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PayPal has a right to refuse to do business with anyone, and does so on a very frequent basis. Indeed as any of us do. Wikileaks can write their own payment sy
by brc 16y ago
PayPal has a right to refuse to do business with anyone, and does so on a very frequent basis. Indeed as any of us do. Wikileaks can write their own payment system.
Messing with PayPal messes with a lot of small businesses that make their money through the internet.
It's a stupid move because anyone who was in the 'undecided' category with anonymous, and relies on things like PayPal, is now in the 'against' category.
PayPal is already back up and running. And Anonymous just lost a lot of support, as evidenced by this page. That's an own-goal in my book.
These type of actions are also very likely to backfire. PayPal is not going to change it's policy, neither is Visa or Mastercard. If anything, it will harden their opinions.
If you want to do something about free-speech then there are much better ways of going about it than this.
- drgath 16y agoI think you over-estimate how much people within Anon actually care about public perception of the group's activities. As long as they are making headlines, that is all they care about. It's like the kid in high school who you could dare to eat anything for $1. The more he does it, the more attention he gets, the more he is motivated to do it. The more the press covers their activities, the more exposure they get, the more people join their IRC server, the more people download LOIC, which all turns into the more damage they can do. Repeat. Look at the highest rated comment on this page, it contains a direct link to how people can get involved.
- brc 16y agoYes, you're right. I guess in reality it's more like bullying and retribution than an organised protest movement with specfic aims. That would explain seemingly senseless moves like this, the aim is primarily attention rather than actually helping Wikileaks/Assange out.