughly: GabPay https://www.gabpay.com/ and AlignPay https://www.alignpay.com/
GabPay has an article about a “Parallel Economy” which they advocate. Imagine if half the people in the country stopped doing business with woke companies. That would get their attention!
Re GiveSendGo, they seemed to be an honest company, when I made a small donation to the Canadian truckers through them. Unfortunately, the Canadian gov’t seized the donations. Then GiveSendGo was hacked and some donors’ info was exposed. GSG was reportedly remiss in not fixing a known vulnerability in their systems. They did eventually refund my donation (minus the service fee), and I had no other repercussions from my attempted donation.
Great comments here; I also recommend the ones at the Legal Insurrection post for basic information and analysis linked by Jordan Rivers on the Open Thread.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/10/paypal-updates-user-policy-to-include-possible-2500-fine-for-speech-it-doesnt-like/
My favorite dialogue from comments at Daily Wires’ post on the “oopsie apology” from PayPal:
“Amazing… If that language wasn’t supposed to be in there, how would it have happened accidentally? ?”
“Those peaky automatic typing computers they have are going Gestapo rogue on them. ??”
@Aggie, got it, thanks.
Neo, thanks for the links. I remember well GoFundMe’s actions against the Canadian truckers protest. I just wasn’t aware that PayPal had been involved against the truckers.
@ David Foster > “Prediction: If Elon Musk does get Twitter, he will add a payment service to it.”
Seen at LI:
Lots of stories online about Musk and PayPal.
Some basic information.
https://nypost.com/2018/07/24/elon-musk-made-his-first-millions-in-the-paypal-mafia/
The Wikipedia section of his main entry is very bare-bones, and looks like it was written by someone whose first language is not English, or else a native-speaker who revels in typos.
Odd that no one’s edited it properly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#X.com_and_PayPal
More research – seems Mr. Musk is a popular subject on the webz.
There are incomplete and vague explanations about the squabbles that precipitated his ouster. I suspect there is a lot of back-story that never made it out of the boardroom.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/elon-musk-fired-paypay-founded-tesla-spacex
This one is intended to be inspirational for its target audience, but it’s also low on details about HOW the other founders disagreed with Musk (and NYP doesn’t mention the conflict at all).
https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/21-years-ago-elon-musk-was-fired-from-paypal-heres-how-he-bounced-back-e89119aa6df
Some interesting tidbits, because, why not.
Wikipedia: “More than one and a half decades later, Musk purchased the domain X.com from PayPal in 2017 because of his personal sentimental value.”
According to this outlet, the “vacation” was a delayed honeymoon with his first wife, Justine.
https://www.shortform.com/blog/elon-musk-paypal-story/
Very unconventional man. I really do hope he reforms Twitter if just to prove you can be a responsible supporter of free speech without being woke (and broke).
https://marketrealist.com/p/did-elon-musk-create-paypal/
“It seems that Musk doesn’t own PayPal stock. He revealed in 2018 that the only stock he owns is Tesla. “I think probably one of the biggest misunderstandings is that I actually am not an investor,” Musk said at the South by Southwest that year, according to CNBC.”
From the links above, he re-invests his gains from selling companies into the next enterprise, and several times deliberately did NOT cajole friends and family into risking their money along with his.
VERY unconventional.
More from the Entrepreneur’s Handbook, because we’ve discussed the same subjects here from time to time.
Of course, that’s assuming you are reading texts anchored in reality, and learning facts rather than opinions and baseless assertions (for example, “The 1619 Project” and Howard Zinn).
IOW, the opposite of what passes for “education” these days.
I suspect he learned early on how to compare and contrast the things he was reading, and winnow the wheat from the chaff in most areas — STEM more so than in other subjects, since he’s been a Democrat up to very recently.
Maybe he paid too much attention to his economics classes, because it’s a cinch his alma mater is woke.
@ Aggie > “One of the lessons I have really tried to drill into my kids and other young people, is the fragility of the concept of trust.”
Comments at Daily Wire and Legal Insurrection — and also at Neo’s Salon — corroborate your message.
They aren’t coming back from this fiasco without a LOT of work.
It’s quite ironic that Shakespeare puts that wonderful observation in the mouth of the liar Iago, who has been gaslighting Othello about his wife and another man.
It’s fittingly ironic that PayPal filched its own good name, by itself, just as Iago is the one who tarnishes his own reputation.
https://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/who-steals-my-purse-steals-trash
PayPal’s (canceled) new Terms of Service remind me of Gillette running an add during the Super Bowl, suggesting that their customers were white male chauvinist pigs.
Gillette’s wokeful dissing of many of its customers (as did also Harry’s Razors) led directly to Jeremy’s Razors.
https://thecrankycreative.com/jeremys-razors-commercial-the-shot-heard-round-the-ad-world/
Corporations voluntarily enforcing the will of the party and the state, voluntarily thinking like and anticipating The Big Guy. I’m too old to go into this battle, but it seems it will be forced upon me.
Why did people go mad?
@JimNorCal: “One quick question though: has PayPal ever denied service to a conservative for some obscure “community standard” or “the SPLC says they are bad” reason?”
While not specifically aimed at conservatives, From PayPal’s Acceptable Use document:
“You may not use the PayPal service for activities that:
1. violate any law, statute, ordinance or regulation. 2. relate to transactions involving….
(j) ammunition, firearms, or certain firearm parts or accessories, or (k) certain weapons or knives regulated under applicable law.”
Meaning, any transaction containing guns, ammunition, or “some” gun parts or accessories will not be processed. This is why lots of gun owners refuse to deal with online merchants who use Paypal and why a large number of merchants in the firearms industry don’t use them.
Texas, Florida and other states need to aggressively enforce their penal codes on “Theft” and expand them to cover companies who take actions like this to specify provide that the CEO, President, CFO, and every board member will be held criminally liable for these actions, add the same as a Deceptive Trade Practices Act violation (allowing treble damages and attorneys fees) and limit the ability of such companies to operate in the states.
I’m guessing that the government had its fingers in this fiasco.
PayPal and GoFundMe are just following the example of the US Government. Democrats used a number of different agencies to attack and shut down legal businesses that Barack and his friends decided were “icky”. Operation Chokepoint was/is a horrifying example of the moral defects and hubris of the Woke.
This is just another version of the program that SlowJoe’s nominee to the Federal Reserve advocates — using the Fed’s supervision of banks to strangle and bankrupt fossil fuel companies. The Woke have no concept of humility, no concept of the possibility that they might be mistaken, no concept of the depth of their moral depravity. They truly believe they have the moral superiority to determine who should thrive and who should wither, who should live and who should die.
Submit or die. They intend to crush all dissent. One way or another. The evil never stop. These Woke won’t.
The intense desire to destroy all dissent that underlies PayPal’s policy and Operation Chokepoint , etc. is the same desire that motivates the relentless persecution of the baker in Colorado who continues to have the state and the Left seek his personal destruction for being a Christian.
It’s all the same stuff. It’s the same stuff that drives and animates the persecution of Trump in all its ugly, vile nastiness.
It’s the same viciousness that compels them to seek to disbar attorneys who work for conservative or disfavored clients.
It’s the same nastiness that compels them to censor and “fact check” on social media and Big Tech search engines. It drives the rampant dishonesty and propaganda of the legacy news media.
It’s why they steal elections. Or use the Post Office to spy on people. Or use the NSA database to go back through all our communications in the past. To spy on all of us for wrongthink.
They are using any and all weapons at hand to bludgeon those who won’t submit.
A lot of people have apparently closed–or tried to close–their Paypal accounts, and it looks like it’s starting to hurt.
According to this article out today, Paypal has apparently disabled the function that I used to just click on and close my account, and similarly disabled another function that I clicked on to to tell them to delete all my information.
When I did this, early on, these two functions worked just fine, and I’ve received notice from Paypal that those things have been done.
Now, according the article linked below, this function is disabled, and when you try to “close your account” it’s no longer automatic, and some customers have been told they need to “talk to customer service.”
See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/10/following-surge-online-calls-close-paypal-account-several-users-reporting-closing-issues/
SoP: “similarly disabled another function that I clicked on to tell them to delete all my information”
I only learned about that function after closing my account, sigh. Oh well.
An odious company. Glad I was able to do my small part to inconvenience them. The mini rant by stan just above is quite on target, in my view.
Still.
The policy is still there.
It was already there.
Since at least 2021.
Only an expansion of the policy has been (temporarily?) rescinded.
https://reason.com/volokh/2022/10/09/paypal-still-threatens-2500-fines-for-promoting-discriminatory-intolerance-even-if-not-misinformation/
” … it appears that the policy continues to be in effect for other speech, according to PayPal’s official Acceptable Use Policy, last updated Sept. 20, 2021″
“You may not use the PayPal service for activities that … relate to … the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance …”
Retains the wording about PayPal’s “sole discretion”
SoP and JimNorCal:
The error message looks more like a technical problem than a disable to my eye; but the longer it remains down, the more likely that I’m incorrect. The increased call volume — particularly for a time-intensive process like account closure — would have been a big cause for concern during my tenure, so I suspect it’s just dramatically increased volume on a relatively low-use portion of the site.
The “sole discretion” language isn’t all that nefarious. It’s very common in policy all over the tech industry and elsewhere I suspect. In less tumultuous times, it was good legal coverage for the anti-fraud and money laundering algorithm’s denials of legitimate transactions. Companies like Google and Microsoft use it all over the place to try and avoid messy litigation in combination with arbitration clauses. The ugly part is the speech code; the rest is just legalese, in my opinion.
REDACTED: Agree. A good part of that section is standard boilerplate.
Where it strays is the speech code part.
In my personal view PayPal also strays in having denied service to various Deplorables for quite some many years.
JimNorCal:
No arguments from me on the denied service. There used to be a small cadre of conservative- and libertarian-leaning voices selectively speaking up for the very egregious ones, but attrition and culture shift got rid of it. Looking back, the writing was probably visible on the wall around the time of the Gun Broker policy shift away from anything remotely related to firearms.
It was a lucrative place to work for a time, but towards the end as the corporate culture shifted further and further towards “Inclusion” and the hostility towards anything outside of Twitter-based Left-Orthodoxy increased it became downright oppressive. I definitely miss the money, but the stress and paranoia have definitely decreased despite the “REDACTED” nom de plume.
Thumbs up, REDACTED and thanks for your insights from “inside the beast” LOL.
Meanwhile, JRivers above noted GabPay. Here’s a post about it, I plan to use it, esp when there are less massive amounts of money involved.
https://news.gab.com/2022/10/gabpay-the-paypal-alternative/
I’m keeping an eye on GabPay. Security is Hard, and is doubly-difficult when you have direct financial incentive to probe the resources. Add to that the lure of a delicious Tweet Storm when you compromise a political target like an explicitly non-leftist company, and you have a recipe for some serious technical challenges moving forward.
I’m rooting for them but I’m not quite ready to board that train yet. Hell, I might even send in a resume.
Thanks, JimNorCal and JRivers, for the pointer on GabPay.
I can’t find much on how GabPay works. Their FAQ mentions partnerships with “sponsor banks”, so I suspect it’s similar to PayPal’s “money transmitter” classification legally.
PayPal (and presumably Gab) would pool funds in interest-bearing corporate checking accounts and keep an internal ledger for all customer’s debits and credits to maintain a set of parallel books (not precisely, but close enough for this discussion) in order to provide a bank-like balance system.
This raises the confidence somewhat on the security front, as the banks have a pretty decent record on the financial security side of the house at least. Money in accounts held by the bank should be insured and subject to banking regulations, so there is at least some consumer-level recourse in the event that GabPay were to suffer a catastrophic breach or close business. GabPay still has to get their house in order, of course, but the links between your “actual” money and what happens on GabPay are much more secure than a completely from-scratch payment build.
I’ll probably set up a secondary account with a local bank and use that to back a GabPay account until I understand their business model and actual transaction flow a little more. I’ve also sent an email to their Gab’s various contact addresses to see if they’d be willing to talk a little more Technical Sausage with a former PayPalian.