PayPal is in damage control over an ill-defined new policy that could have allowed the organisation to fine customers $2,500 USD for anything the electronic payment processor arbitrarily defined as “hate speech, racism, intolerance, or misinformation.”
Forbes attributed the companies backtrack to a high-profile backlash from Elon Musk, former PayPal President, David Marcus, and David Sachs, PayPal’s former COO – the ‘so-called PayPal mafia.’
“It’s hard for me to openly criticize a company I used to love and gave so much to,” Marcus wrote on Twitter, “but Pay Pal’s new AUP (acceptable use policy) goes against everything I believe in.”
Marcus, currently CEO of Bitcoin-focused company, Lightspark added, “A private company now gets to decide to take your money if you say something they disagree with. Insanity.”
Musk agreed.
The increasingly far-left-leaning company have since issued a written statement distancing itself from the totalitarian public relations snafu, stating:
“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… We’re sorry for the confusion this has caused.”
The Daily Wire’s Ben Zeisloft, who helped break the news, said the specific policy ended up in PayPal’s expansion of ‘existing prohibited activities’ set to become law on November 3 this year.
PayPal’s “mark of the beast,” misinformation add-on, ‘applied to actions taken using PayPal’s platform,’ making the technocratic financial service a ‘ministry of truth’ which could scare users into compliance with whatever narrative PayPal wanted to enforce.
“Among the changes,” explained Zeisloft, “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.”
Zeisloft added that ‘deliberations [would have been] made at the “sole discretion” of PayPal and [might have] subjected the user to “damages” — including the removal of $2,500 “debited directly from your PayPal account” per offense.’
Expanding on The Daily Wire piece, The National Review described an offense as any word or action opposed to ‘specific “protected groups” and “individuals or groups based on protected characteristics.”
The Review clarified that ‘identities under this umbrella included race, religion, gender or gender identity, and sexual orientation.’
PayPal’s proven track record of reading from the wonky Woketocratic script by cancelling content providers helps fill in the blanks.
PayPal could punish people for “climate denialism,” asserting the biological science behind conception, and pregnancy; or using terms such as man, woman, mother, and father – terms considered heretical, and harmful by the jackboot LGBTQAAI+ who see heterosexuals as an oppressor class.
The policy could also be used to punish people for voting a certain way, or for supporting the biologically backed Biblical – man for woman, woman for man – mandate against homosexuality, and view of marriage.
PayPal’s “protections” would privilege the Black Lives Matter Inc., Islam, LGBTQ+, Democrat, COVID cultists, and pro-abortion, protected political classes.
With the Biden administration’s weaponization of the Department of Justice against pro-lifers and political opponents, it’s not a stretch to suggest PayPal’s power grab would lead to persecution.
This appeared to be the sentiment of PayPal’s former COO, David Sacks, whose only response to PayPal fining people for wrong-think, was ‘Get your money out of PayPal right now.’
A sentiment echoed by FCC General Counsel, Brendan Carr, who, on Twitter, called the “misinformation” fine ‘Orwellian,’ adding:
“PayPal reserves the right to take your money if you post a message that PayPal decides is “misinformation.” This is why it is so vital that state and federal legislatures pass laws that prohibit discrimination by tech companies and protect free speech.”
As for whether or not this kind of discrimination is currently legal, Aaron Terr, from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), told the Daily Wire, ‘Under existing law, PayPal has the ability as a private company to implement this type of viewpoint-discriminatory policy.’
Terr supplemented this, stating:
“Whatever motivation PayPal has for establishing these vague new categories of prohibited expression, they will almost certainly have a severe chilling effect on users’ speech. As is often the case with ill-defined and viewpoint-discriminatory speech codes, those with unpopular or minority viewpoints will likely bear the brunt of these restrictions.”
Refuting calls for Conservatives to rage quit PayPal, The Spectator’s Alexandra Marshall asserted, the only victims of a mass conservative boycott of the platform would be ‘independent conservative writers and creatives.’
Instead, Marshall argued, ‘attention should be focused on (especially those commentators lucky enough to have TV, radio, and legacy print access) pressuring the government to rope online payment gateways into similar legislation as the banks.’
Taking Marshall’s sober-minded caveat for freelancers into account, the backlash is justified.
A great PayPal exodus of high-profile users would send a fiery free market, “hell, no,” to technocrats with a penchant for totalitarianism.
