PayPal retracts policy to fine customers $2.5K promoting and spreading misinformation after backlash. The plan sought from November 3 onwards, to penalize anyone who posts or publishes information or content that it deemed as promoting misinformation. Questions remain.
Define misinformation? And who exactly gets to decide what constitutes misinformation…?
Financial payment platform, Paypal has reversed course on its policy to fine users $2,500 for spreading what the outlet called misinformation after receiving wide rebuke.
The financial services firm claimed to the National Review the changes to its Acceptable Use Policy were sent out ‘in error.’
‘An AUP notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information,’ the spokesperson said.
‘PayPal is not fining people for misinformation, and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy.
How would the policy have been implemented?
‘Our teams are working to correct our policy pages,’ they noted, adding: ‘We’re sorry for the confusion this has caused.’
It remained unclear on what platforms the financial outlet intended to ‘patrol’ in asserting whether users ‘promoted’ misinformation.
The apparent reversal comes just one day after its former president David Marcus slammed the online payment firm over the implication that it could seize customers’ money for finding their views objectionable.
‘It’s hard for me to openly criticize a company I used to love and gave so much to,’ he tweeted on Saturday. ‘But @PayPal’s new AUP goes against everything I believe in.
‘A private company now gets to decide to take your money if you say something thy disagree with. Insanity.’
Tesla CEO Elon Musk soon replied that he ‘agreed,’ in a tweet that garnered more than 27,400 likes.
The new policy was originally scheduled to be added to the restricting activity section of the new PayPal User Agreement on November 3, Daily Wire reported on Friday.
Define misinformation? Define free speech?
Changes included the prohibition on the ‘sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials’ that ‘promote misinformation.’
What constitutes ‘misinformation,’ the AUP said, would be the ‘sole discretion’ of the company.
And while the original policy already forbade ‘hate, intolerance and discrimination’ the new policy would have added protections for specific ‘protected groups’ and individuals or groups based on protected characteristics’ like race, religion, gender or gender identity and sexual orientation.
The firm’s current rulebook doesn’t list these terms. It’s unclear whether PayPal will also pull back these specific prohibitions on ‘discriminatory’ language, or if it is only scrubbing the ‘misinformation’ clause.
But according to the AUP sent out earlier this week, breaking any of the new rules ‘may subject you to damages, including liquidated damages of $2,500.00 US dollars per violation, which may be debited directly from your PayPal account.’
The company noted that as part of its user agreement, account holders accept and must attest that the penalty is ‘presently a reasonable minimum estimate of PayPal’s actual damages’ due to the expenses the firm incurs by accounting for violations, as well as the damage to its reputation.
Stop using PayPal and look for alternatives. They were ready to steal $2500 of your money on the pretext that you have the wrong opinions. Sick bastards! They only backed down because they got busted. Let’s bust them some more so the lesson really sinks in!
— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) October 9, 2022
Wrong thought activism?
The company also recently banned Gays Against Groomers, a group comprising LGBT individuals that fight against the sexualization and transitioning of minors. The ban came after LGBT advocates labeled the entity a ‘hate group.’
Minutes later, PayPal’s subsidiary Venmo reportedly barred the organization from access. Evolutionary biologist Colin Wright and journalist Ian Miles Cheong, who regularly expose the dangers of transgenderism for minors, have also been removed.
And then there were these reactions on social media below that caught this author’s attention. See what you think?
I have a feeling this was done as an experiment to gauge social reaction. I do not think it would be a stretch at all to assume that the “powers that be”, whom are affiliated with companies like Paypal, actually want to dictate speech and are experimenting with ways to manifest this into reality. They threw this policy against the wall to see if it would stick, and it did not. So now they are falsely claiming it was sent out in “error”. Just like how Twitter and Facebook censor dissident speech in “error” after enough backlash.
This is part of an all out campaign to threaten, intimidate people so they self-censor. No censorship is as effective as self-censorship.
Are they saying that people expressing unpopular opinions personally on their own time in forums not associated with paypal may be fined for expressing those opinions, if the company itself deems those opinions misinformation? I’m not sure how that would possibly be acceptable with the laws of almost all Western countries, and a number of Asian countries. In the U.S. obviously this is obviously invalid. You can’t take somebody’s property just because you don’t like what they’re saying. That would lead to chaos.
Just deleted all my bank and credit card information from PayPal. No need to part of a corrupt and dictatorial organization! Next step is to close the account permanently and take my business elsewhere.
