During the weekend paypal had announced a major and controversial update to its policy, involving some sort of fine of up to $2,500 to users who are held responsible for the dissemination fake news.
After the heated and predictable reaction from many people – especially in the circles of the right in the US – PayPal announced that the new policy will no longer come into effect, adding that the sanction had only been discussed internally and should not have been part of it. are of the final version of the new regulation.
The new policy – as detailed in the new terms of service – provided that PayPal could withdraw up to $2,500 from users’ checking accounts in the event that they are held responsible for sending, distributing or publishing messages, multimedia content or other material capable of around the . to promote disinformation.
The reactions of the American right and the stock market crash
The new rules were greeted with great skepticism and equally outrage. Partly because it is actually troubling that a private company should assign itself the task of sanctioning behavior that often even the legislator does not consider illegal and partly because the definition of disinformation is rather unstable and such a policy would lend itself to all kinds of abuse.
Stop using PayPal and look for alternatives. They were ready to steal $2,500 of your money on the pretext that you have the wrong opinion. Sick bastards! They withdrew because they were caught. Let’s grab them some more so the lesson really sinks in!
— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) October 9, 2022
This is bizarre and scary. Speaking of chutzpah… PayPal gets to decide what the users say and then punish them? Go away. I’m canceling them today. pic.twitter.com/aI67Mvsfci
– Karel V Payne (@cvpayne) October 9, 2022
In particular, several right-wing personalities and sites such as The Daily Wire have raised suspicions that such policies would be used to persecute American conservatives. The criticism did not only come from right-wing activists. David Marcus — who has long been the president of PayPal — on Twitter called the new policy “madness”, adding that it “goes against everything I believe in” and that a private company has no right to “take money from the people ” “.
It’s hard for me to openly criticize a company I loved and gave so much to. But @PayPal‘s new AUP goes against everything I believe in. A private company can now decide to take your money if you say something they don’t agree with. insanity. https://t.co/Gzf8faChUb
— David Marcus (@davidmarcus) October 8, 2022
With a comment, PayPal confirmed that the new policy will never go into effect and that it would have been a mistake. The fine was discussed internally and was part of an initial draft of the new rules, which, however, should not have included a reference to disinformation or any form of financial sanction in their final version.
But the mistrust remains. PayPal’s misstep has reinforced the already strong distrust many right-wing Americans have of major tech companies. On social networks, there are many people who have declared that they have canceled their account – even if we do not have precise data on the magnitude of this phenomenon. During these hours, PayPal lost about 6% on the exchange – nearly $5 billion in market cap.
Source: Lega Nerd
