Commentary
PayPal on October 8 sent out an update to its terms of use, or acceptable use policy (AUP), that included a shocking addition. He reserved the right to confiscate $2,500 from people’s accounts if they spread “misinformation.” It was a clear announcement of what many already suspected: PayPal has signed up to the information war.
This comes weeks after PayPal blocked several prominent accounts in the UK, including Toby Young’s personal account, the Free Speech Union and DailySceptic. These are extremely important places for the English-speaking world in countering the COVID propaganda narrative. It was no accident that they were targeted.
After global outcry and news coverage from alternative sources, PayPal relented and reinstated their accounts without explanation.
In the same way, worldwide protests spread over PayPal’s new policy. Twitter was flooded with notifications from people canceling their accounts.
The next day, PayPal backtracked, claiming that the “disinformation” ban was simply a mistake.
“An AUP notice went wrong recently that included incorrect information,” a spokesperson told The Epoch Times. “PayPal does not fine people for misinformation, and this language was never intended to be included in our policy.”
In other words, PayPal claimed that its disinformation policy was itself disinformation!
It’s very likely that the user outcry itself — and a big selloff in PayPal stock — made the decisive difference. Many people cheered, but in fact, this is extremely disturbing. We cannot live in a world where our fundamental rights, privacy and freedoms are always in the balance and depend on Twitter-based protests to recognize them.
Furthermore, surely PayPal doesn’t expect anyone on the planet to actually believe the claim that this was a “mistake”. There’s just no way. Everyone knows that something as legally and institutionally critical as an acceptable use policy would have to wade through many layers of bureaucracy and compliance lawyers, especially stressing the changes.
This change was so clearly approved at the highest levels. He intended to stay, and PayPal had every intention of preparing the way to confiscate funds from people based on their political allegiances and opinions. That’s really how bad it’s gotten.
I am particularly intrigued by the way The Washington Post reported the story:
“PayPal is facing backlash after proposing rules that would have allowed it to fine users $2,500 for promoting misinformation — which the online payments service has since called wrong.
“Over the weekend, several conservative media outlets reported that the tech company updated its terms of agreement, under which PayPal can impose fines against users for violations, including ‘sending, posting or publishing any message, content or material’ that ‘ PROMOTING[s] misinformation.’
“The update immediately sparked an online uproar on the right, marking the latest example of a major online payment service facing heat over its moderation practices.”
Did you catch it? The Post is careful to point out that the protests were from “conservative” media and that they “sparked an online uproar on the right.”
This is a way of signaling to their readers: It was good policy and they would have given it up but for the meddling children on the right. Just to be clear: The Post never uses the terms conservative or right without meaning misguided, marginalized, dangerous and revocable.
What they say about protests seems empirically correct, but not entirely. Former PayPal president David Marcus has written on Twitter: “It’s hard for me to openly criticize a company I once loved and gave so much to. But @PayPal’s new AUP goes against everything I believe in. A private company now has to decide to take your money if you say something they don’t agree with. Madness.”
Elon Musk liked the tweet.
Then, Brendan Carr, a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, weighed: “Orwellian. Paypal reserves the right to take your money if you post a message that Paypal determines is ‘misinformation’. That’s why it’s so vital that state and federal legislatures pass laws that prohibit discrimination by technology companies and protect free speech.”
We know exactly what Big Tech companies mean by “disinformation.” They imply information that belies the regime’s priorities. It started with COVID and extended to vaccines. It now includes climate change. Indeed, any shred of opinion or evidence that seems to go against the prevailing agenda of the Gates Foundation, the Biden administration, or the World Economic Forum is being systematically discredited by Big Tech. This applies to Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and now PayPal.
The fight for freedom of information is intensifying every day. This small victory over PayPal is sweet, but everyone knows it’s a temporary concession. They didn’t like bad PR messages. Since the policy was published, the company has likely experienced a record number of account cancellations. They changed the policy to stop the bleeding.
In this sense, we have seen what works. At the very least, these people have to obey market signals because they have a client base and have to deal with basic bookkeeping requirements. They must not only satisfy the interests of the government, but also the public in so far as they depend on willing users.
However, the trajectory here is very clear. It is the most frightening step in the ever-increasing tyranny in the world today that your very ability to move money or even earn an income will be officially declared to depend on the opinions you express.
It is next-level despotism that has not yet occurred in any systematic way in the United States. In China, this is institutionalized. The past year has shown us many examples of how the Chinese Communist Party uses digital applications to enable or disable people’s ability to talk, socialize, travel and move money. Compatibility is everything.
To some extent in Canada, this is already happening, as the government seized the bank accounts of protesting truckers and those who supported them with donations.
How important is it that PayPal reversed course? It is not entirely clear. They showed their hand and revealed a much deeper and more frightening plan related to the Biden administration’s intention to create a new central bank digital currency. This will be programmable money, one that would enable a ruling elite to cut off your means of living if they so choose.
It’s all very tragic. PayPal was originally created as a means of gaining financial independence from government-controlled banks. It even hoped to become an independent form of money. All these years later, it has been captured by interests that have quite the opposite ambitions. Indeed, many people out there cheer the prospect.
This is how fierce the political struggle has become in this country. We used to argue. We used to talk. We enjoyed the freedom guaranteed by a constitutional republic. Today, many interest groups—many of them associated, for now, mostly with the left—don’t want to play that game anymore. They want you to be deplatformed, canceled and even deprived of your ability to earn a living or feed your family.
It’s a new era of brutalism, and the technologies that were supposed to prevent it are now being used to usher in and entrench it.
The views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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