PayPal shuts Free Speech Union account

The American culture wars are infiltrating everything and everywhere. Politics has made its way into every facet of life: banking, entertainment, retail, education, leisure, sports, social media, food, agriculture...everything. It's incredibly toxic and dehumanising.

This is cultural colonialism. No doubt. We are supposed to adopt Liberal American cultural values or be accused of being right wing, fascist, Nazi, or even Christian. Yet over the past week or so some of the same liberal Americans have been happy to lecture us on our/the Queen's colonial heritage. (Not that I am saying this was good, but like everything, more nuanced that some would have us believe.

I don't often agree with Toby Young. I suspect I would dislike him if I were to meet him. I do admire the way he set about founding the West London Free School even if some of the ideas were odd. And, as long as he stays within the law, he has an absolute right to state his views. So much fuss is made of the need for a diversity of people. We also need a diversity of opinion. No one has a monopoly on what is right, and sometimes just through working out why we might disagree with someone, we clarify our own thinking.

Theres an right wing (so called alt-right,) american comic geek. I forget his name, I unsubscribed some ago but he still comes up in my YT feed. He was very outspoken against the prevailing media culture.

He launched an anti-woke super hero comic series. He used Paypal to collect funds and the comic was in huge demand.... He literally made millions of dollars worth on launch. Paypal refused to release over a million dollars worth of funds - effectively seized payments made, which made it very difficult for him to honour the buyers requests and fulfill orders. I don't what the outcome was, but I think he's had to sue. It would appear on the surface at least, that because his well publicised political views were unwelcome, that they attempted to scupper his business. But I caveat that I don't know if it could have been more than that, or some other explanation that I am unaware of.

The American culture wars are infiltrating everything and everywhere. Politics has made its way into every facet of life: banking, entertainment, retail, education, leisure, sports, social media, food, agriculture...everything. It's incredibly toxic and dehumanising.

It kind of shows that doing pile-ons and writing people off is always pretty dumb. There is always more to a person than a quick soundbite tells you. Toby Young being the example here of course!

the Free Speech Union have been incredibly supportive to Gilian Phillips and other much less publicised free speech cases. I've joined as a member ages ago in the hope I never have to use their services. But I'd recommend sending them a donation in solidarity if you can afford it. I too never thought I'd be reliant on TOBY YOUNG!

@Bosky

I live in Mexico so it may not suit you but I changed to Wise and that service takes next to no commission.

Honestly I thought PayPal had decided to cut its own throat with those commissions, so am surprised that people are still using it, let alone the problem of it closing down accounts like that of the Free Speech Union, which would be reason enough to dump it.

It is getting pretty dystopian in how easily the ‘good people’ can close off the bank accounts of ‘bad people’

I was genuinely shocked that Mr Floppy Hair Trudeau did it to people with, I quote, “unacceptable views” and since then, many more have happened.

Andrew Tate is a recent one too having had all his British accounts frozen, and even though I’m not a fan, I just can’t help but feel there’s a strange sinister feeling to all of this.

Please think about joining the Free Speech Union if you can. They are supporting so many people being cancelled around the Trans issue in the work place.
Some of the big names you know but lots of smaller quieter cases you don't hear about.
They are absolutely inundated with requests for support so need people to support them.

From Toby...

"I thought about launching a campaign to get PayPal to restore its services to the three accounts, but then decided I didn’t want to have anything more to do with the wretched company. Even if it did a reverse ferret, what guarantee is there it won’t demonetise us again? No, from now on I will have nothing more to do with PayPal and if you’re a customer of the company I hope you’ll follow suit. (Here is a handy YouTube video explaining how to close your PayPal account.)"

Toby Young's version of events:

dailysceptic.org/2022/09/21/paypal-demonetises-the-daily-sceptic/

Where does it end?

It should be illegal but banks have long been expected to be pre-judicial with closing accounts suspected of money laundering or links with terroris. otherwise they risk falling foul of regulators.

Sounds quite benign but terrible when innocent people get caught up in it even if only for a few weeks while they're investigated.

I've closed my PayPal in protest at this. A pain as I use it a lot but I'll just have to inconvenience myself a bit more.

There was a thread a few days ago on MN about a woman whose bank suddenly closed her account and left her in dire straights.

Aye, here was that thread, full of lots of braniac responses like

plenty people including me have explained why terrorists and terrorist supporters being stripped of access to services doesn't mean the rest of us will be.

and

I dont believe I will be affected by this because, while I have extreme political views, I don't advocate murder or any other crime to make my points.

Maybe it's worth reviving it...

This should be illegal (is it already discrimination on basis of belief?)

Service providers should not be allowed to refuse service unless the customer has been found by a court to be acting illegally

There was a thread a few days ago on MN about a woman whose bank suddenly closed her account and left her in dire straights. Returnedher account balance by cheque but she couldn'tget an account. The woman seemed a nasty piece of work, white nationalist activist or something. There seemed to be little sympathy except from the op, I only glanced at the thread. But it's the trope...first they came for the...

It's worrying and it seems to be a new and effective front.

This gave me the nudge I needed to close my PayPal account - not that they will miss the revenue they get from me. I have tried to close the account on numerous accusations without success. I didn't manage to leave a message explaining my reasons but that was the price for escaping from them. I agree with the previous poster that we don't need global tech firms undermining democracy.

No such luck. I tried to send a follow on message, but apparently "messages are not available. try again later".

Yay lets silence dissent. I use PayPal mainly for buying train tickets as I am too lazy to get my debit card out. I need to be less lazy.

I complained. This was the response. I think it is a standard response as I had not mentioned Colin Wright.

"I certainly understand your concern. Kindly be informed that we are limited in access to engage with any details on the decision taken on closing Free Speech Union and Colin Wright accounts.
Please be advised that we can support you if you have any questions about your PayPal account that we can help with, as we cannot discuss details of other customer's PayPal account due to privacy reasons on the message center."

I will ask them to pass it on to their policy team. It is extraordinary that people in another country can choose to undermine democracy in the UK.

It's a very slippery slope.

The silver lining is that it could not have happened to a better person. Toby Young is irritating, but he is dogged and knows a lot of people.

Not to be facetious, but I never in my life thought I'd be sympathetic towards Toby Young about anything. Now it seems he's doing something all too necessary.

I immediately changed my payments to direct debit when I got the email yesterday. It's extremely scary that paypal can do this.

I was thinking about this with KJK bidding to stand for election. When the Reclaim party set up, they couldn't even get a bank account. I imagine this could be a similar situation for KJK.

All just really worrying.

The silver lining is that it could not have happened to a better person. Toby Young is irritating, but he is dogged and knows a lot of people. He is also a man, which helps. All too often women who put their heads above the parapet are attacked and these attacks ignored, but men normally don't get the same treatment.

It should shine useful sunlight on the unelected new moral arbiters, trying to culturally colonise the world beyond the US.

Poor Donnelan. Two days into the job, and there is a state funeral. DCMS staff must be dead on their feet. Ideally she would be able to give them them time off for a job well done, but she needs to tackle this. Access to free speech is a fundamental issue, and needs to be a major priority.

The Advocate applauds the latest action by venmo and paypal against trans-critical groups and seems to suggest that the punishment hasnt gone far enough.

Of course they do. They'd be less keen if it happened to one of their lobby groups.

The Secretary of State for DCMS is Michelle Donelan, who was previously responsible for Universities so will be familiar with free speech issues. It can be amusing to work out the link between any given Minister and culture, media or sport. Michelle used to do marketing for World Wrestling Entertainment. Hopefully that give her a clear perspective on the risks of having male bodies in female sports.

Less helpfully PayPal is regulated by the FCA who tend to be woker than woke. (One of their Executive Directors is Chair of Stonewall.) Complaints should go to the Financial Ombudsman.

The Advocate applauds the latest action by venmo and paypal against trans-critical groups and seems to suggest that the punishment hasnt gone far enough. They also like Reddit with Challenor, seem to be relying on a transactivist as the gatekeeper.
www.advocate.com/business/2022/9/20/paypal-venmo-ban-gays-against-groomers-anti-trans-hate-group

This is shocking - I hope there is some sort of recourse against PayPal.