To ask you to read this cautionary tale of what we're sleepwalking into?

[AspireMe]

unherd.com/2020/10/how-corporations-can-delete-your-existence/

Some people might say she deserved it. Others might disagree.

Some people on here think TWANW. Some corporations might in turn deem that thought as heresy.

Encouraged more and more each day to go digital, paperless and cashless... what are we walking into here?

Here's another one - Co-op bank bans feminist group from using bank - www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5852547/Co-operative-bank-bans-feminist-group-using-services.html

@Natty13 Feminist group banned from using co-op bank - www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5852547/Co-operative-bank-bans-feminist-group-using-services.html

The solution to that issue, and a whole lot of other problems people seem to find themselves in, is to keep your views to yourself unless in an appropriate setting i.e., an anonymous forum where you can't easily be identified or somewhere where your opinion has been invited for discussion.

A huge number of people seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding about what "free speech" actually means.

Freedom of expression gives you the right to hold whatever view or opion you want. It does not give you the right to air those views or opinions without consequence.

This. If they suspect the bank accounts are being used to fund or launder money associated with terrorist activity they are perfectly within their rights to close the accounts. These checks are the reason most terrorists use cryptocurrency to move money as they aren't subject to the same checks.
The rise in white nationalism is absolutely something that should be monitored and policed across multiple
Sectors. We have training on how to identify potential signs of ratification within our student population at my uni.

The Royal Australian Mint make millions of $’s of coins and notes every year. They regularly change the Queens effigy and make different commemorative coins all the time. I imagine the Royal mint is the same. It’s not going to be difficult to put the Kings effigy on new coins.

Freedom of expression gives you the right to hold whatever view or opion you want. It does not give you the right to air those views or opinions without consequence.

No, you're the one misunderstanding. Freedom of speech means precisely that you have the right to express your views and beliefs without consequence.

Yes, you may have to face 'consequences' in terms of disagreement or ridicule, maybe even losing friends, but if there are consequences such as losing your job, your home, your access to money, your freedom etc, then it is a violation of free speech. In that situation, you don't have free speech at all.

So, to give a current example: holding up a stupid banner at the Queen's coffin procession may make people think you're an idiot, and may cause arguments, or cause people to tell you you're a dickhead. All fine. But you shouldn't be arrested for that. You shouldn't face any legal consequences.

You Are Definitely Not Being Unreasonable.

Everyone who thinks it’ll never happen to them because their views are (currently) on the right side of history hasn’t learned any lessons from history.

of course legal action must be taken when laws are being broken, but the line is the law and corporations are not the police.

Basically ctos 2.0,

Freedom of expression gives you the right to hold whatever view or opion you want. It does not give you the right to air those views or opinions without consequence.

Of course it does. What do you think ‘freedom’ means?

If there are consequences it’s not actually freedom!

Crikey. I can’t believe people parrot this stuff.

The criminal offence, would be breaching the peace

But the line isn't the law

It's whatever those organisations want it to be

As is their right

They can work with and provide service to whomever they like and refuse service to those they do not

I know

THAT’S THE PROBLEM!

corporations shouldn’t be able to refuse service to law abiding citizens who believe in something (legal) that doesn’t fit the companies corporate values or who look a bit different.

allowing companies to make these decisions is sleepwalking into a nightmare scenario - like in the Handmaid’s Tale when they subjugate women simply by turning off their bank cards, making them entirely dependent on the men.

suddenly turn into Orwellian nightmare

It's not going to be sudden.

Guarantees of service and freedom are locked into legacy institutions and technologies. Cash, telephones, electricity, roads, public transport.

It's accepted that those can't be revoked.

Any new technology or medium that's arisen since about 2000 does not have those guarantees. Internet, payment apps, car chargers, online shopfronts, Uber.

And as people migrate to those new technologies, the old technologies become more and more cumbersome or less accepted, so in the end you're left relying on technologies with no service guarantee that you can be barred from at any time.

And there are no real moves to extend the basic service guarantees from legacy technologies to new ones. (Contrast to say, copyright, where they endlessly try to extend that to protect companies operating in the first half of the 20th century from ever having anything go public domain).

Basically, freedoms are just expiring due to technological obsolescence, and no-one cares.

I'm increasingly of the view that the only reason you got freedom in the old technologies is that it was just technically too difficult to track and hence block individuals. It was easy to pretend that no authoritarian control was a principle when it was really a technical limitation. Now the technical limitations are lifted, it's clearly hard to resist.

@Natty13 another far more prominent example I should have remembered: Allison Bailey

Crowdfunding site shuts down black lesbian lawyer's campaign on Stonewall anniversary

What is the point of raising funds to engage in a legal fight if those against whom the suit is brought can scare the crowdfunding platform into banning the plaintiff?

They can work with and provide service to whomever they like and refuse service to those they do not

Actually, no, there are a hell of a lot of anti-discrimination laws to stop that sort of thing.

If you are going to provide a service, there are legal limits on how much you are permitted to discriminate between customers.

Discrimination on belief is one of the things that is regulated - as we've been fighting to get properly upheld in recent cases like Maya Forstater's and Allison Bailey's.

I'm increasingly of the view that the only reason you got freedom in the old technologies is that it was just technically too difficult to track and hence block individuals. It was easy to pretend that no authoritarian control was a principle when it was really a technical limitation. Now the technical limitations are lifted, it's clearly hard to resist.

This ^

and loads of people think it will never effect them because they are nice and only do and say things that the people around them agree with but corporations don’t care about how nice you are and they don’t have the same interests as humans.

but corporations don’t like paying taxes, right?

so should Amazon, PayPal, Stripe, and every high street bank be able to cancel the accounts of everyone who has ever tweeted or Facebook posted ‘eat the rich’ ‘tax Starbucks’ or ‘Jeff Bezos is a wanker?’

Because the tech to find absolutely every one of who has ever typed those sorts of things out on a smart phone or said it near an Alexa already exists.

if all the payment processors, owned by corporations black list us, now work can’t pay us because we don’t have a bank account.
And benefits can’t pay us because we don’t have a bank account.

So the only thing standing between us and destitution is the law that says we can’t be discriminated against for religious or political beliefs (and that we have freedom of expression for those beliefs).

And if corporations are allowed to flout that law we’re all at their mercy and we can be fucked over in an instant.

That’s where this ‘Freedom of Expression Doesn’t Mean Freedom from Consequences’ bullshit leads.

(And no, temporarily freezing a bank account while a criminal activity investigation takes place isn’t the same thing as permanent denial of service based on not liking someone’s perfectly legal but currently unfashionable beliefs)

YANBU, but you chose wrong website to talk about it...

You couldn't put it more clearly.
Hopefully there won't one day a poem like this, only available on samizdat:
"when they closed all bank accounts of A / then B / then C ... (and chucked them out of the Web) I said nothing because I can't stand A / nor B / nor C ...

When they closed all of my accounts, no one cared ..."

The actual example in the article is not the point here, and I had never heard of the woman concerned or the organisation she belongs to, but many replies claim the actions of the Bank are related to combating terrorism, and are required by law, or to criminality. The facts as described in the article suggest that these are red herrings.

This is what the government says about freezing assets in relation to "Proscribed terrorist groups or organisations":

Proscribed terrorist groups or organisations

What is a proscribed organisation?
Under the Terrorism Act 2000, the Home Secretary may proscribe an organisation if they believe it is concerned in terrorism, and it is proportionate to do. For the purposes of the Act, this means that the organisation:

• commits or participates in acts of terrorism
• prepares for terrorism
• promotes or encourages terrorism (including the unlawful glorification of terrorism)
• is otherwise concerned in terrorism

www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror-groups-or-organisations--2/proscribed-terrorist-groups-or-organisations-accessible-version#proscription-criteria

Asset freezing
There are also domestic and international financial asset freezing sanctions regimes that involve the listing of terrorist organisations and individuals. The current consolidated list of asset freeze targets designated by the United Nations, European Union and United Kingdom, under current financial sanctions regimes is available on GOV.UK.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror-groups-or-organisations--2/proscribed-terrorist-groups-or-organisations-accessible-version#asset-freezing

OFSI Consolidated List Search

Financial Sanctions Search

The consolidated list of financial sanctions targets search enables users to find information relating to asset freeze and investment ban targets across all financial sanctions regimes implemented in the UK. Use of the search function does not remove an individual or entity’s obligation to undertake appropriate due diligence in respect of financial sanctions targets. Reliance on, or use of, the information contained in the search results does not limit any criminal or civil liability for any act undertaken by an individual or entity. Please see the Consolidated List Format guide found on this page or OFSI’s general guidance for more information on the consolidated list.

sanctionssearchapp.ofsi.hmtreasury.gov.uk/

Neither the woman nor the organisation she belongs to are found using the Government's "Financial Sanctions Search". Therefore, the bank was not required under the Terrorism Act 2000 to freeze her assets or close her bank account.

Was the woman involved in financial fraud?

It is possible that the bank froze her assets in order to conduct an investigation into suspected criminal activity. However, the end result was that her assets were unfrozen, the bank gave her back all the money it held for her and she was not subject to criminal prosecution. Therefore, criminality seems not to have been the reason that the bank closed her account.

I hope that disposes of all the arguments that "she had it coming to her because she's a terrorist and the Government made the bank do it".

I wondered what the situation would be if she had been convicted of a crime. It seems that you can open a bank account even when you are a convicted criminal in prison:

Insurance, Banking and Finance

• Having a criminal record won’t usually cause you too many problems in opening a bank account. If you don’t qualify for a standard account, possibly due to a poor credit history, most banks offer a basic account.
• For those in prison or being released, the biggest problem when applying for a bank account is providing identification. Each bank will have a list of the ID they accept.
• If you’ve been convicted of a fraud offence and refused a bank account this may be due to your details being recorded on the CIFAS database. You may have to consider some form of pre-paid account.

unlock.org.uk/topic/insurance-banking-and-finance/

The article linked by the OP also notes that in March 2010 the Labour government of the day sought to legislate to require banks to provide a service:

Right of admission is always reserved — we all know this — and you might say that these examples are just the market at work. Except that some things are so fundamental to our everyday lives that they’re not so much markets as the thing that you need in order to use a market.

In the dying days of Gordon Brown, an attempt was made to guarantee every citizen’s right to a current account. It was quickly shot down by the Big Five banks (after all, it wasn’t as if they owed the government any favours).

It links to this article:

'A legal right to a bank account'
Robert Peston | Tuesday, 23 March 2010

The Government believes that banks have a duty as corporate citizens to contribute more to Britain, especially in the wake of the substantial financial support they've received from taxpayers since the onset of the Credit Crunch in 2007.

In legislating to give banks a universal obligation to provide basic accounts, the government would in a way be turning banks into public utilities: the obligation is redolent of the obligation on Royal Mail to carry letters to any part of the UK for a single tarriff.

Full article (it's the BBC who can't spell "tariff" BTW, not me):
www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2010/03/a_legal_right_to_a_bank_accoun.html

Blacklisting of UK woman's rights campaigner who is neither a criminal nor a terrorist

A PP has mentioned "Posie Parker":

Although she has not been denied a bank account, other financial institutions, payment processing organisations and fundraising platforms have banned Kellie-Jay Keen aka "Posie Parker", which is why she cannot, for example, accept payments by PayPal for her women's rights campaigning materials. She has also had billboards and posters removed by, for example, Billboard companies and Scottish Rail.

Her first Billboard, which simply stated the dictionary definition of "Woman" (ie. Woman - Adult Human Female") was removed in 2018 after a single complaint by disgraced "Twitter troll" Dr. Adrian Harrop:

Posie Parker makes a fool of baby Shipman.... on Sky News

This article lists several women (including Posie and others in the UK) who have been banned from Patreon for advocating for women's rights - whilst Patreon was actively protecting the accounts of "Minor Attracted Persons" aka paedophiles:

Patreon Fires Security Staff Amid Allegations of Protecting ‘MAPs’
reduxx.info/patreon-fires-security-staff-amid-allegations-of-protecting-maps/

Not in the UK, but most of these financial institutions are global and not restrained by UK law, Colin Wright has been mentioned. He is an evolutionary biologist recently banned by PayPay - and also by Etsy for selling products featuring the symbols for "male" and "female".
(Etsy continues to allow people to sell products advocating the murder of women.)

Triggernometry interviewed Colin earlier this week:

"PayPal Banned Me for Stating Basic Biology" - Colin Wright

China's "Social Credit System" has also been mentioned. That reminded me of an earlier Triggernometry interview with former UA Presidential adviser Dr Pippa Malmgren, which was where I first heard of it. If people can't see that this is where western democracies are heading then they are really not paying attention or are being wilfully blind. Canada and Australia are perhaps the most egregious examples.

"The True Horrors of China's Social Credit System" - From the Archives

There were jibes in some earlier comments about "Gender Critical Feminists".
Such fuss-pots, aren't they? When they are not mithering on about lesbians being attacked at Pride marches in the UK (for maintaining that lesbians do not have penises) they are in a tizzy about what is being done to women elsewhere in the world, as if that is anything for us to be bothered about?

Christina Ellingsen, WDI Norway, faces up to three years in prison for "hateful" tweets about a male lesbian
www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4563823-christina-ellingsen-wdi-norway-faces-up-to-three-years-in-prison-for-hateful-tweets-about-a-male-lesbian

EXCLUSIVE: Brazilian Feminist Facing Up To 25 Years In Prison After Calling Trans Politician a “Man”
reduxx.info/exclusive-brazilian-feminist-facing-25-years-in-prison-after-calling-trans-politician-a-man/

Back to financial institutions. I am reluctant to link to this article because those who shy away from content when they disapprove of the source will knee-jerk ignore it - so if anyone can suggest a more "acceptable" source, please do post it.

This is about US legislation but it is most definitely relevant to the UK, as per the previous examples of UK citizens being banned from PayPal, Patreon, etc.

Section 230 isn't the problem, Payment Networks are

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is one of the most important pieces of legislation in American history. Passed into law in 1996, it has overseen the entirety of the consumer Internet’s development. Its premise is simple: Internet service providers and platform operators are not responsible for civil damages that result from user-generated content that they host or manage. These protections are why the United States is the first choice for hosting any digital service. Without them, the entire world would suffer a less free Internet.

Unfortunately, Section 230 has been defamed as the reason Facebook, Twitter, Google, et al behave the way they do. This is not true. These businesses censor because they have personal motivations to do so. More importantly, they have financial motivations to do so.

I hope to convince a reasonable person that:

1. Payment networks must be regulated to give fair access.

2. Section 230 is essential and modifying it harms online speech.

3. Big tech does not need Section 230, but you do.

4. You should learn how to use cryptocurrencies right now.


The payment networks are more powerful than big tech. Without the consent of all four major payment networks to stay in business, even mighty tech giants are vulnerable to lose billions of dollars in revenue.
The various agreements enforced by the four major payment networks (MasterCard, Visa, Amex, and Discover) impose rules that any business wanting to exist in the digital economy must obey. Not all these rules are written.

The big payment networks like to stay out of the public eye.
They avoid attention by using blacklists which they claim only banks can add to, but which they manage and share. You also never deal with the payment network directly. An eCommerce site passes your credit card information to a “payment gateway”, which is plugged into a “payment processor”, and that payment processor handles communications with the payment networks. Each of these are usually different companies. When you get banned from processing payments, you are told so by your payment gateway or payment processor, but the decision can come from much higher up. If it were, you’d be lucky to find out.

Consider a company like Patreon. They are an online crowdfunding service which handles donations from many supporters to many online content creators. Patreon has its own rules, uses Stripe as a payment gateway and payment processor, agrees to Stripe’s terms of service, and then Stripe coordinates with all major payment networks which each have their own set of agreements. That means every creator on Patreon must obey six different sets of rules. If the gateway were its own company, it would be seven. It is no wonder so many people get banned, as only the most tepid and inoffensive content creators could hope to meet so many different standards!

Patreon must keep Stripe happy to stay in business, and Stripe must keep all four payment networks happy to stay in business.

If any one of MasterCard, Visa, Amex, or Discover pass a rule, then it affects the entire downstream ecosystem.

If Discover (5% of the market) says an industry or behavior is prohibited, then Stripe must enforce that rule on all the merchants on their service (even merchants who do not process Discover).

If Discover were to cut ties with Stripe, then Stripe would lose at least 5% of their transactions over night and any merchants who do want to process Discover cards.

That is a large and dramatic blow to any company operating on small margins.

The Office of the Comptroller of Currency proposed new regulation which would require banks (and the services they run, including payment networks) to stop industry blacklisting and require specific examples of risk to ban a merchant from processing cards.
It was called Fair Access to Financial Services (OCC-2020-0042-0001).

These “fair access” rules were finalized on January 14th, 2021.
They were set to take effect on April 1st.
Placing this on April Fool’s Day was a bit too prescient, because the Chairman immediately resigned after passing this rule, and the fair access rule was formally put on an indefinite pause on January 28th, 2021 – one week after Biden assumed office.

Full article:
madattheinternet.substack.com/p/section-230-isnt-the-problem-payment

Compare and contrast, UK vs USA politics around access to banking and payment networks:

UK

1959: the Radcliffe Committee set up to investigate the "Working of the Monetary System in the United Kingdom" recommended the introduction of a giro system, and if the main banks did not do this, the possibility of the Post Office introducing it should be investigated.

Politics played a part in the development of the National Giro. It reflected a general feeling in the Labour Movement that the banks were not meeting the mass banking needs of the British population. In the early 1960s, the majority of adults in the United Kingdom did not have a bank account and the banks did not court business from the working classes, which they regarded as unprofitable.

1970: When a Conservative government came to power in 1970, there were pressures on the government to close the still loss-making operation.

By the late 1970s, one pound in every four pounds deposited in cash at a bank in the UK was deposited with the National Giro at the Post Office. This would later rise to one pound in every three.

1989: The Alliance & Leicester won a bidding process for the Girobank operation in 1989 after the government decided to privatise it. The transaction was completed in 1990 and by this time the bank was essentially indistinguishable from its competitors, apart from its use of post offices to transact cash business.

2003 In 2003 the Girobank brand was dropped, with the business renamed Alliance & Leicester Commercial Bank following further consolidation in the Alliance & Leicester Group.

2009 On 17 March 2009, a campaign was launched to bring back Girobank. Backers included MPs, trade unions and small businesses

March 2010: UK Labour Government under Gordon Brown attempts to enact legislation to ensure every UK citizen has the right to a Current Bank Account.

(Some saw this as an unwelcome back-door to a cashless society, enabling monitoring of citizens but, in any case, the Banks blocked it, their primary purpose being profit rather than public service.)

May 2010: In May 2010, Alliance & Leicester was acquired by Grupo Santander and the name Alliance & Leicester was replaced by Santander UK.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girobank

2015: Post Office Money was launched in 2015 to provide an umbrella brand for all financial services provided through Post Office Ltd. Many Post Office Money branded products are provided by Bank of Ireland (UK) plc with Post Office Ltd acting as an appointed representative and credit broker.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Office_Money

USA

2021: US Administration under Donald Trump agrees regulations to stop banks and payment networks blacklisting individuals and organisations (ie. those within the law, not terrorists). Put "on hold" by Biden (left wing administration).

"Progress" is not always synonymous with "improvement" or "in the public interest". Left wing governments in western democracies like the UK and USA were more interested in giving the public access to banking in the 1950's (not long after we had won the war against fascism) than they are in protecting ordinary citizens - who are neither terrorists or criminals - being blacklisted by banks in 2022.

I work in a bank so I have annual training about this sort of stuff.

Banks retain the right to refuse banking facilities for any reason. You can have your bank account closed for repeatedly calling and swearing at staff, for donating money to questionable places - whatever.

To be frank, while the human being behind the closure might have considered it because this individual is a white supremacist, the reason was probably more likely to be that she has associations with organisations that incite violence. Banks don’t want to fund terrorism, this is what it will come under.

I sympathise with this woman on how stressful it must have been, but I’m not sure there is another option for investigating issues like this without causing stress to customers.

@AspireMe staff are not allowed to tell you what’s going on, and can be fined and fired. I can’t remember exactly how much it is, but it’s similar to the law where supermarket staff can be fined for serving someone underage.

@Bosky

Excellent well researched and presented post that highlights the issues with surveillance technology and it’s slow creep into every aspect of our lives “for the greater good”.

Unfortunately on MN the first rule of Fight Club is we don’t talk about Fight Club….. as is the second ….. 🙄

You've probably seen it, OP, but paypal have just banned the Free Speech Union. FSU tweeting about it giving examples of other orgs being banned by paypal too.

People who think this isn't happening and isn't scary are... well, they're wrong.

Thread about the FSU ban: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4638207-paypal-shuts-free-speech-union-account?page=1

Good article on the subject: www.spiked-online.com/2022/09/21/big-tech-is-waging-financial-war-on-dissenters/

I hadn't, but thanks for those links.

It seems the very thing I pointed out in my OP - that corporations might deem gender critical thoughts as heresy and ban people from accessing their own money and what some people scoffed at on this thread and said would never happen and people won't be banned from accessing their money for having such opinions...is actually happening?

@Flumpymc "It isn't about their views"

@FarmerRefuted "Having opinions doesn't get your assets frozen"

@iwantasandwich "Good thing that's not what happens then isn't it"

Anything?

No , nothing. You've caused a minor disturbance in the liberal comfort zone. That's all folks.

But they'll be back soon with complaints about pronouns or diversity training. Still , you tried.