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Is Mastercard required to do business with the Bernie Sanders campaign, even though his stated policy goals might harm their business?
by SuoDuanDao 7y ago
Is Mastercard required to do business with the Bernie Sanders campaign, even though his stated policy goals might harm their business?
- ceejayoz 7y agoWhy would Mastercard be required to do business with the Sanders campaign?
- SuoDuanDao 7y agoLarge corporations hamstringing reformist politicians rubs some people the wrong way. The major nonhuman players have always participated in politics, but when they prevent others from participating in politics it's seen as another line being crossed.
- ceejayoz 7y agoYou're describing a PR issue, not a legal one. Twitter has those, too, like having to carve out an exemption in the rules for Trump's account, or accusations of bias that lead to Congressional hearings.
- SuoDuanDao 7y agoI guess I should have written "Should Mastercard be required..." Typically these debates are about what should be allowed under the law rather than what's actually allowed under the law today.
- hacknat 7y agoFunny. Yeah, they're not. Political ideology is not a protected class in US law.
- root_axis 7y agoedit: What I wrote here is wrong. It was not confirmed it was only a narrow ruling. And as the courts have recently confirmed, even protected classes cannot compel a business into speech that contradicts their own sincerely held moral and ethical beliefs.
- ceejayoz 7y agoSCOTUS hasn't actually decided on that. The Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling was a narrow one, ruling that Colorado's process explicitly discriminated against the bakers - it showed forbidden anti-religious animus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colorado_Civil_Rights_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora... > In a 7-2 decision, the Court ruled on narrow grounds that the Commission did not employ religious neutrality, violating Masterpiece owner Jack Phillips' rights to free exercise, and reversed the Commission's decision. The Court did not rule on the broader intersection of anti-discrimination laws, free exercise of religion, and freedom of speech, due to the complications of the Commission's lack of religious neutrality. It'll probably be a few more years before we get a better test case for the issue that the Court can't as easily dodge.
- root_axis 7y agoYou are correct. I'll edit my comment.
- LanceH 7y agoSometimes it is. Unsolicited phone calls and mailings for instance.
- moate 7y agoNo they're not. I'm pretty sure, based on comments below, that they're legally allowed to not allow their platform to be used to process payments for thing they don't want. The same way a business can state "Cash Only" in the US. This would be terrible optics, and when you broker in money/payments and not thoughts/words, you're probably hamstringing yourself relative to your competition who don't care. But what does this have to do with the price of tea in China?
- tremon 7y agoThey probably are. If someone uses a Mastercard to donate to the Bernie Sanders campaign, they are not allowed to refuse the transaction.