Essay by Eric Worrall
Paypal stirred a firestorm over an apparent threat to pull money from the accounts of people whose views they don’t like, before apparently backing down.
PayPal Reverses Course, Says Company Will Not Seize Money From People for Promoting ‘Misinformation’
By Zachary Stieber
October 8, 2022 Updated: October 8, 2022PayPal 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.
The company in September announced that it was amending its acceptable use policy, or AUP.
The policy, due to take effect in November, said that users may not use PayPal to for the “sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials that, in PayPal’s sole discretion, (a) are harmful, obscene, harassing, or objectionable, (b) depict or appear to depict nudity, sexual or other intimate activities, (c) depict or promote illegal drug use, (d) depict or promote violence, criminal activity, cruelty, or self-harm (e) depict, promote, or incite hatred or discrimination of protected groups or of individuals or groups based on protected characteristics (e.g. race, religion, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.) (f) present a risk to user safety or wellbeing, (g) are fraudulent, promote misinformation, or are unlawful, (h) infringe the privacy, intellectual property rights, or other proprietary rights of any party, or (i) are otherwise unfit for publication.”
For each violation, PayPal says users are subject to repercussions. Those include “liquated damages” of $2,500 per violation. The money will be taken directly from a person’s PayPal account.
Paypal is widely perceived as a woke, climate alarmist anti-conservative organisation. Shutting down and disrupting the activities of law abiding groups who entered into an agreement with Paypal in good faith is bad enough, but arbitrarily “fining” people for holding views Paypal considers misinformation would be an even more outrageous attack on free speech and liberty.
WUWT will be keeping an eye on this issue. Paypal claim the apparent threat to arbitrarily “fine” people whose views they believe are misinformation was all a big misunderstanding, but frankly I don’t trust them.
via Watts Up With That?
October 11, 2022
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