As we reported previously, payment processing giant PayPal announced a new policy that, according to The Daily Wire, could dock users by up to $2,500 for participating in the spreading of “misinformation.” Per the initial reporting:
A new policy update from PayPal will permit the firm to sanction users who advance purported “misinformation” or present risks to user “wellbeing.”
The financial services company, which has repeatedly deplatformed organizations and individual commentators for their political views, will expand its “existing list of prohibited activities” on November 3. Among the changes are prohibitions on “the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials” that “promote misinformation” or “present a risk to user safety or wellbeing.” Users are also barred from “the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory.”…
…Deliberations will be made at the “sole discretion” of PayPal and may subject the user to “damages” — including the removal of $2,500 “debited directly from your PayPal account.” The company’s user agreement contains a provision in which account holders acknowledge that the figure is “presently a reasonable minimum estimate of PayPal’s actual damages” due to the administrative cost of tracking violations and damage to the company’s reputation.
Not surprisingly, the news of this policy was met with significant consternation and pushback, with many users declaring via social media that they would be closing their accounts.
Now, it seems, PayPal is reversing course.
A spokesman for the company stated:
“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… We’re sorry for the confusion this has caused.”
One is forced to wonder how “language [that] was never intended to be inserted in our policy” nevertheless found its way… into their policy. Certainly, it didn’t materialize out of thin air.
Someone thought it a worthwhile enough idea to draft the language. Just one more indicator of the troubling impulses in much of corporate America when it comes to curtailing speech — or “wrongthink.” As Bonchie rightly notes:
Regardless, it is an egregious attack on the principle of free speech for a payment processor to start fining its users because those users might disagree with the broader left politically. And don’t kid yourself, that’s exactly what this is about. Today’s “misinformation” is tomorrow’s confirmed fact, a dynamic that has played out many times during the COVID pandemic.
The scourage of woke-ness in corporate America is only getting worse, and we can reasonably look at this PayPal move as a test run for far worse sanctions to come. Major banks will be next in line to try this stuff (they already have when it comes to guns). The censorship regime is real, and Democrats have successfully gained influence via crony captialism over the last decade.
The good news is: PayPal has reversed course on this proposed policy change. For now.