[HN Gopher] PayPal closes account of UK's Free Speech Union with...
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PayPal closes account of UK's Free Speech Union without explanation
Author : ploppyploppy
Score : 124 points
Date : 2022-09-22 21:57 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lauradodsworth.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lauradodsworth.substack.com)
| [deleted]
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| Dupe of the topic discussed at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32923570
| [deleted]
| barry-cotter wrote:
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _Looks up FSU on Wikipedia_
|
| > After Cambridge University launched an online portal for
| students to anonymously report microaggressions, the Free Speech
| Union threatened legal action. The portal was ultimately
| removed.[11]
|
| I guess they consider some kinds of speech more free than others.
|
| I found this article less than persuasive as it was clearly
| written to arouse rather than inform or supply context.
| devwastaken wrote:
| Reporting of microagressions infers punishment by the
| university for speech. There's always balancing.
| kevingadd wrote:
| No, university policies produce punishment or non-punishment.
| Reporting is speech. Would you prefer that they report
| publicly and drag people into the court of public opinion
| without an investigation instead? Isn't that Cancel Culture?
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| i would have you explain your sentence because it describes
| the concept of "reporting" as making an inference and i am no
| longer clear about how to interpret the words structurally
|
| i tentatively take it to mean that you did the inference, and
| it's punishment by the university, but i am not sure, because
| the mechanism by which the university affects paypal is
| unclear
| ben_w wrote:
| Without commenting on the merits or lack thereof in this case, I
| think it would be useful to give some more information about the
| FSU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Union
| parker_mountain wrote:
| As a queer person, the second someone gets "cancelled" and
| starts yelling about pedophiles, it almost always means that
| they are anti-queer.
|
| What a surprise that this crew seems very much in this boat.
|
| I'm not issuing judgement on if paypal is in the right here or
| not (although my knee jerk reaction is that they are not), but
| the age-old "they're pedophiles" canard is well past dog-
| whistling and into trainwhistling at this point.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| What is this, a counter dog-whistle?
| kevingadd wrote:
| Does it really count as a dog-whistle if it's audible to
| nearly any living human?
| andirk wrote:
| I call it a fog horn. In this case, I'm not hearing
| anything though. It may be someone with dissenting
| viewpoints, however hateful-seeming, or outright illegal
| behavior. As with most touchy subjects, I find the best
| path forward is to openly discuss without shutting down
| voices. I believe no one needs to prove they're _not_ a
| bigot, but one does need to prove someone else _is_ a
| bigot. Even that is a WIP stance for me.
| blipvert wrote:
| I have yet to find an exception to your analysis.
| ibeckermayer wrote:
| Sounds like a great organization standing up for the principle
| that forms the very foundation of civilization.
| esteth wrote:
| It sounds like a bunch of folk that are butthurt private
| venues don't want to listen to their racist, homophobic, or
| transphobic rhetoric.
|
| Then they dress it up as though "Freedom of Speech" means
| private venues are obligated to provide a platform for anyone
| of any opinion.
|
| They're opposed to cancel culture, but cancel culture is just
| the natural progression of the larger platform their fringe
| opinions are now afforded. 20 years ago your bigots could
| find another bigot down in the local pub and when the rest of
| the town found out you were bigots they stopped inviting you
| to things.
|
| Now the same story plays out on the world stage - you've
| chosen to shout your bigoted opinions to the world and the
| world has decided they don't want to hear from you any more.
| In return, you have 10,000 other bigots to hang out with
| instead of the one other local bigot in the pub.
|
| I suppose there's an argument that twitter etc are
| effectively "common carriers" in some sense, and that they've
| manoeuvred their way into being an essential public service
| and it should therefore be illegal to cut people off for
| any/no reason. I'm not sure I buy it though.
| 10g1k wrote:
| PayPal has been blocking people, businesses, and organisations
| due to real or perceived ideological wrongthink for years. This
| is why more businesses are waking up and changing to Asian
| payment processors.
| seneca wrote:
| The major credit card companies are just as bad, if not worse.
| Payment processors are one of the major systems that need to be
| treated as a utility. They've become far too comfortable using
| their position to enforce ideology.
| DaveExeter wrote:
| Asian payment processors? Can you recommend any?
| blipvert wrote:
| The FSU/Daily Sceptic/Toby Young is conspiracy theoristic,
| grifting, scam.
|
| He knows that he broke the T&Cs - learning to cry for fun and
| profit.
|
| The sad thing is that TY's dad coined the term "meritocracy" and
| he's the only reason why anyone pays any attention to Toby.
| whoooooo123 wrote:
| What T&Cs did the FSU break?
| XCabbage wrote:
| How did they break the Ts & Cs?
|
| How have they ever scammed anyone?
|
| These exact same talking points were all over Twitter, but with
| no more substantiation there than you've given here.
| pcdoodle wrote:
| All while HN consistently hates on BTC.
| boxmonster wrote:
| I think PayPal has been hacked and they don't know the extent of
| it yet and don't want to publicly comment. An intruder with an
| agenda could have closed those accounts. I say they've been
| hacked after I closed my account due to phishing attempts from
| their domain.
| [deleted]
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Why would anyone remotely political trust PayPal after the 2010
| Wikileaks closure?
| uncletammy wrote:
| Paypal has been doing this crap for at least 15 years now. Anyone
| still using them at this point has it coming.
| lizardactivist wrote:
| Some of these cases seem like plain censorship. Other cases seem
| like something equivalent to the 10% rejection policy many US
| American insurance companies have, where they will flat out
| reject valid insurance claims just to raise the profit margins.
|
| Personally I would never dare putting anything but spare change
| in the hands of Paypal or other US American payment providers.
| jfghi wrote:
| I'm familiar with insurance practices but have never
| encountered a 10% policy.
|
| I'd claim instead that there is error on the side of closing
| too much as contract language is rather clear and legal fees
| would likely exceed the value of smaller claims.
| lizardactivist wrote:
| It was a few years ago and I can't find the source anymore,
| but it was an interview with an ex. executive at one of the
| large insurance companies who literally quoted the 10% figure
| and policy.
|
| It may be different or non-existant at other companies.
| omg_ponies wrote:
| Is there a right to compel businesses to provide a service to
| you?
| angrycontrarian wrote:
| If you belong to certain social groups with elevated legal
| privileges, yes.
| dhruval wrote:
| Tired of this argument.
|
| There is certainly a right to discuss the social impact of a
| business's practices.
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(page generated 2022-09-22 23:00 UTC)