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Why Is PayPal Denying Service to Palestinians?

4 points by CTOSian 5y ago

throwawaysea 5y ago
The better question is why does the law allow PayPal to deny service to anyone? Payments are a basic building block of society. You shouldn’t be able to cut off someone’s ability to freely transact if what they are doing is constitutionally legal - it is that fundamental. Unfortunately we have a small number of oversized companies like PayPal (and Visa and MasterCard and Stripe and so on) that are in a position where they can decide who has freedom (to speak, act, sell, etc) by controlling who has the ability to transact easily. We saw Visa and MasterCard shutdown Wikileaks ten years ago, and now we are seeing PayPal do it to others. Like social media companies, we need to treat payment services (and other financials) as regulated utilities, because they face limited competition due to network effects and because they are such a basic part of modern society. We need bold politicians to update our laws accordingly and enforce it.
raxxorrax 5y ago
For payment processors compliance is important as the penalties are severe and business critical. That leads to a lot of overeagerness to comply with intransparent and complicated rules. So perhaps they are allowed to offer the service but fear they might violate some laws. There are terrorist organisations in Palestine, I think that is out of the question. I don't believe that is an excuse to broadly deny service, but it may be that transaction are hard to check for illegitimate business. But we see that anything remotely controversial is equally penalized by payment processors. I think the danger from cutting people off is vastly greater than unintentionally offering a service to criminals. The article and its language are questionable. Vulnerable group isn't at all applicable or sensible if we talk about all of Palestine.
bradwood 5y ago
Crypto is the answer here. As it is for Visa/MasterCard's refusal to process payments for firms like PornHub. Fuck these assholes - they need to be disrupted out of existence.

4 points by CTOSian 5y ago

The better question is why does the law allow PayPal to deny service to anyone? Payments are a basic building block of society. You shouldn’t be able to cut off someone’s ability to freely transact if what they are doing is constitutionally legal - it is that fundamental. Unfortunately we have a small number of oversized companies like PayPal (and Visa and MasterCard and Stripe and so on) that are in a position where they can decide who has freedom (to speak, act, sell, etc) by controlling who has the ability to transact easily. We saw Visa and MasterCard shutdown Wikileaks ten years ago, and now we are seeing PayPal do it to others. Like social media companies, we need to treat payment services (and other financials) as regulated utilities, because they face limited competition due to network effects and because they are such a basic part of modern society. We need bold politicians to update our laws accordingly and enforce it.

raxxorrax 5y ago

For payment processors compliance is important as the penalties are severe and business critical. That leads to a lot of overeagerness to comply with intransparent and complicated rules. So perhaps they are allowed to offer the service but fear they might violate some laws. There are terrorist organisations in Palestine, I think that is out of the question. I don't believe that is an excuse to broadly deny service, but it may be that transaction are hard to check for illegitimate business. But we see that anything remotely controversial is equally penalized by payment processors. I think the danger from cutting people off is vastly greater than unintentionally offering a service to criminals. The article and its language are questionable. Vulnerable group isn't at all applicable or sensible if we talk about all of Palestine.

bradwood 5y ago

Crypto is the answer here. As it is for Visa/MasterCard's refusal to process payments for firms like PornHub. Fuck these assholes - they need to be disrupted out of existence.