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Florida governor to investigate GoFundMe over Canada trucker donations
- tamaharbor 5y ago
- 6510 5y agoWhat is? Using donations for other purposes of your own choosing or the government telling you you cant?
- imwillofficial 5y agoYeah, before you call on a moratorium on downvoting, at least explain your position in a comprehensible way.
- croes 5y agoThere wouldn't be any thing like GoFundme or protesters in a communist country, at least not for a long time. So no, it's not like in communist countries.
- UncleMeat 5y agoCommunist countries famously have private businesses collect and distribute money with little state oversight or control by the people.
- 16012022 5y ago
- malermeister 5y agoI'm pretty sure parent was being sarcastic...
- throwawaysea 5y agoApparently Elon Musk also got involved and called GoFundMe “professional thieves”, because they were going to redirect donations intended for Canadian protesters to other (likely left leaning) causes: https://nypost.com/2022/02/05/elon-musk-gofundme-professional-thieves-for-withholding-10m-from-anti-vax-rally/ https://nypost.com/2022/02/05/elon-musk-gofundme-professiona... He also called out their double standard for claiming to not support protests that aren’t peaceful after they funded so many violent riots and illegal actions like CHAZ back in 2020.
- driverdan 5y agoWhy does anyone care what Elon Musk says about this situation? It has nothing to do with his businesses.
- emerged 5y agoIt probably has nothing do with you or my businesses, yet here we are talking about it.
- pxmpxm 5y agoI would bet a lot of money that the logistics aspect of it is what he's concerned with. Parts from suppliers don't magically show up at Tesla assembly lines.
- tomp 5y agoAllegedly he donated as well, so it has to do with his money.
- baud147258 5y agoPeople can have opinions outside of their jobs and donate money too.
- mc32 5y agoGo fund me deserves all the flak they receive. Redirecting donations intended for one cause to causes of their choosing is fraudulent. If they have an issue with a cause, which should be stipulated in their ToCs up front and not subject to inflight changes, then refund all donors to the best of their ability.
- TulliusCicero 5y agoWhy do people have to request refunds? Shouldn't they able to do that automatically?
- bink 5y agoThe article says they've changed their stance and that's exactly what they're doing.
- NeverFade 5y agoThey "changed their stance" after DeSantis initiated a fraud investigation against them for their original "stance".
- throwaway48375 5y agoThey also received a massive amount of chargebacks precipitating this decision.
- 88j88 5y agothe article says the opposite, that the investigation started after it was announced they would be refunded automatically.
- culi 5y agoDeSantis initiated this after they changed their stance. This is purely a political move. Just go check out patriots.win (the successor to /r/thedonald). They're still completely convinced that GFM took all the money and is giving it to BLM. I'm not even being hyperbolic, check it out DeSantis probably just picked up on the rightwing twitter chatter and is trying to ride the wave
- d0gsg0w00f 5y agoThe original thedonald.win was shut down by legal pressure from the White House. Patriots.win appears to be just the extremists from the old platform.
- s5300 5y agoIs this essentially going to be an investigation in which they find that which has made people butthurt is something they signed away in the terms & conditions they never read? Seems like it. Good on GoFundMe.
- nell 5y agoWho reads t&c? Gofundme exists because people fund campaigns they want to. They can point to their T&C and say hard luck. But they won't exist for long with that response. Existence of any business is not a law of nature. If they mess with their user base, they will cease to exist.
- RHSeeger 5y agoIf you put in big letters "Contribute to <this>" and then, somewhere totally else, in tiny letters amid 15,000 other tiny letters, put "but we may take your money and contribute it to anything we like"... then you are NOT the good guy. You are swindling the user and a lot of people are of the opinion that this is exactly the kind of situation the government should step in on. Alternatively, make the 15,000 tiny letters illegal, and require products to specify in clear, easily understandable language what the user is agreeing to; with the ability to return whatever it is if they do not agree with it.
- betwixthewires 5y agoTerms and conditions aren't bulletproof. Contrary to popular belief (among socialists in particular for some reason), corporations cannot do whatever they want. If something is illegal, no amount of fine print can make it not illegal.
- Natsu 5y agoGoFundMe has already backed away from this new policy and will refund directly, so it's honestly probably moot at this point. But this idea of donating to other charities unless a refund is requested appears to be something novel. As far as I can tell, it's something they came up with, then backed away from, just for this incident specifically.
- jonahlyn 5y ago
- user249 5y ago
- evv555 5y agoYour attempted explanation is wrong. Trump won the rust belt in 2016 because neoliberals sold out the working class and their unions. This behavior by the administration is a half hearted attempt to roll some of that back.
- robertoandred 5y agoYeah, it's totally the Republicans who are pro-union.
- pxmpxm 5y agoThat's your cognitive dissonance speaking; it's a demonstrable fact that Trump took a large part of the blue collar/union electorate in 2016.
- dane-pgp 5y agoBut he wasn't appealing to those voters on the basis of increasing the power of unions against rich business owners. The question is whether those voters wanted other things more than that (and whether Trump managed to deliver those other things to their satisfaction).
- inglor_cz 5y agoFamously, the two main parties switched their roles in the South in the 1960s and 1970s. It may happen with the unions too. Especially with the blue collar private sector unions. I do not expect this change for public sector unions to happen.
- ananonymoususer 5y agoUsing a political office to effect political change is against the law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatch_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatch_Act
- temp8964 5y agoGoFundMe should be political neutral, but it openly turns left. I recommend a long post explaining this phenomenon: https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/why-is-everything-liberal https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/why-is-everything-libe...
- belltaco 5y agoSo many words and nothing about the urban-rural and the religious divide which explain many things. I should have stuck to my rule about stopping reading at 'woke' but I wanted to give it a chance.
- temp8964 5y agoI have no idea why the urban-rural and the religious divide is relevant to the specific topic.
- pstuart 5y agoVaccines didn't used to be political.
- peteradio 5y agoMandates will always be political.
- brokensegue 5y agoAt least in the US lots of vaccines are mandated (of children) and it's not political.
- tomp 5y agoFor diseases that actually hurt children. See this article by Dr Peter Attia (and embedded graph under heading "OBSERVATION 4") about how dangerous COVID is for children (and adults < 35). https://peterattiamd.com/a-follow-up-to-my-article-on-vaccine-mandates/ https://peterattiamd.com/a-follow-up-to-my-article-on-vaccin...
- dangerwill 5y agoIf you send money to fascists be prepared for the money to be intercepted. Simple as that
- ameminator 5y agoAs much as you may dislike "fascists", you don't get to tell other people who they can or cannot send money to.
- malermeister 5y agoOther people sent money to GoFundMe. GoFundMe now has it, and as you said yourself, you don't get to tell them who they can or cannot send it to.
- ameminator 5y agoIf I accept money on behalf of someone else, with the expectation that the cash will be given to that person and I just use the money as I please, this is called fraud. If I set up a monetary relationship between 2 entities and then I interfere with that relationship, this is called tortuous interference with contracts.
- dgabriel 5y agoGoFundMe tells a lot of people who they can or cannot send money to via their platform. First, there are laws around sending money to designated terrorist organizations, then there are restrictions around violence, pornography and sex work, and many more. The giant list can be found here: https://www.gofundme.com/c/terms https://www.gofundme.com/c/terms If you want to mail a check to these truckers, have at it, but GoFundMe is not obligated to collect money on their behalf. Here's another example, but not one Ron Desantis would ever care about - https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200131-gofundme-shuts-us-based-palestinian-groups-account/ https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200131-gofundme-shuts-us...
- peteradio 5y ago
- Mikeb85 5y agoAlso keep in mind that in the backdrop of all this is the fact that our Prime Minister has called the protesters racists and misogynists. Probably inspiring someone who ran over some protesters in Winnipeg. Canadian news and politicians are desperately trying to denounce the protesters while ignoring the fact that Canada has some of the harshest Covid restrictions in the world at the moment, while the US has hardly any and European nations are mostly moving to remove all restrictions.
- gjsman-1000 5y agoEven more stupid: Canadian media and Twitter users saying they are “fringe” because by a poll (totally no incentive to lie on those), 85% of truckers are vaccinated. To which I say: A. I bet more than 15% are unvaccinated because why answer honestly with Canada’s level of restrictions and penalties? B. If it is actually 15%, that’s not fringe, and also that’s low enough that dropping the mandate should be reasonable (see all the countries who dropped restrictions at 75%-80% vaccination).
- peteradio 5y agoIt makes no sense to assume that these guys aren't vaccinated anyway. They aren't against the vaccine, they are against the mandate!
- gruez 5y ago> They aren't against the vaccine, they are against the mandate! It makes no sense, but the amount of people who conflate the two is shockingly high. I guess strawmans are easier to argue against than someone who holds nuanced views. edit: one such example of someone who conflates the two https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30225017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30225017
- ed25519FUUU 5y agoIt doesn’t help that they intentionally conflate the two issues by defining “anti-vaxxer” as anyone who “opposes regulations mandating vaccination”. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anti-vaxxer https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anti-vaxxer
- gdsdfe 5y ago
- dane-pgp 5y agoYou raise an interesting point. Who will end up controlling the self-driving truck fleets, and what will the laws end up saying about how those fleets can be used?
- alea_iacta_est 5y agoAnd the next time the government will want to force you to do something you disagree with, who is gonna fight it, the spineless white collars that we pretty much all have become?
- dang 5y agoCould you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN? You've been doing it repeatedly, and we ban that sort of account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- gdsdfe 5y agoI don't see anything unsubstantive and/or flamebait in that comment, that future will come at some point. And the desire to secure/improve supply chain through automation is something everyone wants! So this is the problem with censorship it's just that you don't like my comment not that there's problems with it.
- dang 5y agoSorry, but by the moderation standard here, that was clearly an unsubstantive comment. This was not a borderline call and doesn't have to do with liking or disliking.
- mercy_dude 5y agoI spent a decent part of my adult life in Canada and I can’t believe what in God’s name is happening to that place. Canada is experiencing a severe housing bubble at the backdrop of Chinese snow washing, wage stagnation is real and middle class is slowly getting wiped out. The only thing keeping the GDP at the level it is is high level of immigration which favours the wealthy in the name of a “point based immigration system”. The ruling liberal party is genuinely out of touch and the PM knows nothing but virtue signaling. The conservatives are also facing a leadership crisis since they lack largely a coordination and single thread holding the party. NDP is a joke and virtually does nothing and the electoral system is almost broken thanks to this three party system (oh and then there is Bloc which I don’t even want to get started on). Trudeau was elected prime minister with less than 33% votes. The whole COVID crisis was used by Trudeau to call a snap election and then they don’t seem to have a plan to embrace the endemic outlook. This whole vax mandates for truckers was such a distraction at the backdrop of inflation and struggling service sector. I keep thinking what are these people thinking? Any decent policy advisors would say now is not the time to do things out of spite against the people who are critical to supply chain.
- Mikeb85 5y agoAs a Canadian, it's been utterly shocking to watch our country crumble in the last few years. This summer I'll be moving away for good. In the last decade I've seen most of my family leave for the US due to the higher incomes. I always kept hope that maybe Canada would get better. It hasn't, it's gotten very bad. The insane level of immigration has eroded away any leverage the working class has. Now you see all that frustration coming out, on both sides of the political spectrum, with each side blaming the other. Housing and necessities are un-affordable for everyone, the divisive rhetoric has turned society against each other. Simply being in Canada is depressing now. I just got back from 2 months in Europe, the difference is shocking.
- DeWilde 5y agoI've been looking to move to Canada (vs moving to US due to more sane social services like healthcare and pension system), is what you are describing present all over Canada or just in some parts of it?
- olliej 5y agoI hate both the protest group and desantis but honestly he’s right. The only reason gofundme (or any org with similar practices) do this is because they know that some people will miss the deadline, and the it becomes pure profit.
- cpncrunch 5y agoDid you not read the article? There is no deadline. All donations are going to be automatically refunded.
- throwawayay02 5y agoAfter GoFundMe's cut of course.
- gnicholas 5y agoReally? My reading was that the donations will be refunded in their entirety. I will say that I find GoFundMe's tactics around fees to be distasteful. It's been a while, but I recall having selected a donation amount and then being asked to pay an extra fee "so the charity doesn't have to bear this burden" or some such thing. Basically they just wanted to increase the donation amount (which increases their fee), and they were using guilt as a tactic.
- culi 5y ago...This is just incorrect.
- wrycoder 5y agoThat was not their original plan. They saw the pushback coming from many fronts.
- cpncrunch 5y agoIndeed, and the article mentions that too.
- 5y ago
- johncena33 5y ago
- dang 5y agoPlease do not add hellish nationalistic flamewar—which is what this comment points straight into—in addition to the ideological flamewar we've already got with this topic. These things are not what HN is for. We want curious conversation here. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30224349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30224349.
- filed 5y ago
- tandymodel100 5y agoSince the vast majority of truckers are not part of this far-right convoy, this would probably work just fine.
- filed 5y ago
- stirfish 5y agoWhen you turn 18, you should start your conservative-only trucking company that only trucks food between rural areas.
- gameswithgo 5y agolefty city here, that is fine.
- seanw444 5y agoThen they'll get the food from the conservative areas. Can't make a point only partially. Gotta suffer before things change.
- culi 5y agoThe Canadian Trucking Alliance stated that most of the participants in the protest had no connection to trucking
- filed 5y ago
- ed25519FUUU 5y agoThe CEO of every major US company is basically the same person. They came from the same background and went to the same schools. They have a stranglehold on the working class of America. They can deplatform you and de-bank you. The working class will have a hard time withdrawing from a society that is designed to keep them in check. Parallel economy likely to pop up.
- gjsman-1000 5y agoConservatives could not deny service for a personalized cake to a gay couple without unbelievable fights that they barely won at SCOTUS, but left-wing companies can deplatform as much as they want from their generic service if they don’t like your politics. I don’t have to be conservative to say it’s extremely hypocritical.
- darawk 5y agoThe difference in political significance between a broadcasting platform and 10 million dollars vs a cake is a little hard to ignore.
- filed 5y ago
- gjsman-1000 5y agoTo be honest, if the left treats their wishes with no respect and calls them racist and misogynist without any foundation, they should be prepared for whatever shit comes their way.
- darawk 5y agoI'm vaccinated and I support everyone getting vaccinated. I do not think mandates are appropriate, though. Nor are they necessary at this point. The truckers are protesting forced vaccinations. I think if someone doesn't want to do their job because their job is forcing them to undergo a medical procedure that they do not want, that seems very legitimate to me. And it also seems like a basic principle of liberal democracies that I thought we had all agreed on quite a while ago. Apparently not anymore.
- filed 5y ago
- vmception 5y agoMost people that use the BLM name and phrase pretty much have never heard of the incorporated BLM organization that lives rent free in conservative's minds. Just something that I've noticed is a bit of a disconnect. People typically are wanting to bring attention into lack of oversight in policing practices, which would benefit all. There is an organization of the same name that has some truly strange and unrelated desires and governance structure. The latter is typically conflated with all the people using the phrase BLM in right wing publications and circles.
- emerged 5y agoI think repeatedly chanting the organizations slogan while burning down cities is what established that unfortunate association.
- vmception 5y agoIn response to the earlier variant of your comment > Is there any point at which those people with reasonable views who aren’t associated with the BLM organization might .. not chant their slogan repeatedly to establish and reenforce that association? Doubt it. Onlookers, skeptics, critics and right wing publications have the choice of being just as nuanced and choose not to, in favor of honing in on the mostly ignorable BLM organization. The people with the BLM bumper stickers and BLM posters in their windows are ignoring followers of right wing publications at this point and also aren't paying attention to the BLM organization of the same name. If you want to know whats happening you have to understand the different way any of this is perceived at all. Its not even opposite, its completely different.
- dang 5y ago"sides with blacks"? "I wonder who this future black female nominee has raped"? That's beyond the pale, you can't do this here, and if you do it again on HN we will ban your main account as well. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30225863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30225863
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tootahe45 5y agoI reported a funeral fundraiser for a criminal gang where i live a few weeks ago to Gofundme. These funerals involve reckless, high speed driving by hundreds of bikies wearing Swastika vests who hurl violence/verbal abuse at people if they happen to get in the way. I provided all this info and they didn't do anything. A reasonable person would think a Gofundme for a group who derive their income from the methamphetamine trade would be higher risk than a bunch of truckies, but then again it didn't raise near $10m usd. This is the kind of thing the gang does during funerals, for reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A30VPyeXVv4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A30VPyeXVv4
- mistercheph 5y agoBehold, the new "Get off my lawn!"
- fbaKsq 5y agoIf you want to see the spokesman of the freedom convoy directly, this is an interview by Dave Rubin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEXy8yrjYqw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEXy8yrjYqw Rubin is Jewish/gay, Dichter is Jewish. But according to Trudeau they are homophobes, racists and white supremacists. The recording is from shortly before the deplatforming, so it not up to date.
- defaultname 5y agoThis sort of discussion never goes well, but using GoFundMe to finance occupations, especially across national borders, is an incredibly dangerous game. If a GoFundMe to harrass and harangue Ron DeSantis -- to effectively sponsor people to park outside his home and blast horns, among other things -- would he be okay with that? How about if Canadians paid millions for people to park on US interstates? Is that okay? This is entirely outside of the mission of GoFundMe. And it's interesting how exactly the same group of people lamenting the paying of bail for BLM protesters are falling in line with rights for this trucker group to harass and occupy Canadian cities.
- tomohawk 5y agoI'm glad the governor is looking into this. Undoubtedly there are FL residents who contributed to this worthy cause via GFM, and then to have GFM suddenly say they're going to redirect the funds? Seems like some sort of fraud to offer a service for one thing and then change it after money has changed hands. GFM obviously realized this was a problem, so changed their minds and is providing automatic refunds. But this sort of fraud can only have a negative impact on the cause people were wanting to fund. But GFM at the very least comes across as partisan, if not hypocritical. If they're going to be a partisan funder, then I'm sure there are other laws they need to comply with which they currently don't.
- PierceJoy 5y agoThe plan presented to GFM by the organizers called for excess funds to be given to charities. How is it fraud for GFM to follow the organizer’s plan? The only thing they refused to do was fund the illegal occupation of downtown Ottawa.
- jtbayly 5y agoTo equate giving all of the funds to other charities and not allowing any of it to be used for its given purpose with giving the rest of the money after its intended purpose has been met is... well, not right. Like, consider a non-profit that you want to support its vision. Most of the money goes to its mission, the rest pays its execs. They decide to use 100% of it for the execs. According to your argument, that's just fine.
- gumby 5y agoA different perspective on the source of funds (ignore the clickbait at the top of the article and search down for “suspect”): https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/02/04/opinion/startling-trump-interference-points-gofundme-convoy-campaign-manipulation https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/02/04/opinion/startlin...
- 88j88 5y agoVery interesting that they are completely refunding all of the donors automatically.
- ratsmack 5y agoI find it strange that people opposing funding the Canada truckers need to resort to a DDOS of GiveSendGo[1]. [1] https://twitter.com/GiveSendGo/status/1489983077912924160 https://twitter.com/GiveSendGo/status/1489983077912924160
- magicjosh 5y agoAnyone have commentary on how cryptocurrencies will step in to this space? Platforms like GoFundMe provide such a thin veneer of value. It's easy for them to overstep their bounds to the point where it's not worth it. If I were a journalist raising funds for a documentary I would be wary of such platforms. (Didn't see this mentioned elsewhere in the thread)
- salawat 5y agoAny cryptocurrency, upon becoming established enough to notice, will be regulated at the point of fiat conversion, or as soon as it gains legal tender status. Cryptocurrency enthusiasm is completely oblivious to the fact that currencies are legitimate because they are recognized as such by what people acknowledge as the authorities. Finance regulation is a wench like that.
- coldcode 5y agoHacker News used to be about things that mattered to programmers and startups, etc. Now we are turning into yet another Reddit scream box. This type of article does not belong here. The comments keep turning into pointless vitriol.
- coryrc 5y agoIt's always like this on the weekend.
- pl0x 5y ago
- dang 5y ago"Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." It's reliably a marker of bad comments and worse threads. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: you've been posting a ton of unsubstantive and flamebait comments lately. Would you please stop that? We ban accounts that keep doing it, for what ought to be obvious reasons. Not liking HN, if that's how you're feeling, is not an ok reason to break the rules here.
- dang 5y agoThat's not accurate. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869.
- msbarnett 5y agoYeah I'm done with this website. The state of these comments is an absolute embarrassment, this is purely just a misinformation flamewar
- the_only_law 5y agoI wouldn’t even care. The internet always is a shot show when it comes to politics. It’s the absolute arrogance of the community, pretending that they’re above this at just about any other time.
- PierceJoy 5y agoThe blatant misinformation is this thread is astounding. If you think this is “just a protest”, you don’t live in Ottawa and have no clue what’s going on If you think vaccines are being forced on anyone, you have no clue what’s going on in Canada. If you think GFM planned to “steal” the money, you clearly have no clue that the organizer’s plan called for excess funds to be given to charities. The comments in this thread read like a typical unhinged Fox News comment section. To see this crap on HN is so disappointing.
- gjsman-1000 5y agoDefine “forced.” Your answer will speak volumes.
- PierceJoy 5y agoYour comment already spoke volumes. Remember when conservatives used to talk about choices having consequences? Funny how they they don’t seem to like that concept when it’s inconvenient for them.
- gjsman-1000 5y agoChoices do have consequences, but that does not mean those consequences are just, or that someone can just say those are the consequences take-it-or-suffer.
- PierceJoy 5y agoLike I said, we've had vaccine and testing requirements for many jobs for decades. No one lost their mind. You are being manipulated by right wing politicians.
- gjsman-1000 5y agoWhat we did in the past does not negate the right for anyone to be skeptical about future inventions and developments. Also, it is very presumptive of you to believe that I must listen to or am swayed by politicians to hold such beliefs.
- tomohawk 5y agoGofundme is in the trust business. You have to have a lot of trust in them or you won't use them. They seem to be pivoting to a strategy that encourages distrust. This is pretty much how a lot of people view gofundme now: https://babylonbee.com/news/gofundme-freezes-funds-for-childs-heart-surgery-after-finding-out-he-supports-trucker-protest https://babylonbee.com/news/gofundme-freezes-funds-for-child... They are a joke.
- culi 5y agoI don't know if that's true. I think the participation of many white nationalists in the trucker movement was a disaster waiting to happen for GFM. Ultimately the police were the ones who told them to take it down and they agreed the threat of violence violated their TOS They followed their standard protocol to offer refunds and then donate any unrefunded money to charities of the choosing of the main organizers. And they've even changed their policy to issue direct refunds instead. I think they're clearly still in the business of trying to maintain their trust
- pessimizer 5y agoI'm completely unsympathetic (or rather hostile) to the protests, but I find it shocking that there's any legal framework under which Gofundme could shut down the page, seize all of the donations, and force people to basically file paperwork to get them back. There's something deeply asymmetrical in the way we treat white-collar crime as opposed to street crime. It's bizarre that they even though they could get away with that in such a high-profile situation; I suppose they thought that they could rely on the hostility of people like me to passively take the side of the woke corporation against normal people.
- culi 5y ago> I find it shocking that there's any legal framework under which Gofundme could shut down the page, seize all of the donations, and force people to basically file paperwork to get them back. There's something deeply asymmetrical in the way we treat white-collar crime as opposed to street crime. I agree that it's fucked up, but the "legal framework" is just the fact that people agreed to the terms and conditions. It's not really shocking, though that doesn't make it right Also, to be clear, the donations that weren't refunded were to go to charities of the choosing of the organizers. It's not just being pocketed
- kube-system 5y agoRefusing to provide a service and giving people a refund is broadly legal in most of the western world for most reasons except for isolated cases like protected classes, etc.
- pseudo0 5y agoGoFundMe's original plan was to force each donor to file a claim for a refund, with the remainder going to unspecified charities instead of the original cause. They amended this to automatic refunds after a massive backlash.
- sreejithr 5y agoWhy exactly should GoFundMe refund the money? How is this different from other fundraisers? I believe in vaccines but I don't understand why GoFundMe can't accept trucker donations.
- culi 5y agoThe difference was likely the threat of GFM getting involved in expensive legal situations since the protests were growing increasingly violent. The Canadian Trucking Alliance itself pointed out that most of the protestors had no connection with trucking. Other investigations found a lot of the participants had ties to white nationalist movements.[0] GFM is in a tricky spot. They prolly realized being hated by ant vaxxers was less of a headache than being accused of helping white nationalists. Their own public announcement simply stated that the cops pressured them to take it down due to reports of violence (which violates their TOS) [0] https://globalnews.ca/news/8543281/covid-trucker-convoy-organizers-hate/ https://globalnews.ca/news/8543281/covid-trucker-convoy-orga...
- m_eiman 5y agoI flagged this, because this is the most toxic ”discussion” I’ve ever seen on HN.
- gjsman-1000 5y agoWas already flagged and the flags were later cleared.
- dang 5y agoHmm. It's certainly bad, but it can and does get so much worse.
- fuckyou776 5y ago
- fuckyou776 5y ago
- dang 5y agoAll: if you're going to post in a thread like this, where the topic is inflammatory, please make sure you're up on the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html — and do one of the following: (1) post thoughtfully and substantively, with respect for the people you disagree with, or (2) don't post. We want curious conversation here.
- vmchale 5y ago
- elipsey 5y agoI must be the only person here who doesn't already know about these trucking protests; I'm having trouble establishing the basic facts of what is in dispute. Who exactly is required to be vaccinated? It seems like the fraction of truckers who engaged in cross-border trucking with the US were subject to a Canadian federal vaccination mandate, which applied to some workers in the transportation sector as well as many federal workers, but this requirement was dropped a couple of weeks ago for cross border trucking.[1] Are the truckers still protesting even though the requirement for cross border truckers to be vaccinated was dropped? Do they have some further demand? Is anyone here able to kindly cite a (non-editorial) journalistic source which summarizes these events? [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canadian-truckers-stay-exempt-covid-19-vaccine-requirements-2022-01-13/ https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canadian-truckers-sta...
- martythemaniak 5y ago
- dragonwriter 5y ago> The organizers have demanded that the government be disbanded by the mechanism (senators and governor general dismissing the PM? wtf?) they made up out of nowhere. In principle, couldn't the Senate force the government into a loss of supply situation triggering mandatory relinquishment of government or advice to the GG to dissolve Parliament? I mean, it wouldn't be immediate, as the timing would be based on the budget cycle, but unless I’m missing something it seems like it would be possible.
- throwaway4aday 5y agoThe requirement was not dropped, I'm surprised Reuters hasn't corrected that article. https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/in-for-a-rough-winter-ottawa-clears-up-confusion-on-trucker-vaccinations-but-shortages-loom https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/in-for-a-rough-winter... https://www.bing.com/search?q=canada+trucker+vaccine+requirements https://www.bing.com/search?q=canada+trucker+vaccine+require...
- beloch 5y agoOne thing most Americans don't understand about Canadian politics how much effort is put into limiting the influence of money. Corporations cannot make political donations in several provinces. Even unions can't contribute in some provinces. Individual donations to political parties are capped. On top of that, political parties have to adhere to campaign spending limits during election periods (although some do circumvent caps using third party PAC's). In Alberta, where the organizer[1] of this GoFundMe is based, campaign spending limits for a provincial election are capped at $2,121,368 for a political party[2]. This GoFundMe just raised five times what an entire political party is allowed to spend during an election in Alberta. Ostensibly, this cash was to be used to pay for gas and motel stays for those involved in the protest, but those truckers were never going to see a tenth of what Lich was given. Lich is a founding member of several Western separatist parties. Those parties, although they do have legitimate grievances that find some sympathy with moderates, take an approach that is wildly unpopular. Namely, separatism. They don't raise much money as a result. It's likely that Lich would have funnelled the remainder of this GoFundMe into support for one or more of the political parties she's affiliated with. What could have happened is that, during the next few elections in Western provinces, we'd have seen a bevy of implausibly well funded PAC's shilling for Wildrose, Maverick, etc.. Their ads would have been similar in quality and quantity to those of the major parties. That could have significantly shifted the polls. What about Lich's goals for the protest itself? As someone who wants to see Canada break up into several smaller nations, it's in her interest to demonstrate how weak and ineffectual the federal government is. What better way to do that than by blockading the capital and several key trade routes at the U.S. border while the federal government dithers and provincial governments do nothing? Keeping money out of politics is a sisyphean task, but it's one most Canadians embrace. When GoFundMe's can raise this much cash in the blink of an eye, we have to recognize that the game has been fundamentally transformed yet again. In this instance, all that stopped a politically transformative amount of cash from flowing into a fringe party's hands was the hesitation of a foreign corporation. I fully expect regulations for political fund-raising through services like GoFundMe are going to be in the works shortly. [1]https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/who-is-tamara-lich-the-spark-that-lit-the-fire https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/who-is-tamara-lich... [2]https://www.elections.ab.ca/finance/expense-limits/ https://www.elections.ab.ca/finance/expense-limits/
- pcdoodle 5y agoKing
- culi 5y agoIf anyone wants to know a little more about what their demands are: > SCGGC will effective as of midnight on this ___, day of ___________, 2021, instruct all levels of the Federal, Provincial, Territorial, and Municipal governments to re-instate all employees in all branches of governments and, not limited to promote the same to the private industry and institutional sectors employees with full lawful employment rights prior to the wrongful and unlawful dismissals that stem from the SARS-CoV-2 (and not limited to SARS-CoV-2 subsequent variations) vaccine passport mandates https://canada-unity.com/mou/ https://canada-unity.com/mou/
- smsm42 5y agoI think GFM did a massive blunder by not declaring that they will immediately refund the donations. I can understand their practical considerations - it probably costs them something to refund, but they should have just eaten the costs. Instead, they made it look like they are seizing the money - which looks very much like breach of trust. If I give you something with the promise that you will bring it to my friend, and you decide you don't like it so you donate it to the charity, I'd be pissed. Yes, I know GFM probably has a 200-page user agreement that makes you confirm your soul and your firstborn belongs to them and you have absolutely no rights whatsoever, but nobody reads that and everybody has expectations how this works, and "we'll seize all the money and send them to a charity" is wildly outside those expectations.
- Khaine 5y agoA relevant blog post from someone in Ottawa about his interactions with the protesters, that adds some context to the protesters https://maybury.ca/the-reformed-physicist/2022/02/03/a-night-with-the-untouchables/ https://maybury.ca/the-reformed-physicist/2022/02/03/a-night...