PayPal

September 20, 2022 Longrider Civil Liberties, Consumer Matters, misanthropy, Political 14

PayPal has decided to go after the Free Speech Union. I got the following from the FSU today:

Dear……

I’m writing to you because PayPal, the company that processes your membership payments, has decided to demonetise the Free Speech Union. That is, it has notified us that it is closing our account because we have violated its Acceptable Use Policy and won’t process any more payments. At exactly the same time, PayPal sent an identical notification to my personal account and the account of the Daily Sceptic, the pro-free speech news website I set up. So, all three PayPal accounts have now been shut down.

I contacted a customer service agent to find out how, exactly, all three accounts have violated PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy, but he could throw no light on the matter. I then submitted an appeal about the decisions to close the accounts, asking again how I’d violated the Policy, and they have not been successful. PayPal has still refused to say how the Free Speech Union violated its Policy.

I can only assume the reason for the closure of the accounts is because PayPal disapproves of my efforts to uphold the right to free speech. We already know PayPal doesn’t set any store by free speech because it has closed the accounts of a number of websites and individuals who challenge the prevailing orthodoxy, whether it’s the wisdom of the vaccine mandates, the trans rights agenda or the claim that we’re in the midst of a ‘climate emergency’. As I’m sure you know, the withdrawal of financial services from websites and individuals that challenge the dominant narrative is the latest battlefront in the ongoing war against free speech.

Can I please ask you to update the payment method for your FSU membership? If you click here you will be directed to a page where you can do this by selecting “Change payment” or “Pay”.

I apologise for this inconvenience and hope you will take the trouble to update your payment method. In case you need a reminder of why the FSU is so important, this is it.

Kind regards,

So, there you go, PayPal, if you hadn’t already worked it out, is on the dark side.

14 Comments

  1. I think a comprehensive list of companies that don’t believe in free speech should be published so that we can avoid them if possible. Perhaps all companies could be given a ‘woke score’ between 1 to 20 so we can make a judgement on which ones we hand our money to.

    • I saw that. They are objectively evil. I’ve got a couple of outstanding transactions going through. Once they are done, I’m cancelling my account. I’m not funding the enemy.

  5. Corporations should stick to doing business. They should not get involved with the political affiliations of their customers. In fact they have no reason to even know what political views their customers hold.

    • Exactly. And this is massive overreach by them. I’m inclined to agree with Toby Young, the law needs to use a big stick to remind them to stay in their lane.

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