23 ms·

Credit-card firms are becoming reluctant regulators of the web

• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• h0nd 5y ago
  I am glad this finally gets some mainstream attention. This unfair, arbitrary situation has been a thorn in my flesh for a while. Respectively, I have been avoiding using the cards of VISA and MasterCard. There are very little alternatives. Maybe crypto?
• epicureanideal 5y ago
  Reluctant? Really? Citation needed.
  • toyg 5y ago
    My thoughts exactly. They might be reluctant to show they have so much power, but they're definitely not reluctant to wield it.
    • rektide 5y ago
      They're reluctant to take on risk, but that doesn't mean they want to have to suss out what's safe for them to transact & what isn't. I'm sure they've had to grow headcount to tackle this expanding question, and they certainly don't consider it as driving up business value: it's a growing overhead to avoid risk, without cutting off too much business, and without becoming too visible/noteable for refusing service. None of these activities are in any way a win.
      • toyg 5y ago
        > that doesn't mean they want to have to suss out what's safe for them to transact There is nothing "unsafe" about handling money for journalist outfits, yet they still police the space - and very arbitrarily too.
  • MattGaiser 5y ago
    Reluctant because they aren't taking the initiative on these things. Some lawmakers or activist groups created a lot of pressure and they bowed to it. I don't think they want to be dealing with any of this as it is costly (compliance staff and lost revenue) and fraught with political peril. But when the alternative is press releases arguing that Visa is helping aid sexual exploitation, they are going to choose to wash their hands of the market segment.
  • koheripbal 5y ago
    Because enforcing regulations is expensive. They'd rather just take the revenues.
  • manquer 5y ago
    Simple economics is main reason. Regulating is expensive and they are not being paid for it. It Same reason why online social media would do as little content moderation as they can get away with . Jon Oliver did a great piece yesterday on the state of non English content moderation on popular social media like YouTube and Facebook : the numbers he gave were 90% users can be non English but only 13% of the moderators deployed for other languages . The real sad part is most of the content moderators for these companies all come from developing countries like India and already know a lot of other languages better than they do English. They only care so far as to make users and regulators think they doing enough.
• aomobile 5y ago
  Can’t read the whole article however, from what is mentioned in the visible part, I find it a bit strange that free speech and monetary transactions, aka earning money with said free speech, is something that should be protected by law somehow.
  • foxfluff 5y ago
    How about covering the costs? Is it free speech if it's only for those who can afford it?
• ArtTimeInvestor 5y ago
  The Lightning Network might or might not lead to a widely used open payment network. I would love to hear more from people who already use it. How well does it work? As far as I know, El Salvador is currently trying to shift their whole economy to Bitcoin. Handling day to day payments via Lightning. Is anybody from HN there? How practical is it for non tech people to use it for their daily payments?
  • lawn 5y ago
    Very poorly. The only way it's usable is by relying on third parties, at which point you might as well use standard services. Or even actual cryptocurrencies for that matter.
    • ArtTimeInvestor 5y ago
      Which third parties do you mean?
      • Semaphor 5y ago
        My understanding of lightning is, that unless you run your own node (which requires a lot of funds and needs to be online 24/7), you are using a third-party node for these payments. The positive would be, that there are (I presume, don’t know) far more nodes/services available to choose from than there are credit-card firms. This is just what I remember from reading into lightning a few months ago.
        • ArtTimeInvestor 5y ago
          I'm in a similar, semi educated situation as you are. But my interpretation of what I have read so far is different: As far as I understand it: When a channel you have open is closed by the other side of the channel your wallet needs to know this within a certain time (24 hours? Can't remember). So to avoid having to read the blockchain updates once a day, you would subscribe to some service that tells you when one of your channels is closed. I also think you only have to do that if you distrust the other side of the channel. If you select a channel partner (a friend, a well known institution, a bank?) and only keep a small amount in that channel, I think you can just trust them and not sign up for any "watchtower" to watch if they try to cheat on you. PS: Looking up the growth of the Bitcoin blockhain it seems that even if you do the watching yourself, that would only mean to read less than 1MB per day? Here is the data: https://www.blockchain.com/charts/blocks-size https://www.blockchain.com/charts/blocks-size
• ur-whale 5y ago
  https://archive.vn/CC0Ez https://archive.vn/CC0Ez
• Isinlor 5y ago
  I would want to see regulations where banks are explicitly forbidden from blocking legal transactions. If it's legal then banks should have no choice but to handle it.
  • HWR_14 5y ago
    The issue there is when it comes to likely fraudulent transactions. Like, a bank shouldn't have to give you 10MM in US currency because you hand them a "totally real check from Bill Gates" that looks like it was printed off a laserjet printer. But, they do make laserjet printed checks and maybe Gates uses them for the lulz. All transactions have some likelihood of fraud, so it's a fuzzy line.
  • croes 5y ago
    The banks of the power and lobbyists to make certain things illegal.
  • AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    The biggest problem with this is that we already have regulations than punish banks for processing illegal transactions. If you don't want that, and you want the banks not to refuse any legal transactions, that's easy. They then don't refuse to process any transactions at all. If you do want them to refuse illegal transactions, and they're allowed to refuse legal transactions, that makes it easy for the bank because then they just refuse anything marginal even if it's totally legitimate. This is what we have now. It's not a problem for the bank but it's a big problem for the people getting unjustly locked out. Expecting the bank to process no illegal transactions and all legal transactions is an impossible burden, because nobody actually knows what that means. The meaning of a lot of laws isn't even settled until they get litigated in court and set a precedent. It would require the bank to be infallible, and know everything about everybody's business, because a mistake in either direction would incur penalties. So which one do you want? (The first one actually looks pretty good when you consider the alternatives. Let the police be the police and the bank be the bank.)
    • sverhagen 5y ago
• throwawaysea 5y ago
  Payments should be treated like a public utility services, so that they cannot deny customers or uses that are legal. It is a bad idea to let any private service that is so widespread and fundamental to function as a proxy regulator of speech. This problem was very apparent when Wikileaks faced a payment blockade a decade back (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2012/07/18/wikileaks-breaks-banking-blockade-dares-us-companies-block-again https://www.commondreams.org/news/2012/07/18/wikileaks-break...). We are overdue to reign in Visa and MasterCard, just as we are with giant social media common carriers.
  • vineyardmike 5y ago
    > they cannot deny customers or uses that are legal What about services that are maybe-legal? As I understand, a lot of the sex-related industry (porn, etc) have some issues related to revenge porn, consent, exploitation, etc. Its hard for the payment processor to trust that every transaction is legal. Especially when occasional illegal content slips in.
    • foxfluff 5y ago
      It shouldn't be their job, and blanket bans on specific subjects because "someone may do something illegal" is prejudice with a lot of collateral. If someone is doing something illegal, it should be the authorities job to deal with it.
  • shartacct 5y ago
    No they shouldn't. There are high-risk payment processors that will serve foreign intelligence operations like wikileaks, fascist political donation services, fraud-heavy industries like fiat to crypto onramps and socially regressive businesses like porn. There's no need to regulate low-risk payment processors as the industry is not monopolized in any way and it's trivial to find one that will take your money.
• rektide 5y ago
  Weird to me how misdirected the mass outrage against tech censorship feels, given that it's really the payment processors doing the most to stigmatize & make untenable any form of speech & commerce they consider risky.
  • matheusmoreira 5y ago
    Google and other advertisers are also part of the problem. They set policies on what is and isn't acceptable for sites with ads they serve. Sites will literally censor themselves out of fear Google will pull their ads.
  • MattGaiser 5y ago
    Payment processors are doing it in response to mass outrage, particularly about revenge porn.
    • concordDance 5y ago
      Really? I thought they just had rather conservative people on their board.
      • drak0n1c 5y ago
        Probably not, as they are now blocking payments and bank accounts for some conservative sites and public figures.
• matheusmoreira 5y ago
  What do you mean, "are becoming"? They have always been. If the payment processors don't want to be associated with a service, they'll refuse to handle payments and then there's simply no way for the service providers to get paid. See wikileaks and other "problematic" sites. Advertisers are also regulators. I've seen sites start heavily censoring themselves because someone complained to Google and they pulled the ads. Stuff like this ruins the web.
  • White_Wolf 5y ago
    In a world where cash is starting to dissapear, payment processors and banking in general should be regulated and treated just like some sort of utility company (Ex: Water, electricity). Advertising is a different beast altogether. Being able to to exchanges (money for goods, etc) is something quite a basic right(If I can call it that). That doesn't apply to making money though. I don't think it's normal in any way to force anyone to conduct business with someone they don't want to unless is a basic necessity in that particular day and age.
    • dotancohen 5y ago
      I'm not a fan of digital currencies, but this is one of their shining points.
    • lotsofpulp 5y ago
      It is supposedly coming, albeit decades late: https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow
    • mcherm 5y ago
      > In a world where cash is starting to dissapear, payment processors and banking in general should be regulated and treated just like some sort of utility company I'm not sure if you are missing contacts or providing irony. But the fact is payment processors and banking in general is extremely heavily regulated. A few years ago when you saw almost all banks and payment companies starting to crack down on spending money to buy and sell cryptocurrency, that was to no small extent because federal regulators gave them a little side-eye about the subject. No specific regulations, to be clear, but a few pointed questions. When every means of sending money overseas demands clear documentation of your identity, That's not so much because banks feel the need to know every detail of your business; it is strictly mandated by federal law. And while my examples all involve US banking, most governments around the world are similarly strict.
• streamofdigits 5y ago
  Everybody wants to become a "reluctant regulator of the web" if it means them getting a cut of all economic activity (as the new tax man) without any liability Let us not be naive. The decades long preference for oligopolistic rather than competitive markets is what created behemoths (both new and old) and now the only question is who of them is going to be granted the keys to the digital kingdom by fiat.
  • webspinner 5y ago
    They aren't so reluctant. I think they get off on the power of doing this, but that's just me.
• kmfrk 5y ago
  More than ten years ago since Visa, Mastercard etc blocked access to WikiLeaks: https://wikileaks.org/Banking-Blockade.html https://wikileaks.org/Banking-Blockade.html. I guess they started blocking things The Economist care about.
  • koheripbal 5y ago
    That was not optional. The gov't forced them.
  • BiteCode_dev 5y ago
    Yeah, and didn't seem reluctant at all at the time.
    • ews 5y ago
      they just shrugged back then "But calibrating that response raises questions of principle, practice and priority. Businesses will go their own way. Some, such as PayPal, Visa and MasterCard, which handled donations to WikiLeaks, and Amazon, which provided web-hosting services, have dumped it as a customer in response to American outrage. More may follow. They risk attacks from its fans, just as those that refuse face hostility from their customers in America. Too bad: business is full of hard choices." https://www.economist.com/leaders/2010/12/09/the-right-reaction https://www.economist.com/leaders/2010/12/09/the-right-react...
    • busymom0 5y ago
      Every single time there’s a HN discussion about censorship and I comment about how we shouldn’t be okay with censorship of anyone regardless of how offensive they might be or whether or not it’s some private corporation and usually it gets downvoted. When the wind starts blowing the opposite direction, only then do people wake up.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • shapefrog 5y ago
• mickjagger 5y ago
  Is there anyone at all who doesn’t feel extremely uncomfortable with this development?
  • tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    I'm more uncomfortable with the fact that Visa and MasterCard have a duopoly around most of the world. Without that most of these questions would become irrelevant because there would always be an alternative.
• oleganza 5y ago
  Since HN generally does not like mentions of Bitcoin, here are some stats. Bitcoin was launched 12 years ago, reached $1'000'000'000'000 monetization this year (>1.5x larger than IMF), exploded interest and funding for cryptography and p2p networking over the past 6-8 years, and is marching towards reaching monetization of gold ($11T). Lightning network runs over 3 years already and growing its capacity exponentially, offering truly "digital cash" capability: no trusted third parties and instant transactions. Yes, Bitcoin is volatile and it will remain so until it saturates the market like gold did, and every person has as much bitcoin as they want to carry, relative to other assets.
  • tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    >and every person has as much bitcoin as they want to carry People never have enough, they can never be satisfied if there is someone else who might have more than them.
    • oleganza 5y ago
      I mean, relative to other other assets in your own portfolio. You can always switch between 1%, 10% and 100%, however you like at any point in time. As of Bitcoin, there are plenty of people who have 0% and haven't come about to increase it to X%. If you want to maximize your $$$ _compared to others_, that's up for your enterprising skills, and nothing to do with bitcoin monetization progress.
  • pornel 5y ago
    Now do stats about energy usage!
    • oleganza 5y ago
      Sorry, that's a purely political take, nothing to do with economics or technology. Everyone is using energy to do the things they want to do. Notice that Bitcoin is somehow specially demonized, but vacation travels or Li-Ion battery production is not. (Although, travels are largerly banned, so there's some progress there.) I'm pretty sure even if everyone transitioned to "renewable energy" (also largely ideological concept), it would still be useful to demonize Bitcoin for using too much energy, like it's not good to "hoard" money. The reason for that is that Bitcoin is the hardest money there has ever been, so people are fighting to accumulate as much of it as possible before everyone else.
• braddeicide 5y ago
  Seriously this is a topic from the absolute start of commercial activity appearing on the web.
• mildmotive 5y ago
  There was this case where Pornhub hosted a lot of rape footage of teenagers[1]. Victims came forward, they testified of their abuse and said that they tried very hard to remove videos involving their sexual assault from the platform. They were however unable to successfully do so because not only were Pornhub careless and unresponsive, the videos would shortly after being removed (if they ever were) resurface on the same platform. A petition was launched and signed by circa 2 million people (including myself). Pornhub was brought to court[2] and found themselves forced to remove any material that they could not verify was consensual. Millions of videos ended up getting purged[3]. Visa refused to handle payments from them as a result of what had happened[4]. What Pornhub and by extension its mother company MindGeek has done is obviously beyond despicable. After myself knowing the context of some of the services that these payment processors have refused to work with (particularly in the “adult” industry), I would never call what they are doing censorship. I’m instead happy that someone with authority is stepping up. Could this authority be abused? Sure. Is the aforementioned an example of abuse of authority? Absolutely not. It’s an example of when people in authority are doing their job. I don’t want to see anyone’s mother, sister or daughter getting raped and have their rape being filmed for the sexual gratification of millions of viewers online. Seeing Visa and others do the right thing in this case is a breath of fresh air. [1] https://traffickinghubpetition.com/ https://traffickinghubpetition.com/ [2] https://youtube.com/watch?v=b4auDHtorGM https://youtube.com/watch?v=b4auDHtorGM [3] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/12/pornhub-purges-all-unverified-user-uploads-in-wake-of-abuse-allegations/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/12/pornhub-purges-a... [4] https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/14/business/mastercard-visa-discover-pornhub/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/14/business/mastercard-visa-...
  • zpeti 5y ago
    Don't forget that in this case 2 million people signed a petition saying what's happening on the platform is non consensual, AND they got taken to court and lost. That is the legal system working. Taking payments away for someone who has lost in the legal system, on the censorship scale is probably more acceptable even to someone who's very pro free speech. It's another thing when visa and mastercard ban forums or subscriptions for people who are voicing their personal political opinions. That becomes a slippery slope very quickly. What court or jurisdiction or due process to visa and mastercard have to decide what is acceptable or not? Is being anti immigration acceptable, or is that racist? What about anti illegal immigration? What about feminists worried about trans rights? What about covid vaccinations? Youtube has blanket banned pro and anti vaccination content. Should mastercard follow? What about anti climate change discussion? What about anti green tax discussion, does that count as anti climate change? We are on this slippery slope already IMO. And it's not looking very good good for free speech.
• curtisblaine 5y ago
  I always thought that cryptocurrencies and the whole circuit around them are "useful" in the sense that they provide an alternative to the Mastercard / VISA duopoly - see all the "free speech" platform that were refused by CC circuits and at the moment are alive only thanks to crypto payments. Obviously, a day will come when the biggest processors (ie Coinbase) will be forced to not accept certain clients / transactions, effectively destroying in practice the possibility of exchanging cryptocurrencies with dollars.
  • TacticalCoder 5y ago
    > Obviously, a day will come when the biggest processors (ie Coinbase) will be forced to not accept certain clients / transactions, effectively destroying in practice the possibility of exchanging cryptocurrencies with dollars. This would only prevent that possibility for the affected clients and only on Coinbase. By the way Coinbase already has the possibility to blacklist any USDC address it is required to do so by law enforcement. (USDC being a stable coins basically worth 1:1 with USD at this point). And that is because the smart contract governing USDC can have its list of blacklisted addresses updated at any moment. So in a way the day you're talking about is already there.
    • curtisblaine 5y ago
      > By the way Coinbase already has the possibility to blacklist any USDC address it is required to do so by law enforcement > So in a way the day you're talking about is already there In a way, yes. But there's a difference between "being required to do so by law enforcement" and "doing it preemptively". And obviously, there are many exchanges other than Coinbase. The point is, I'm not even a crypto fan, but everytime someone comes up with the "how are crypto useful?" question, I can't help thinking "at the moment, they're the only alternative to VISA / MC for payments".
  • dogman144 5y ago
    Agreed. The relevant point, to me, has always been that CCs never needed to work perfectly for the payment use case, they just had to work well enough to be a viable alternative (warts and all). The fact that some of them do fill this role and have since their creation, namely bitcoin, is what makes me pay attention to the space.
• traveler01 5y ago
  They're basically commiting suicide at this point. With them blocking all that kind of stuff, people will start looking another way (you know).
  • realmod 5y ago
    And this "other way" won't be cryptocurrency. Countries are and will continue to push for e-currency. It is simply too much power and granular control to give up.
    • traveler01 5y ago
      It's not like they have a choice.
• walterbell 5y ago
  US, UK, Europe and China are exploring CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies), e.g. June '21, https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/bank-of-england-tells-ministers-to-intervene-on-digital-currency-programming/ar-AALhtDP https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/bank-of-england-tells-... > Tom Mutton, a director at the Bank of England, said during a conference on Monday that programming could become a key feature of any future central bank digital currency ... what happens if one of the participants in a transaction puts a restriction on [future use of the money]? ... Sir Jon Cunliffe, a deputy Governor at the Bank, said digital currencies could be programmed for commercial or social purposes ... “You could think of giving your children pocket money, but programming the money so that it couldn’t be used for sweets. There is a whole range of things that money could do, programmable money, which we cannot do with the current technology.” At an IMF meeting last October, Swiss BIS director Carstens commented on CBDCs, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVmKN4DSu3g&t=1451s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVmKN4DSu3g&t=1451s > With cash, we don't know who is using the 100 dollar bill today ... a key difference with CBDC is that the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that determine the expression of that central bank liability .. also we will have the technology to enforce that ... if an advanced economy issues a CBDC, and someone in a 3rd country wants to use it, it will require the consent of the central bank of the residence of that person, therefore the degree of control will be far bigger. Well-intentioned initiatives like Linux Foundation GHP (https://www.goodhealthpass.org/ https://www.goodhealthpass.org/), EU digital health certificate and Apple+Android digital driver's license can all be drafted into the service of CBDC initiatives which require digital identity for digital currency wallets, unifying online and offline policy for programmable "permissions" like carbon/food quotas or other social credits. If western citizens acclimate to "showing papers" for routine daily movement, then real-time policy can be applied to those movements. This could replace fungible currency with "colored credits", with policy attached to both the origin of money and a whitelist of possible destinations, goods or services. PayPal has amended their ToS to include merchant content regulation as a condition of payment processing.
• ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Credit card firms should be just utility providers... Like roads are. You go on a highway, pay your toll, and noone asks you if you're driving to meet your parents, if you're going to get a prostitute or if you're going to buy drugs. Law enforcement should deal with the endpoints, so dealers, brothels, and your moms shitty meatloaf.
  • lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I do not see why credit specifically be a utility. But electronic transfer of money should be, and supposedly will be: https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow
    • Root_Denied 5y ago
      Regulations like OFAC are still going to restrict payments, especially those made internationally or over a certain amount. I'm not saying that the regulatory framework should allow payments to known terrorists or terrorist groups, more pointing out that electronic transfers are never going to be structured like a utility without significant restructuring of banking laws.
  • bduerst 5y ago
    Do you mean Common Carrier laws? Kind of like how FedEx won't care that you're shipping to their competitor, like UPS. This could happen, but it would also mean overhauling some of the finance laws that hold credit card companies accountable.
• nickthemagicman 5y ago
  This is the free market. Using cryptocurrency is also the free market.
• tenebrisalietum 5y ago
  Back in my day, before the Internet, when you might find things of interest in classified ads, you could send a money order. Who's gonna stop that? Now of course this is less secure than using credit card companies/payment processors but I bought so many cassettes and CDs in the 90's from various non-mainstream labels this way.
• dangerface 5y ago
  Reluctant? I don't think that word means what you think it means. Journalism today "What you don't know about the sky could kill you! Journalist uncovered the truth the sky is actually blue!"
• stevespang 5y ago
  financial firms block payments to the individuals on a list which today runs to 1,604 pages. The "Nock list" is 1,604 pages ? Cannabis, online poker, porno ? Sounds more like religious fanatics attempting to exercise control over lifestyles, not taxation concerns. Good thing we have crypto and it's rapidly evolving ease of use . . .
• cletus 5y ago
  I don't think they're that reluctant, honestly. But it goes beyond credit card companies too. It applies to the whole banking system. It will soon be the case where the majority of Americans live in states where recreational cannabis is legal (it was ~1 in 3 last year but NY, NJ and others will push it over). Yet you can't use a credit card to buy cannabis pretty much anywhere AFAIK. Worse, dispensaries have to operate on an all-cash basis because they simply can't get bank accounts. Granted, the legality of cannabis is a grey area since states allow it but the Federal government still maintains it as illegal. I personally don't like the financial system being gatekept for legal activity this way. Whether or not they could is a legal question. It seems though they're happy to appease politicians and "values" voters by virtue signaling on these issues, however. As for sex work, in particular, this one is tricky. While I fully support body autonomy and in an ideal world, sex-for-money and the like should be legal, it's not that simple in reality. Why? Because the sex industry is deeply tied to human trafficking. I have no idea how to solve that problem.
  • jnwatson 5y ago
    The clothing manufacturing industry is also deeply tied to human trafficking, but no one is talking about banning credit card transactions at the Nike store.
    • tantalor 5y ago
      There is no US law against that.
      • Spivak 5y ago
        Yeah, there’s a big difference between “dudes with guns will throw me in prison for this” and “as a company we cannot in good conscience contribute to xxx.” Banks and CC companies by usual standards are staying out of things more than average. If it’s not a risk to their liberty or wallets the financial sector is happy to stand back and watch all sorts of awful things.
        • 5y ago
• yunesj 5y ago
  HN readers are wrong to think this will be fixed when the government creates a CBDC or regulates payment providers like a utility. In addition to the government currently blocking transactions from semi-legal industries that should be legal (cannabis), the government has a history of censoring mail mentioning contraceptives (Comstock Laws) and pressuring banks to cut businesses with legal, undesirable industries (Operation Chokepoint). A few weeks ago, an IRS agent at a service center refused to help me because they didn’t like my clothes. (I was wearing a tank top.) This is inevitable when you create government-backed monopolies.
  • JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > the government currently blocking transactions from semi-legal industries that should be legal (cannabis) What does this refer to?
    • mmastrac 5y ago
      I think that a cursory search for banking and cannabis will reveal the pressure the US government puts on this industry. Banking for cannabis is much easier in canada. You can purchase weed with a Visa no problem.
      • JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > the pressure the US government puts on this industry Sure. But OP mentioned the U.S. government "currently blocking transactions" from cannabis businesses.
        • sojournerc 5y ago
          AFAIK, a bank could lose their FDIC backing (Federal deposit insurance) if they support cannabis transactions.
  • HWR_14 5y ago
    How strange, because your examples don't make sense. Sure, some things should be legal but aren't. It hardly seems surprising that while they are illegal the federal government tries to prevent them. The Comstock Laws applied to all carriers (private or public) and therefore would apply to FedEx or UPS as well. They also were ruled unconstitutional over a hundred years ago. Meanwhile, Operation Chokepoint was something that lasted less than a year before the same administration said it was an overreach and reversed it. It was an error, and between that and congressional oversight got fixed. It sucks, but it should be pointed out that, again, it was government pressure on private entities. Nothing that wouldn't be at least as good under government control. Meanwhile, if an IRS agent refuses to help you because you're wearing a tank top, that seems like something you should escalate. But I will point out many private enterprises (airlines, etc.) have refused to serve people wearing tank tops. To the point of refusing to honor their ticket and screwing up their whole vacation with no recourse. But the only official IRS dress code deals with profane/offensive writings. Tank tops are allowed, even for IRS agents.
• jimbob45 5y ago
  The intuition here is that credit-card firms have to take these precautions in order to protect against excessive chargebacks, right? Would it not be possible to create a new style of transaction that is unable to be charged back but requires account authorization and 3-days forewarning (maybe with small withdrawals first)?
• _fat_santa 5y ago
  I wonder where this will go with the rise of Stablecoins like USDC, USDT and DAI. The traditional argument to this is just "use crypto" but the traditional counterargument is "what if BTC falls off a cliff tomorrow" or similar comments about the volatility of crypto. But now with stablecoins, I wonder how long before all places deemed too unsavory to will just start accepting Tether or another stablecoin. You can already see the govt scrambling to patch their own weakness in this area with their own coin (forgot what it's called). The govt knows they are in the weaker position here because they have virtually zero regulatory authority over stablecoins.
• nullc 5y ago
  The death of due process. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• truthwhisperer 5y ago
  the web initially would have given us access to a myriad of information and therefore ultimate freedom to make our own decisions however it turns out that how sad, the web is going to restrict our freedom. QR codes, biometrics surveillance, payment discriminations and people like #blm who can act on Facebook and other networks.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• jashmenn 5y ago
  If only there was a permissionless way to transfer value and payments across the internet without a gatekeeper
  • programmarchy 5y ago
    If there was, it'd only be used for Ponzi schemes and other criminal activities.
    • manquer 5y ago
      I would modify that statement without only a single gatekeeper. All countries ( ideally democratically elected) should have a say in how that system operates. Having gatekeepers is not inherently bad, having just one who can effectively block anything is problematic.
• webspinner 5y ago
  OK so back in 2012, I donated to a site that was on everyone's bad list at the time. I had my bank flag my account after that. Not only that, but they texted my mother to inform her of the fraud alert/flag. Eventually, I called them and told them to quit it. It took a weekend to clear it all up. this has been going on since November/December 2010, actually.
• chemmail 5y ago
  If only we had another monetary system. That was more...cryptic.