[IP] Paypal reportedly penalizes opinionated liberals, conservatives
Begin forwarded message:
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@xxxxxxxx>
Date: September 27, 2004 9:32:07 AM EDT
To: politech@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Politech] Paypal reportedly penalizes opinionated liberals,
conservatives
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: PayPal penalizing opinionated liberals and conservatives
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 18:13:22 +0000
From: qx49@xxxxxxxxxxx
To: declan@xxxxxxxx
Declan:
Your Politech readers might be interested in this...
I found an interesting post on Kevin Drum's washingtonmonthly.com blog
about PayPal penalizing opinionated liberals and conservatives.
(Warning to your conservative readers, Kevin's blog is a liberal blog,
so don't follow this link if you'll be offended by the content ;-).
Kevin Drum's link...
http://washingtonmonthly.com/
Original story about Bill Quick's (conservative) web site being
penalized by PayPal...
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/7543
Original story about TalkLeft's account being cancelled and then
reinstated by PayPal...
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/007988.html#007988
Kevin Drum's post on PayPal...
PAYPAL BLUES....Proving that idiocy knows no ideological boundaries,
PayPal has suspended the accounts of both the liberal Jeralyn Merritt
and the conservative Bill Quick. Jeralyn's offense was apparently
linking to a video of the beheading of Eugene Armstrong , while Bill's
offense, Kafka-like, is left entirely to the imagination.
As James Joyner points out, the real problem here is that PayPal is a
de facto monopoly for internet payments at the moment. What's more,
when one of their clerks decides he doesn't like the content of
someone's site, PayPal doesn't just revoke the offending account, they
frequently also freeze it.
But PayPal is a bank (regardless of what they actually call
themselves), and banks should be in the business of providing financial
services as long as they're legal. They shouldn't be in the business of
deciding what's appropriate speech and what isn't, especially when
their guidelines are unclear and capriciously applied. Isn't it about
time for someone to create a payment service that's a genuine payment
service, not a thinly disguised website nanny? And isn't it about time
for someone with more clout than a blog to expose this practice and
give PayPal the bad publicity they so richly deserve? Maybe Dan Rather
could do it to atone for his sins.
For more about this, go to the appropriately named PayPalSucks.com and
read all about it (and more).
—Kevin Drum
_______________________________________________
Politech mailing list
Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To manage your subscription, go to
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/