A new PayPal policy update appears to allow the company to withdraw a large sum of money from the accounts of users who spread "misinformation."
The new terms will be added to the PayPal User Agreement's restricted activity section on November 3, according to the Daily Wire. Prohibitions on "the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials that promote misinformation" are among the changes. While the previous policy already prohibited "hate," "intolerance," and discrimination, the new one expressly prohibits "hate," "intolerance," and discrimination against specific "protected groups" and "individuals or groups based on protected characteristics." This category includes race, religion, gender or gender identity, and sexual orientation.
According to the soon-to-be-released acceptable use policy, "the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of discriminatory intolerance" would also be considered a violation of the policy and could result in a penalty. The current rulebook of the financial technology firm does not mention these activities.
The company warns that violating the rule against misinformation and hate speech "may subject you to damages, including liquidated damages of $2,500.00 US dollars per violation, which may be debited directly from your PayPal account." Account holders accept and attest in a user agreement that the penalty is "currently a reasonable minimum estimate of PayPal's actual damages" due to the expense incurred by accounting for the violations as well as damage to the firm's reputation
According to Aaron Terr, a senior programme officer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, "under existing law, PayPal has the ability as a private company to implement this type of viewpoint-discriminatory policy." "Whatever motivation PayPal has for creating these ambiguous new categories of prohibited expression, they will almost certainly have a significant chilling effect on users' speech." Those with unpopular or minority viewpoints will likely bear the brunt of these restrictions, as is often the case with ill-defined and viewpoint-discriminatory speech codes."
PayPal was founded by tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who has invested in a number of GOP rising stars and conservative business ventures. Ebay bought the company in 2002 and has run it ever since. PayPal has been known in recent years to censor or deplatform organisations or individuals for certain political commentary, particularly right-wing commentary.
According to the Daily Wire, it recently banned Gays Against Groomers, a group of LGBT-identifying people who claim to draw attention to the sexualization and medicalization of children through gender ideology and the transgender movement. The organisation was reportedly denied access to PayPal's subsidiary Venmo minutes later. Colin Wright, an evolutionary biologist, and journalist Ian Miles Cheong, who regularly highlight the dangers of transgenderism for minors, have also been removed.
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