Most people don’t read the fine print. Fortunately, in the case of PayPal’s new terms of service, somebody did.
The online financial transfer company attempted to slip past its users terms that would have allowed it to fine them as much as $2,500 for “the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials” which “promote misinformation.” Although this would have supposedly been limited to conduct in the use of its own app, it never seems to work this way on other social media platforms. Patreon, for example, is notorious for imposing its woke morality on content creators who say controversial things on other platforms.
PAYPAL POLICES ‘INTOLERANCE,’ EVEN AFTER FREE SPEECH BACKLASH
Against all those who would use the “misinformation” as an excuse for suppression of free speech and tyranny, this must be said: It is not a crime to be wrong. This is not said often enough. We don’t recommend that anyone spread false information on purpose, but it is still not a crime. This is part of what freedom of speech entails.
Moreover, the disinformation police are seldom fair in what they decide to be disinformation. The political Left has effectively weaponized the very idea of misinformation as a means of stamping out dissenting opinion. It is very unlikely that PayPal’s corporate decision-makers will seize money from the New York Times and the Washington Post for their multiple Pulitzer-winning false reports on the Russia collusion hoax. It is doubtful that PayPal would steal money from Stacey Abrams for claiming she won an election that she lost fair and square by 55,000 votes in 2018. PayPal is extremely unlikely to steal money from Joe Biden’s account for falsely claiming that inflation is zero, that Republicans want to put black people or anyone else “back in chains,” or that men can become women by merely affecting effeminate mannerisms.
It is well and good that PayPal has abandoned this disastrous idea. But it would be foolish to accept its explanation that this was a “mistake.” A mistake is taking the wrong exit on the highway, misspelling “Tennessee,” or dropping a fly ball. This was clearly deliberate — the company’s only mistake was getting caught. Like many other corporations nowadays, Paypal thought it had found a way to impose its corporate woke morality by holding your money hostage.
That is nothing new. The Left has, in similar fashion, been pushing for the de-banking of vital U.S. industries such as fossil fuels and gun makers, among others. But this is even more insidious because it directly attacks your personal freedom to hold unapproved opinions. Power-hungry lefists cannot win such control over your life at the ballot box, and so they try to do it through pressure campaigns and corporate machinations. Any company that’s willing to help them get such power deserves to lose its paying customers.
A congressional investigation of PayPal is in order and should begin in January, assuming Republicans retake at least one chamber of Congress. In a saner world, this would be a bipartisan priority, but Democrats don’t seem to be jumping at this one — they were busy this week holding yet another campaign-related media event about the riots that took place at the Capitol nearly two years ago, for which hundreds of people have already been prosecuted.
Companies that handle other people’s money should not be permitted to use their position to steal or to leverage the personal freedom of their clients. Much like government, they are supposed to be the servants and not masters of their customers.
Before PayPal and other companies attempt to establish some kind of unaccountable social credit system, they should worry about the reputational harm they will cause to themselves when they get caught.
