I’ve written about PayPal’s latest difficulties in my Spectator column this week. Here is an extract.
A few days after releasing me from PayPal jail, it doubled down on its social activism, publishing an update to its Acceptable Use Policy whereby customers were prohibited from using its services to, among other things, post “objectionable’”content or “depict, promote or incite hatred or discrimination of protected groups or of individuals or groups based on protected characteristics (e.g. race, religion, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, etc)”. Not only that, but if any of its customers committed these sins, PayPal granted itself the right to fine them $2,500 “per violation’” which would be deducted from their accounts. In effect, PayPal would become a digital version of the Taliban’s religious police, issuing swift, on-the-spot beatings for the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice.
Was this announcement a response to the company’s climbdown in my case? PayPal’s lawyers may have advised the CEO that I could sue for damages if my accounts weren’t restored, so if he wanted a freer hand in future he’d need to put this more draconian policy in place. Or perhaps PayPal’s restoration of my accounts led to a backlash among the company’s twentysomething employees and this was designed to quell the revolt. Or maybe it was just a coincidence.
Not surprisingly, the threat of PayPal helping itself to $2,500 from its customers’ deposits – “per violation” – caused widespread panic and people began to close their accounts in droves. Indeed, last weekend #boycottpaypal started trending on Twitter and even Elon Musk, one of the company’s founders, popped up to stick the boot in. PayPal launched into damage-control mode and claimed – rather implausibly – that the update “went out in error” and included “incorrect information”. Ironically, one of the sins the company said it would punish people for was promoting ‘“misinformation”. So will it now fine itself $2,500?
It remains to be seen whether this ‘clarification’ will be enough to stop the exodus. How can PayPal’s customers trust the company again? It has only said it won’t fine people if they promote “misinformation”, with the penalty remaining in place if you commit any of the other sins. When trading opened on Wall Street on Monday, shares in the company fell by 6 per cent. By the time you read this, the $110 billion behemoth may be a smoking ruin – the biggest casualty yet of ‘Go woke, go broke’.
Worth reading in full.
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“By the time you read this, the $110 billion behemoth may be a smoking ruin – the biggest casualty yet of ‘Go woke, go broke’.”
Now that would put a smile on my face.
Anyway, congratulations on all you have done Toby. Even if you haven’t helped to kill them they are certainly severely wounded. Let this be a warning to others.
Well done and thank you.
I’ve taken steps to remove paypal from my financial life.
They were already stepping on civil liberties, but their threat to steal customers’ cash because they offended paypal in some unspecified manner is just too much.
Am I . . . Spartacus?!?
Looks like paypal are running scared….
https://summit.news/2022/10/13/paypal-appears-to-be-desperately-offering-bribes-of-15-to-stop-droves-of-people-cancelling-accounts/
Expose have just released the same news.
Wonderful.
Turned out I hadn’t used Paypal for ages anyway. Should have cancelled it years ago.
“Dan Schulman, the president and CEO of PayPal, gave an interview earlier this year entitled: ‘The thing that separates good companies from great ones: trust.’”
No it isn’t, it’s reputation – ask Jeremy Ratner. Reputation keeps existing customers, attracts others by recommendation, and keeps and attracts investors.
Getting a reputation for not being a reliable provider of a service which can be withdrawn instantly for spurious and subjective reasons will neither keep nor attract customers.
Spending shareholders’ money on ideology that loses customers, reduces shareholder value will neither keep nor attract investors as the pompous Mr Schulman has now found out.
This also shows the best company/market regulator is not Government nor bureaucracies, but the consumer.
I love the title of this article, I certainly don’t think it’s ‘too vainglorious’, and at the same time all of us who closed our PayPal accounts in protest can share in taking the credit. (I had to get a password reminder before I could close my account, which I had rarely ever used.)
In the Spectator article Toby Young said: “On the one hand, PayPal’s demise would send a message to the financial services sector that trying to police your customers’ speech is a terrible idea. But on the other, lots of small depositors would lose their money.”
I think small depositors should withdraw their money from their PayPal accounts before they lose it. It’s not Toby Young’s fault that PayPal cannot be trusted.
Not a penny left in mine.
It was amazing to me, when in the process of shutting down my PayPal account at just how many standing payments I’d set up went via PayPal! Even The Spectator…
I look forward to seeing Paypal’s scalp dangling from your belt, Toby.
I have a grand total of 50p in my PayPal account, and rarely use it.
Am I more of an embuggerance to them if I keep this account open?
I don’t think PayPal would notice that you have only 50p in your account, but they have definitely noticed how many people have closed their accounts since Paypal started to attack people’s freedom in the last few weeks.
Count me sceptical. They are far too entrenched now in the online shopping world and without real competition there- merchants and customers just love its ease of use and reach.
MasterCard folded its competitive effort because of that, not that they’d been more trustworthy.
I love your line on whether they’ll now fine themselves for that misinformation…
You may well be correct JB but they will have had a good kicking.
Cancelled my 25 year old PayPal account after they cancelled Toby and others. Hope they go under if they don’t learn their lesson.
I find it really upsetting that I can only cancel my PayPal account once …. and I’ve done it.
I’m consoling myself by googling “boycott PayPal” several times a day
Surely the AUP breaches human rights and in the EU/UK would be illegal and hence null and void. Making themselves judge, jury and executioner even for goings most of us disagree with and are criminal, e.g. money laundering or fraud means that they are subjecting people to arbitrary justice. Actually just looked article 12 UNDOHR. no one shall be subject to arbitrary interference…?
The Daily Sceptic isn’t the only journalism and “skeptic” site that’s been de-platformed or demonetized by PayPal. The conservative investigative journalism site UncoverDC.com also had this happen to them …. almost three years ago! PayPal or Twitter have never un-suspended this site and its founder, Tracy Beanz.
Apparently I’m the only journalist who thought to do a story on this. In my recent Substack dispatch, I interview Tracy Beanz, who talks about some of the ‘workarounds” she employed to get around this brazen censorship.
Her site is also called a “Covid conspiracy” site. This piece of disinformation is of interest to me as I have written many of the Covid stories UncoverDC.com published. Nobody else would publish many of these stories. And I can’t think of a sentence I would change in any of them.
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/shes-still-standing
Hats off to you and Tracy Bill. Not many of your type remaining.
I sent 2 mails to PayPal’s CEO & to corporate affairs asking clear questions about their policies & impact for me as an account holder. Response? NOTHING. The arrogance of these Bit Tech companies is breathtaking.
So I closed my account directly. In the process I applied another Daily Sceptic commenter’s advice to “..select the option to have them delete all your data too then you can leave a comment.”
My departing comment was this:
“I’m thoroughly disgusted by PayPal’s anti-free speech policy. Why would you use a financial service provider which can block your account at any time without providing any reasons, and then steal $2500- from you as a “fine” for your supposed transgression. My decision has been confirmed by ZERO response to my several emails to PayPal asking them if there was a reasonable explanation for recent actions. So much for customer service. Not to mention transparency. From now on, I shall be telling everyone I know to close their PayPal account.“