The comparison to the Chinese Communist Party’s social credit system is very apt. My parents left China in search of religious freedom here in America. When I was little, I learned about how America was a bastion of free speech and free expression. I admired the fact that people were allowed to speak without fear of persecution.
Over the past few years, I’ve seen more and more censorship and companies like Paypal promoting authoritarian policies. It's everywhere these days: in academia, in the media, and in tech. I’m glad to see people like Bari fight back on alternative platforms like Substack. I write a Substack myself where I discuss how the new "woke" culture is harming our nation. Cancel culture is the antithesis of the civil liberties many Americans take for granted.
I eagerly await Elon’s creation of a Pay Pal rival. I’ll sign on faster than I did Twitter after his purchase of that warped monstrosity. Who’s to tell me I can’t give money to Canadian truckers if I damn well feel like it?
This is nothing new. 4 years ago my son & I had a nutrition website. PayPal was one of the payment options. Many people used it. All of a sudden PayPal decided that they didn’t like some of our products so they put a 6 month hold on our money. They paid it out in tiny amounts which really hurt our cash flow. There was no one to talk to, there was no appeal, it was just take it & deal with it. It was thousands of dollars. They finally paid it out but it took forever. I would never have anything to do with them again.
99.9% of the time, when someone uses the term "fascist" they don't understand what the word actually means. Mussolini's fascist system was one which merged the public and the private. Yes, public companies were allowed to exist and operate, but only if they followed the party line. If they strayed, a party apparatchik who would sing the proper hymnal would be put in place.
What we have emerging in the western world is a true fascist system, in the real sense of the word, with Paypal just being the most recent, but certainly not the last, iteration on this theme.
This is simply a further extension of a theme I have written about in the past, which is that modern liberalism is an anti-human ideaology.
If our government worked, then I would propose that we should have legislation against PayPal being able to de-bank people. If a Christian baker can be sued for not wanting to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding, then PayPal shouldn't be able to take away your ability to do business.
However, our government does not work. Thank God for Elon Musk.
I never understood the purpose or value of PayPal. You need a credit card to not need to use a credit card. You keep your money at another third party account, and they had arcane rules to follow to allow you to get it. Who needs that? I buy things with my credit cards, and if I sold things, I would insist on payment that way. OK, fine. But frankly, I never knew that PayPal had gone woke. Just as Coke, Disney, MLB, and Netflix got the message, PayPal will cut the crap too if enough of us boycott it and they start losing money. Woke capitalists are still capitalists and they will respond to that kind of protest. Thanks for this “woke up” call.
So much of the media is focused on Twitter, while the real problem is much more pervasive than any single platform. I am so happy to see the true extent of this problem finally coming to light. Two years ago I was censored by the college where I taught, and no one noticed. The little guys are hurt the most because they have no big voice to protect them.
Thanks RUPA! I knew PayPal was shady, but this is next level and I’m closing both my personal and business accounts. As always, keep up the good work and know this, we LOVE you so much up here in Canada and cannot thank-you enough for your fearless reporting of our truckers🙏
“Finally, there’s Dan Schulman—poster child for stakeholder capitalism, who has been CEO since 2014.”
———————————————————
You are inciting violence against Dan Schulman. This is stochastic terrorism. Hold on let me check and see if he’s Jewish. I can accuse you of more things then…….
Am I doing this right?? I’m not a Democrat so I’m not that efficient when it comes to being a manipulative dishonest sack of shit.
Democrats are the worst people on earth. Treat them accordingly.
My husband is dealing with this right now. PayPal will not tell him and his business partners what lead to their suspension, which is down right evil. They have a significant amount of their money locked up for 180 days! They are fortunate enough to manage this receivables issue, but this policy will kill many small businesses. They asked PayPal to refund the original payments to their clients so they could collect another way, and PayPal won’t. It’s almost like a Ponzi scheme! No company should be able to behave this way.
I actually heard from my MP this morning on this very subject.
He was incredibly concerned to learn of PayPal’s decision to shut down certain accounts citing its “Acceptable Use Policy”. It is deeply worrying that a company can so quickly, and without warning, withdraw financial services from users likely reliant on continued funding.
He understands that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury has met with both PayPal and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on this issue. He welcomes that PayPal have stated that they are dedicated to providing safe and affordable financial services to people of all backgrounds with a diversity of views, and are a strong supporter of freedom of expression and open dialogue and, as such, do not seek to be an arbiter of free speech.
The Government has confirmed that the legislative framework in this area remains effective. One such area of regulation is the Payment Services Regulations (2017), which sets out the rules for online payments. There are further protections in the Consumer Rights Act (2015) and Equality Act (2010).
He welcomes that the Government has pledged that the issue of free speech and freedom of expression will be included as part of a review of the regulations in January 2023.
Furthermore, he understands that further legislative protections can be brought about swiftly due to changes which the Financial Services and Markets Bill is bringing in by repealing retained EU law.
Well it happened same thing that happened to other big tech. They got taken over by woke ideologues, that how used them as efficient tools to promote their ideology and punish ostracize everyone else. This has been made possible by Section 230, that was useful in early days of internet, but now has been weaponized to make big tech judge, jury and executioner with 0 accountability.
Sadly, this situation of made possible by failure of Republicans (under Bush/McConnel) that in the past prevented breaking up of large tech companies, since they were always more pro business.
Now the chicken has come home to roost, those same tech companies have become so larege and powerful that they control internet discourse and by one decision can make person effectively disappear. This has been especially used against conservatives on the internet. The moment big tech censored Trump, should have been red flag for every single republican in congress, to start demanding for breaking up big tech and preventing misuse of Section 230.
Sadly, currently only Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton and several others are talking about what needs to be done.
At same time democrats have understood the power of big tech and are actively harnessing its power to support their own regime in power. We had 2 years of rampant misinformation in form of Russiagate, while at same time Hunter Biden Laptop was suppressed actively.
Big Tech needs to be broken up, and section 230 reworked, with out it, Big teck will just get more and more out of contoll.
The first absolute monarch aka modern totalitarian leader was Louis XIV. Do you think he constructed a modern road system throughout France out of the goodness of his heart, because he felt bad for the poor peasants trudging in the mud? Of course not. The populace might have been thankful at first for nice roads… until the Sun King used them to quickly send his representatives and bureaucrats quickly around the country to boss everyone around more effectively! This is history 101, anything that centralizes power is always first sold as making your life better - and then is used to more efficiently control you! It’s happened a million times before, will happen a million times to come, and will continue to shock and surprise the naive fools who thought the prom queen was being nicer to them because she loved their sense of humor…
The comparison to the Chinese Communist Party’s social credit system is very apt. My parents left China in search of religious freedom here in America. When I was little, I learned about how America was a bastion of free speech and free expression. I admired the fact that people were allowed to speak without fear of persecution.
Over the past few years, I’ve seen more and more censorship and companies like Paypal promoting authoritarian policies. It's everywhere these days: in academia, in the media, and in tech. I’m glad to see people like Bari fight back on alternative platforms like Substack. I write a Substack myself where I discuss how the new "woke" culture is harming our nation. Cancel culture is the antithesis of the civil liberties many Americans take for granted.
I eagerly await Elon’s creation of a Pay Pal rival. I’ll sign on faster than I did Twitter after his purchase of that warped monstrosity. Who’s to tell me I can’t give money to Canadian truckers if I damn well feel like it?
This is nothing new. 4 years ago my son & I had a nutrition website. PayPal was one of the payment options. Many people used it. All of a sudden PayPal decided that they didn’t like some of our products so they put a 6 month hold on our money. They paid it out in tiny amounts which really hurt our cash flow. There was no one to talk to, there was no appeal, it was just take it & deal with it. It was thousands of dollars. They finally paid it out but it took forever. I would never have anything to do with them again.
99.9% of the time, when someone uses the term "fascist" they don't understand what the word actually means. Mussolini's fascist system was one which merged the public and the private. Yes, public companies were allowed to exist and operate, but only if they followed the party line. If they strayed, a party apparatchik who would sing the proper hymnal would be put in place.
What we have emerging in the western world is a true fascist system, in the real sense of the word, with Paypal just being the most recent, but certainly not the last, iteration on this theme.
This is simply a further extension of a theme I have written about in the past, which is that modern liberalism is an anti-human ideaology.
https://www.gordoncomstock.com/p/modern-liberalism-is-an-anti-human
If our government worked, then I would propose that we should have legislation against PayPal being able to de-bank people. If a Christian baker can be sued for not wanting to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding, then PayPal shouldn't be able to take away your ability to do business.
However, our government does not work. Thank God for Elon Musk.
I never understood the purpose or value of PayPal. You need a credit card to not need to use a credit card. You keep your money at another third party account, and they had arcane rules to follow to allow you to get it. Who needs that? I buy things with my credit cards, and if I sold things, I would insist on payment that way. OK, fine. But frankly, I never knew that PayPal had gone woke. Just as Coke, Disney, MLB, and Netflix got the message, PayPal will cut the crap too if enough of us boycott it and they start losing money. Woke capitalists are still capitalists and they will respond to that kind of protest. Thanks for this “woke up” call.
I closed my PayPal and Venmo - there are other options.
So much of the media is focused on Twitter, while the real problem is much more pervasive than any single platform. I am so happy to see the true extent of this problem finally coming to light. Two years ago I was censored by the college where I taught, and no one noticed. The little guys are hurt the most because they have no big voice to protect them.
Thanks RUPA! I knew PayPal was shady, but this is next level and I’m closing both my personal and business accounts. As always, keep up the good work and know this, we LOVE you so much up here in Canada and cannot thank-you enough for your fearless reporting of our truckers🙏
“Finally, there’s Dan Schulman—poster child for stakeholder capitalism, who has been CEO since 2014.”
———————————————————
You are inciting violence against Dan Schulman. This is stochastic terrorism. Hold on let me check and see if he’s Jewish. I can accuse you of more things then…….
Am I doing this right?? I’m not a Democrat so I’m not that efficient when it comes to being a manipulative dishonest sack of shit.
Democrats are the worst people on earth. Treat them accordingly.
My husband is dealing with this right now. PayPal will not tell him and his business partners what lead to their suspension, which is down right evil. They have a significant amount of their money locked up for 180 days! They are fortunate enough to manage this receivables issue, but this policy will kill many small businesses. They asked PayPal to refund the original payments to their clients so they could collect another way, and PayPal won’t. It’s almost like a Ponzi scheme! No company should be able to behave this way.
I actually heard from my MP this morning on this very subject.
He was incredibly concerned to learn of PayPal’s decision to shut down certain accounts citing its “Acceptable Use Policy”. It is deeply worrying that a company can so quickly, and without warning, withdraw financial services from users likely reliant on continued funding.
He understands that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury has met with both PayPal and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on this issue. He welcomes that PayPal have stated that they are dedicated to providing safe and affordable financial services to people of all backgrounds with a diversity of views, and are a strong supporter of freedom of expression and open dialogue and, as such, do not seek to be an arbiter of free speech.
The Government has confirmed that the legislative framework in this area remains effective. One such area of regulation is the Payment Services Regulations (2017), which sets out the rules for online payments. There are further protections in the Consumer Rights Act (2015) and Equality Act (2010).
He welcomes that the Government has pledged that the issue of free speech and freedom of expression will be included as part of a review of the regulations in January 2023.
Furthermore, he understands that further legislative protections can be brought about swiftly due to changes which the Financial Services and Markets Bill is bringing in by repealing retained EU law.
FWIW
Well it happened same thing that happened to other big tech. They got taken over by woke ideologues, that how used them as efficient tools to promote their ideology and punish ostracize everyone else. This has been made possible by Section 230, that was useful in early days of internet, but now has been weaponized to make big tech judge, jury and executioner with 0 accountability.
Sadly, this situation of made possible by failure of Republicans (under Bush/McConnel) that in the past prevented breaking up of large tech companies, since they were always more pro business.
Now the chicken has come home to roost, those same tech companies have become so larege and powerful that they control internet discourse and by one decision can make person effectively disappear. This has been especially used against conservatives on the internet. The moment big tech censored Trump, should have been red flag for every single republican in congress, to start demanding for breaking up big tech and preventing misuse of Section 230.
Sadly, currently only Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton and several others are talking about what needs to be done.
At same time democrats have understood the power of big tech and are actively harnessing its power to support their own regime in power. We had 2 years of rampant misinformation in form of Russiagate, while at same time Hunter Biden Laptop was suppressed actively.
Big Tech needs to be broken up, and section 230 reworked, with out it, Big teck will just get more and more out of contoll.
Pay-Pal...how disgusting. A bunch of woke liberal financial terrorist.
Just deleted my PayPal account. Voting with your wallet is one of the best ways a person can make a small influence.
The first absolute monarch aka modern totalitarian leader was Louis XIV. Do you think he constructed a modern road system throughout France out of the goodness of his heart, because he felt bad for the poor peasants trudging in the mud? Of course not. The populace might have been thankful at first for nice roads… until the Sun King used them to quickly send his representatives and bureaucrats quickly around the country to boss everyone around more effectively! This is history 101, anything that centralizes power is always first sold as making your life better - and then is used to more efficiently control you! It’s happened a million times before, will happen a million times to come, and will continue to shock and surprise the naive fools who thought the prom queen was being nicer to them because she loved their sense of humor…