Politics

By now, everyone has heard that PayPal made a change to their acceptable use policy, allowing them to fine people $2,500 for promoting “misinformation” or “hate.” Although they have since rescinded the change¹, the damage is already done. There has been a mass exodus of people deleting their PayPal accounts. I have minimized my use of PayPal since they started censoring several people and organizations I respect², for the past several years³, including conservatives⁴, people who investigated American political prisoners⁵, the Democratic Party of Hong Kong⁶ and Wikileaks⁷.

I have been weary of PayPal for over a decade. However, even I was unprepared for the brazen changes to their policies, indicating they somehow had the right to punitively fine people for viewpoints that PayPal finds unacceptable. On the heals of the PayPal debacle, JP Morgan Chase informed Kanye West they were terminating his bank accounts; that he would need to transfer his funds and business to another bank by November⁸. This is the same JP Morgan Chase who kept Jeffrey Epstein as a client for five years after he pleaded guilty to sex crime charges, despite warnings from their compliance officer⁹¹⁰.

For years, financial institutions have been weaponizing their services to unbank and unperson, both individuals and organizations, who profess heterodox ideas. Their financial balance sheets are so large, filled by the coffers of taxpayers from the 2008 government bailouts, that they fear no repercussions for their actions.

Gaslighting

When people started canceling their PayPal accounts, many were greeted with a message indicating they had received “misinformation” about “An [Acceptable Use Policy] notice [that] recent went out in error that included incorrect information¹¹“. This is and astonishing level of gaslighting.

No PayPal, it is quite obvious the changes made to those terms didn’t go out by mistake! Instead of taking responsibility for their insane policy change, they lied to their userbase by indicating this change wasn’t intentional. They thought they could sneak in this addendum without anyone noticing. When they were called out on it, they had the audacity to claim it is “misinformation,” and then try and offer people $15 to not close their accounts¹².

The Limits of the Individual

There is only so far people can go by voting with their dollar. I recently bought storage bins at Walmart, after not shopping in their stores for over twelve years. No other local retailers sold what I was looking for at a reasonable price. Even though Walmart trains their employees with racist ideology¹³, I could no longer support Target as they started selling chest binders marketed at transgender teenagers¹⁴¹⁵. It is now impossible to purchase basic merchandise from companies that are not morally bankrupt.

I was too exhausted and defeated to close my Citi account when they mandated their employees take experimental and untested drugs in direct violation of their medical privacy¹⁶, a decision that will be the next to rectify. Switching to a local bank or credit union seems more imperative than ever.

The Final Straw is Still Far Away

There are questions as to whether PayPal’s new acceptable usage policy may have even been legal. In the past, they have closed accounts and refused to disburse the remaining funds⁵, something that even banks do not attempt⁸ due to the stricter regulations around their governance. Still, banks and payment gateways are not treated as utilities, and they are actively escalating the growth of corporate censorship.

New payment gateways are arising. Parallel Economy is one such provider. They addressed a recent press release from the Department of Homeland Security which accused anyone of undermining public trust in government as domestic terrorist¹⁷. Still progress for new services may be slow to scale up, as they’ll have to avoid the mistake Parler made by depending on big tech infrastructure.

We’re a long way from people abandoning their social media accounts, but the PayPal fiasco shows that people are at least willing to delete accounts they forgot existed from a company that has lost all credibility and relevance. However, many will likely keep their Venmo accounts, despite the fact that it’s owned by PayPal and has had massive privacy issues for years¹⁸¹⁹.

Consumers are a long way out from having major providers they can purchase from that are not bound by diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) goals, or environmental social and governance (ESG) ratings. Still, every small action is important in building systems that provide real value; economies that will outpace and crush the growing market of woke ideology. For now we must do what we can, simply to support companies that don’t hate us.