PayPal ends business dealings with Alex Jones's Infowars | Hacker News Reader

PayPal ends business dealings with Alex Jones's Infowars

reuters.com

67 pointspetethomas132 comments

As much as I detest that site, this is now dangerous precedence. Payment processors choosing not to do business at their whim.

Imagine scenario - there is a totalitarian government in some banana republic that forces these companies (who are already global) not to support dissidents of it's regime in order to operate in their countries, what moral high ground will they take? The totalitarian regime will say you are doing this in US then why not in our country too?

Internet was supposed to be great equalizer. But supposedly monopolies are abusing their power. This is too close to net neutrality argument. Payment processors is oligopoly business like ISPs. It's a high barrier to enter due to governmental regulations. Now why can't be case made for net neutrality for payment processors?

And "build your payment processing company" -- give me a break. Any media organization can't just build payment processing services. I know there is BTC/ETH, saving grace for decentralization of Internet and working as true intended goal.

> Payment processors choosing not to do business at their whim.

Where have you been the past decade? This is nothing new, especially for Paypal. Payment processors choose not to do business at their whim, whether it's because you have too high a chargeback, you're from the wrong country, you're too troublesome or your business simply is in a category card issuers don't like.

Payment processing is an area there's never ever even been a semblance of a "neutral pipe" system.

Payment processors choosing not to do business at their whim.

It's not on a whim.

Payment processors -- including Visa, Amex, Discover, Mastercard -- have clear rules about hate sites and promoting violence. This is a rule clearly spelled out that all merchants must follow.

Infowars violates rules they agreed to follow when they became a merchant. That's breach of contract.

Edit: and here's Paypals AUP: https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/acceptableuse-full

You may not use the PayPal service for activities that: ... relate to transactions involving ... the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory

Seriously... that's breach of contract. Does infowars need to follow the contracts they agree to? Do those that promote hate get to disregard contracts?

Peddling hate speech does not earn you the ability to disregard contracts you have agreed to.

Hate speech is protected free speech. Not because anyone loves hate speech, but defining your opponents views and journalism as “hate” is very easy to do depending on your worldview.

That has no relevance in this discussion since the Government wasn’t involved.

The government intervenes and is involved all of the time in private companies regarding constitutional rights (e.g., a bakery making cakes for non-traditional marriages).

I don't like Alex Jones or his view, but we have strong protections for speech in this country for good reasons and I don't want to see us sacrifice them because someone we hate comes along.

I refuse to do business with you because you’re gay vs. I am terminating our business relationship because you violated our Acceptable Use Policy that you previously agreed to abide by.

I’m not a lawyer, but these sound quite different.

Oh, so you can receive money via PayPal without accepting their Acceptable Use Policy? No? Then that sounds like a ban with a fig leaf on top.

Or would an online bakery with a terms of use that banned "using their products in a way that could be seen to endorse or support gay marriage" be acceptable?

PayPal has free speech rights as well. Would you force a Black owned printer to do business with the KKK?

I mean, we make KKK-owned enterprises do business with black people...

One's a choice and one's not of course, but there is still a comparison to be made there.

Edit to add: it's possible that being a conspiracy theorist is as much a choice as being schizophrenic is. If that was the case - true, proved beyond any doubt, it's genetic or environmental, whatever - would you be willing to extend the same protections to conspiracy theorists as you would to other protected classes?

Well... yes. Why not? Equal protection under the law means exactly that. If you--as a government--force a business to cater to customers it doesn't like, then you need to do this to all businesses. Why else use the words 'equal protection'? Otherwise just let businesses themselves decide who they cater to (black-owned printers, PayPal, Christian bakers, etc.)

As for defending PayPal's 'free speech rights'... that's pretty rich considering PayPal seeks to make further inroads into China, a nation decidedly anti-'free speech rights.'

That's something I find strange among most respondents here--they're very quick to defend PayPal's association rights against Infowars, yet they seem all too willing to overlook PayPal's ignoring its own core values just to do business with an oppressive regime, i.e. PayPal refuses to do business with Infowars because Infowars' 'promotion of hate and discrimination runs counter to our core value of inclusion.' China is inclusive? Huh.

It certainly makes me wonder how many of YC's community are budding authoritarians working towards the day they, too, can PayPal a person out of existence?

I do not criticize their decision to select customers with whom they want to do business.

Definition of hate alone is extremely broad. And depends from culture to culture, country to country. Do we want many Interents with each having it's own rules? Or one Internet connecting people like it was envisioned to be?

I'm asking more meta/philosophical question here. What kind of precedence do they set with these actions?

I don't think they're setting any precedent here. It's not a new thing for people and businesses to distance themselves from people who say batshit crazy things like this. You cannot talk like this and be surprised when people want to distance themselves from you:

When I think about all the children Hillary Clinton has personally murdered and chopped up and raped, I have zero fear standing up against her. Yeah, you heard me right. Hillary Clinton has personally murdered children. I just can't hold back the truth anymore. Hillary Clinton is one of the most vicious serial killers the planet's ever seen.

[0] http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/alex-jones-hillary-clinto...

It is on a whim. "Hate" clauses are essentially put there to let companies or governments make decisions on a whim. Try nailing down a precise definition of the term and then applying it consistently and you'll find it's impossible: either you can't define or it you can't apply it consistently. These clauses are always and everywhere a form of selective discrimination.

> there is a totalitarian government in some banana republic that forces these companies (who are already global) not to support dissidents of it's regime in order to operate in their countries, what moral high ground will they take?

I mean, I get your point, but doesn't the US do this exact thing? Forcing companies not to do business with what it considers to be dissidents in foreign countries (ones that just happen to not align with its interests...)

> ...this is now dangerous precedence. Payment processors choosing not to do business at their whim.

Hasn't this been going on since the beginning of payment processors? I'm pretty confident in thinking that almost every payment processor does this frequently for all kinds of reasons.

This is an effect of free speech: a merchant is not obligated to engage in business with customers they do not approve of, unless it runs afoul of the law. The law does not grant Alex Jones protected status to spread bullshit.

Freedom of speech does not imply freedom from consequence.

> Freedom of speech does not imply freedom from consequence.

This is double speak. If the government throws you in jail for saying something, you could say the same thing. You had freedom of speech but not freedom from consequence. You're distorting the meaning of freedom of speech.

>If the government throws you in jail for saying something, you could say the same thing.

Which is why we have the first amendment, and why it covers government only.

Are you claiming that free speech means merchants should be forced to do business with customers they don't approve of?

Or that no one who disagrees with a particular point of view should be able to express that disagreement?

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequence when that consequence is also an expression of free speech.

Having a moral high ground doesn't stop authoritarians from being authoritarian. They'll abuse power anyway, it's what they do.

With all due respect, PayPal has already been pulling the "choosing not to do business at their whim" shit for QUITE some time now. And yes, it IS a serious problem. But it's way, way too late to set the precedent.

> Imagine scenario - there is a totalitarian government in some banana republic that forces these companies (who are already global) not to support dissidents of it's regime in order to operate in their countries, what moral high ground will they take?

This is already how it works with gambling and sex related sites in the United States. The CC processors crank up the merchant fees for those businesses (sometimes above 30%) and in exchange congress backs down on whatever regulatory threat they have pending. Then congress can tell their constituents that they are “cracking down on vice”

> It's a high barrier to enter due to governmental regulations.

Well-designed regulations can also protect consumer choice. In europe there's SEPA and IBAN transfers between any bank, and there's plenty of those. And banks are obligated to give anyone an account.

So it would be near-impossible to shut someone down like this.

Banks in Europe are not obligated to give anyone an account when it comes to business accounts this isn’t about individual basic accounts, current accounts and business accounts are completely discretionary and business accounts are actually notoriously hard to open in some countries even the UK.

Banks can't pick and choose like PayPal can. PayPal has gone to great lengths to avoid being classified as a bank specifically so they can avoid banking regulations, like cutting off services to people without oversight.

Doesn’t PayPal has a banking license in the US and the EU?

IIRC they merged with x.com specifically because x had a banking license and they had gotten an EU license in the mid 2000’s.

Also banks can pick and choose in fact they do it all the time try asking for a loan form a bank as a porn production company or even opening a business account with one, most of them won’t touch you same goes for many other businesses.

Banks in some cases may not be allowed to deny services to individuals for non financial reasons they same does not hold true for businesses and organizations.

I'm an engineer and not a lawyer, but from what I remember, the license lets them do some banking functions, but doesn't make them count as a full bank subject to all the banking regulations.

PayPal EU is a bank registered in Luxemburg and their EU operations are regulated as one: http://www.e-comlaw.com/e-finance-and-payments-law-and-polic...

PayPal issues credit and loans and credit cards they are an issuing bank and they also serve as an acquiring bank for processing payments.

Their account balance may not count as deposit and as such that part might not be under banking regulations in the US but in the EU they are regulated as one.

> Payment processors choosing not to do business at their whim.

In the case of Jones, everyone can see with his/her own eyes what Jones/Infowars have been doing: peddling lies and inciting vile hatred (especially the "crisis actor" conspiracy stuff). Either one stands up against such people or one supports them. There is no "center" when it comes to Jones and his neo-Nazi friends.

> peddling lies and inciting vile hatred

I’m not sure this is a good argument. You could say the same thing about pretty much any mainstream media, e.g. in relation to Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” (and they probably resulted in more deaths than anything reported by Infowars).

Censorship is mostly arbitrary, really.

We're really saying Alex Jones calling politicians serial killers and rapists is comparable to typical mainstream media bias, and is more or less a reasonable thing to say depending on if you're 'Liberal' or 'Conservative'? C'mon:

[0] http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/alex-jones-hillary-clinto...

I don't know anything about Alex Jones and never listen to his shows. But this is the second time now I've investigated an apparently absurd statement from him and discovered it's being selectively quoted to make him look bad.

The page you link to has a clip of the audio in question:

https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/jones-hillary-personal...

Let me complete the rest of what he says:

"Am I talking about [snip some reference to a devil worshipping story], oh no, I don't mean that, I'm not talking about that, I mean 200,000+ dead Christians, with her operation with Syria, and her operation in Libya, and not let the Christians get out, and directing Al Queda and ISIS, who target and murder children and put them through sex slavery, and throw Catholic priests off cliffs, and kill people en-masse, and murder gays, and everything else you can imagine, because they don't like peaceful people."

Obviously Alex Jones is very far from being a precise user of language. Clinton has not "personally murdered" anyone. That accusation on its own is clearly absurd, but put in context as a reference to her support for various wars in the Middle East it merely becomes the sort of dumb overblown rhetoric that you tend to find at the political extremes. Likewise for the claim she directed ISIS. Clinton was/still is a supporter of the various militant groups that are allied against both Assad and ISIS, although from what I've read there wasn't that much between these groups and ISIS religiously or behaviourally. So his grip on the situation in Syria is also pretty bad.

But this is hardly unique to Alex Jones. For example here's an article that claims "For profit, Tony Blair murdered over a million humans in Iraq and Afghanistan":

https://www.dailysquib.co.uk/world/26825-the-evil-of-tony-bl...

The author of that article, Louis Cypher, is a nobody. But if I had claimed Louis Cypher said "Tony Blair murdered over a million humans" and omitted the rest he'd obviously sound totally crazy. Making someone look bad by deleting parts of what they say is just that easy.

Anyway, I have to admit, this is apparently becoming some sort of pattern - I read someone explaining on Hacker News why Alex Jones must obviously be suppressed and crushed by providing some idiotic sounding quote, I spend about 30 seconds finding the source of the quote and then I discover his words have been maliciously chopped up in order to manipulate me. I don't like this.

I know the US has very lax laws around these things, but doesn’t that rise to the level of defamation/libel even there? Out and out accusing someone of serial murder and child rape seems a bit much.

Public figures are much less protected. Imagine if this were not the case: most of the people responding to Trump's tweets would be in prison for defamation/libel now.

A random ordinary American would be protected from such accusations.

> We undertook an extensive review of the Infowars sites, and found instances that promoted hate or discriminatory intolerance against certain communities and religions, which run counter to our core value of inclusion

Stop trying to come up with far fetching conclusions that don't even make sense. Why can't Paypal ban someone (especially someone like Alex Jones) for this reason? Would I want to earn transaction fees from Alex Jones' sales? If I were the owner of Paypal, I wouldn't want to do business with him, either.

Visa, Discover and Amex prohibit hate-group sites on their networks. Mastercard doesn't allow merchants that promote or incite violence. PayPal too, it's the 2nd paragraph in their AUP: https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/acceptableuse-full

What do you guys expect PayPal to do? Draw a line at InfoWars, and die on their sword, as the major credit card networks cut them off and kill the company?

Infowars isn't going to be able to continue processing credit card payments. It's up to paypal if they want to go with Infowars and die or not.

People doesn't realize that all this will effect them. Ya, scapegoat the guy who everyone thinks deserves it. But, then it's on to the people who might deserve it. Then, they come knocking on your door and you question how. It's happening right now in front of your eyes. I would be very scared at what is to come from letting these massive corporations exercise this kind of mass banning power.

PayPal has been arbitrarily banning people for the entire time they’ve existed, like pretty much every website with members.

But they already did come knocking for an industry I was in. Despite the fact there are stores in all 50 states selling the product, and it’s gray-area legal in all of those states and explicitly legal for cannabis in about half the country, it’s difficult to openly sell blown glass art pipes on PayPal for long. They will shut down your account, keep your money for as long as possible and ban you for life ostensibly for violating federal paraphernalia law. Thankfully, it’s not as if PayPal has a monopoly on handling payment.

Alternatively: don't use paypal.

Yeah, it's not going to affect me.

So you demand that these private corporations need to do business with someone they find contemptible? Nobody is putting him in jail. He’s free to speak his noxious views. And other people are not obligated to publish or advertise on them.

As long as it's not a wedding cake, right?

Yeah, you have to not violate federal law, which is the same reason people who sell glass pipes get banned from PayPal.

I think there's a substantial moral difference between (1) a business discriminating against members of a sexual minority, and (2) a business discriminating against a dogwhistling conspiracy theorist.

I agree. I also would say that allowing a company to make decisions based on moral relativism is an even more slippery slope than we're already on.

Where's the relativism?

> I think there's a substantial moral difference between

Yes, a moral difference clearly in favor of the conspiracy theorist.

1) A cake is not as important as speech.

2) The gay couple had many other alternative options.

3) There was no shadowy group working to ensure that nobody would bake a cake for the gay couple.

There is a clear group setting out to unperson Alex Jones.

I don't feel like you're arguing in good faith here.

The issue wasn't what they were purchasing but rather the reason they were refused service - their sexuality. If Alex Jones had been deplatformed because he was gay then you can bet you're ass we'd be mad. If the couple was denied service because they were known to say controversial things in public and the bakery didn't want to be associated with that I'd have no issue with that either.

By 'free speech' I assume you mean the universal idea that we should be able to express ourselves rather than protection from the government. I'm going to presume (and correct me if I'm wrong) that you also believe businesses 'are people too' and should have analogous rights. What about the business' "freedom of speech"?

> The issue wasn't what they were purchasing but rather the reason they were refused service

I’m saying the what is far more important in this case than the why.

Speech is a fundamental freedom and getting a baker to make you a wedding cake is not.

> What about the business' "freedom of speech"?

PayPal is free to say they don’t like Alex Jones.

Facebook is free to put out a notification telling people Alex Jones is a liar.

I’m guessing you are really asking about freedom of association?

Provided there are clear alternatives then I don’t normally have a problem with a private company deciding who they want to do business with.

But that’s not the case here with social media or with credit card payment processing.

If there were thousands of alternatives available then it wouldn’t matter.

Instead there are only a handful of major corporations that control the respective markets and they appear to be colluding to deplatform Alex Jones.

Are you saying spreading hate speech a protected class now?

Whilst I probably would find no common ground with the person you're responding to (I'm pro-lgbtq in general and always have been) I do think there's a nuance here worth engaging with.

Didn't say that at all. Only addressing this statement: "So you demand that these private corporations need to do business with someone they find contemptible?"

You can try to make the argument that Alex Jones should belong to a protected class that needs special rules that infringe on other people's freedoms, but I don't think you'll win that argument.

Conspiracy theorists who torment the suffering are not a protected class. Since when are payment processors not free to choose the types of businesses they support?

Neither were the gay couple that were refused the wedding cake (in the instance of the wedding cake), that's why the supreme court ruled against them.

But this isn't what the Supreme Court rules at all. It ruled that in handling the case, the Colorado commission had been biased against the defendant; the ruling specifically stated that Colorado "can protect gay persons in acquiring products and services... the law must be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion"

The ruling was also very specific in that the case was not to set precedent and the ruling absolutely does not permit businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ.

In Colorado they were a protected class.

Which the supreme court overturned, ruling it unconstitutional.

No, they didn't. Their ruling rested largely on how hostile the Colorado administrative agency acted in that particular case. They made no ruling on the larger questions, which is how they got Kagan and Breyer on board with the majority opinion.

That's not true. They ruled that the baker got a mulligan because government officials didn't show enough respect to his religious beliefs. It is still illegal and there's another case against him right now over this behavior.

No, it absolutely did not overturn protected status of LGBTQ. To quote Justice Kennedy, Colorado "can protect gay persons in acquiring products and services... the law must be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion".

Completely agree, but there are also 3 types of people on this Earth who don't even think he should be censored like this:

1) Free speech purists, whether they agree or disagree

2) People who actually believe him

3) People who think Alex Jones' acting is a hilarious trainwreck of emotions (me!)

He's not being censored. This is even less related to censorship than being banned from Twitter, as it won't affect his ability to reach his audience in any way.

Did we say the same about Wikileaks when they weren't considered Russian sympathizers?

I would. Censorship is about disallowing speech. Paypal isn't in a position to do that.

Paypal's own words:

"We undertook an extensive review of the InfoWars sites, and found instances that promoted hate and discriminatory intolerance against certain communities and religions that run counter to our core value of inclusion."

The problems are:

1) There are many websites "promoted hate and discriminatory intolerance against certain communities and religions". As an atheist, I would say I have seem many atheist websites doing this.

2) This may not be fair. Nobody would believe Paypal has reviewed the speech of all the websites using their service. So why did they pick InfoWars? For what reason? Was that because there were lots of complains? Paypal not only need to explain why InfoWars should be banned, they also need to explain why they picked InfoWars.

3) There is no due process. Does InfoWars has a chance to appeal the decision? Were they informed before the decision was made? Were they given time for transition?

4) Yes. Paypal as a private company can make this decision. But nobody here is claiming that Paypal's decision is illegal. Many people feel this is dangerous, and there are good reasons to feel this way:

a) The nature of Paypal's business has nothing to do with speech. It is dangerous for a financial company to censor speech. It is different from facebook or twitter, which are speech platforms, so the content of speech are important to them. Why should Paypal even care about the speech on other websites? We do not need financial companies to shape the world of speech.

b) InfoWars promotes hate speech, but it is not illegal in the U.S. It is not a terrorist group. If it really incited violence, law enforcement will handle it. The difference between law enforcement and business: law enforcement has to follow the due process, but business makes arbitrary decision.

I have a question for the commenters who are disappointed by this event: how do you feel about PayPal's actions here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18017635 (PayPal’s crackdown on ASMR creators)? If you have a different reaction to that, then please explain the difference between the two kinds of events for me as plainly as you can for my understanding.

What’s a reasonable explanation of the ASMR ban.

I’m asking because I just don’t see any ewuivalence between these two issues. I’m personally deeply disappointed by (and oppose) both bans, but at least I can see some reason for Infowars ban (“he’s spreading harmful information”) whereas I cannot really come up with any not-obviously-contrived (i.e. “sex-fear-mongering”) explanation.

My question is aimed at developing my understanding of the people who support the ASMR ban, but are against the InfoWars one.

Are there any such people?

I tried to figure out what was going on from your story but it's like coming into the middle of a family fight that's been going on for years. The stuff they're currently arguing about is probably not how it started.

In particular PayPal says specifically in that article that they don't have any policies against ASMR (which apparently is mostly videos of women making weird sound effects?). So why are they suspending accounts, well presumably they think they're doing it for other reasons. The article goes on to talk about YouTube being "anti sex" or something so presumably there's more to these videos than is being let on.

At any rate, I think it's dumb that payment processors suspend accounts for sex-related stuff too, but that's at least something with a basis in US law so PayPal may feel they are legally forced to do it. FOSTA is mentioned.

Despite my feelings of "It couldn't have happened to a 'nicer' fellow", I still have to stand by "It shouldn't have happened to any fellow".

How far will this go? Banks refusing to finance his mortgage? Grocery stores banning him from buying food? He hasn’t done anything illegal he’s just an asshole.

He violated the Acceptable Use Policy he agreed to abide by, so naturally they chose to stop doing business with him. I don't think PayPal was accusing him of breaking any law.

Slander is a crime.

*tort

Sadly, these enforcement actions are very selective.

It's not like PayPal or other SV companies for that matter like Patreon really care about their Community Guidelines.

I reported a person to Patreon some time ago who takes it as a job to spread hateful/false info about white helmets, even advocating for killing them many times. High profile enough person to be documented by journalists, and have special chapters in large reports about russian propaganda. No response. And it's not like these people are not being killed regularly, by the same government that regularly tags her in images posted to twitter from their embassy accounts.

But hey, baby steps.

Bullshit. Paypal drops merchants for arbitrary reasons all of the time. They've been doing it for over a decade.

Paypal dropping merchants for arbitrary reasons is not evidence in favor of them caring about their community guidelines. Consistently dropping merchants for well-defined violations would be.

PayPal would have prevented American Independence, citing violence.

Its paypal business who they do business with but it shows a very low threshold on the integrity of their service. They may not like what he says or what's he generally about(I am not a fan of him) but he's not doing anything illegal. If I was in working in a business they were not a fan of(who knows?), I would definitely be looking for other options.

They have a history of doing this sort of thing and they have known to be less than righteous. It's really discerning that a money handler can do something like this at their whim.

I haven't had great experiences doing typical business with them.

The barrier to being categorized as “hate speech” seems to becoming increasingly easier to apply.

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Damn they really are doing a number on him. A conspiracy to silence Alex Jones and deplatform him completely.. I never really saw him as a serious guy to over the top screaming etc.. but this is pretty insane.

A conspiracy implies all of these companies .. conspired, rather than independently reaching a conclusion that supporting this fellow with their services was bad for their own business.

How could they “independently” reach the same conclusion at roughly the same time?

I’m not saying they necessarily “conspired”, could be as simple as one CEO seeing the news and saying “that’s a good idea, we should do that too”, but the chances of these decisions being completely independent is almost zero.

Either it’s a conspiracy or it is not. If there are a bunch of people running down the street, and I see that they’re running from a fire, then I’m going to run too. That is not a conspiracy. The decision is independent even if the reason is shared.

That’s not to say it’s just one big coincidence.

What the fuck are these comments? At some point, when everyone has shut you out, don't you realize that you are the problem?

Some people think abstract principles matter more than specific edge-cases.

I'll just throw out that it's not a coincidence which specific edge-cases these people choose to get up in arms about.

Like, I don't see a lot of outrage from free speech types when liberal professors get fired for saying stupid shit. It's only a certain kind of speech being suppressed that they seem to care about.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/college/ut-condemns-t...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/06/2...

> Like, I don't see a lot of outrage from free speech types when liberal professors get fired for saying stupid shit

Is it the same thing?

A better example would be if power companies and phone companies started disconnecting liberal professors for saying stupid shit.

I wasn't trying to make an analogy to this specific situation. You're right that it's not the same. I was just pointing out things I've noticed about the broader free speech discussion.

> from free speech types

How about center-left free speech types like me? I'm from the UK and it's so clear over hear which side of the spectrum "owns" free speech.

I think some people also use abstract principles as canards when they actually identify with said edge cases. Either way, it’s exhausting and pointless and poisons every conversation online (and some off) that touch on these issues. It’s like arguing about the value of birth control with a pope from a few decades ago. Facts don’t matter, only positions matter.

Free speech, as a right, has become obsolete given that corporations have become the medium for our communications. Anyone or anything can be censored. It's not about Alex being wrong.

Is Wikileaks a problem, or a solutition?

It can be both.

> At some point, when everyone has shut you out, don't you realize that you are the problem?

I remember everyone shutting out my brother for being gay.

Cue the: "if you don't like it; just create your own internet and payment-processor" responses.

I don't care about Alex Jones, but this is why we need Bitcoin.

We have Bitcoin, but it is still more challenging to use than Paypal for most users.

Use Square's Cash App. It has USD and BTC

Bitcoin exists though.

BTC buy signal?

I fear Mr. Jones will go from being a fringe loon to being a major talking point in 2020, spoon feeding people what they want to hear about their fears (similar to what we saw in 2016).

The First Amendment isn't defended at Michelangelo's "David", but at Larry Flynt's "Hustler".

The First Amendment doesn't obligate private companies to do business with people or other businesses they don't want to be involved with.

If the U.S. government were ordering his accounts closed, you might have an argument.

The ideal is bigger than that. If we only support rights for people and ideas we support, then they aren't rights. Freedom of speech is not just a constraint on our government; its an ideal that only survives if we stand up for it vigorously. Its absurd to expect our government to be a better "person" than we expect of ourselves.

Do we have a right to a business's services though? Should bars be unable to ban unruly customers? I don't see how this is very different.

About damn time. There are limits to "free speech", namedly when said speech is inciting racial hatred.

And it's about time companies realize their role in actually enabling the hatred - and act upon their responsibility.

> namedly when said speech is inciting racial hatred.

There is no such limit in the US.

[flagged]

We (or, I hope, some of us) still believe in the same values. Murder and genocide are not condoned, nor do we want a repeat of what happened in WW2. Free speech is the protected value. That my countryman might choose to use that freedom poorly is his choice, but that's part of it: he's free to choose. Unorthodox ideas might be the next freedom or civil rights movement, or they might just be absolute garbage; it isn't the government's place to pick or choose what ideas get expressed.

The old quote applies,

> I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

That said, I don't see why a private enterprise should be forced to do business with someone unwillingly. (Again, if this were the government, I'd have a very different opinion.)

As for some of the more egregious things he's done, such as claiming Sandy Hook was a hoax,

> six families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting as well as an FBI agent who responded to the attack filed a defamation lawsuit against Jones for his role in spreading conspiracy theories about the shooting.

This is the proper forum for this to occur in, and hopefully justice will be done.

[flagged]

This kind of thing is the one unquestionable good reason for having crypto currencies available. They're not just for drugs and contracts!

Forget paypal. The oligopoly that is Visa and MasterCard could easily shut down anyone they want because of "hate" or whatever abstract noun we're using to attack those the NY Times doesn't like.

I truly wish the predictable conversation to follow could be something other than the inevitable bike shedding over what constitutes free speech, slippery slopes, and conspiracy theories. In a dozen submissions of similar topics the comments could be largely interchanged with only a few proper nouns being changed. All too often it seems like people firing mortars from deep within ideological trenches, and worse, some people making weak fallacious arguments of doom instead of openly supporting the speech in question.

It’s all very twisty, predictable, and pointless and I’ve never seen anyone budge. It’s just “over the top boys” and at the end of the day no man’s land gets a few more craters.

Do you have a more substantial viewpoint to share?

I think to a large extent the same arguments are repeated because stories like these are literally arguments for both sides:

“See, I was right, censorship will not stop at at anything, it’s a slippery slope!”

“See, bad people/ideas should be censored and it helps make society better.”

My point is that it is pointless to have these conversations here, because no exchange of ideas takes place, no intellectual curiosity is satisfied, and bad faith arguments are the norm. You may not like that point, but that doesn’t make it any less of a point. For whatever reason (I already presented my thoughts on those reasons as I see them) this site can’t handle this discussion, and the results are distracting and disheartening.

I suspect that a major reason I haven’t yet mentioned is that everyone who isn’t identifying as being on a “side” stays the hell away from them. That leaves the raving ideologues for the most part, with a smattering of the same being shouted down for not hewing to what is Obviously Correct. My substantive point is that the moderation on this site should treat this like any other instance of politics that it buries, because it is, and because it creates the same kinds of endless and repetitive arguments and flame wars.

As much as Alex Jones says some indefensible things, this continuing saga is a great argument for why we need to start regulating certain things on the Internet like utilities.

Imagine Alex Jones's power company deciding to shut down power to his studio because they (rightly) think he's being an asshole, or the phone company disconnecting his landline.

Just because something's a private company doesn't mean we should put up with them selectively denying people access to their "platform". Being plugged into the power company is also being on their "platform", and would probably be regulated as loosely as Facebook, YouTube, PayPal et al if electric power was a thing that had only really taken off in the last 20 years.

I think that Monday I will be talking to the money transmission licensing board in my state.

Maybe PayPal needs to explain to my state why they should retain the ability to continue to operate...not sure that their one-sided values are in alignment with the law.

EDIT: remember that if you tolerate this behavior towards people you disagree with (I myself don't pay any attention to Jones as I think he is someone who doesn't really try to understand reality), then when the tables are turned, as they do quite often in politics, what basis will you have to complain about the poor treatment you or someone whose views you champion, receives?

I get that their guidelines aren't uniformly enforced, but how are the values themselves one-sided? Are you suggesting they should also ban people who voice support for Muslims or gun control? What is the "other side"?

> or gun control?

I mean this seems legitimate.

Our founding document clearly highlights the inalienable right to bear arms.

A commercial business is not allowed to pick and chose who it’s customers are?

I’m not picking sides in this discussion, only curious to understand your viewpoint and to learn more about what legal boundary PayPal crossed.

There is an entire category of laws dedicated to discrimination by businesses, yes. The question is here is whether Mr. Jones is part of a protected class, and how broadly a company can use their terms of service (which is essentially discrimination by policy)

They are in the manner of a public utility... they don't get to pick and choose.

Should Alex Jones not be able to send mail? Should Alex Jones not be able to get a phone line?

What 'side' considers this type of speech anything but batshit crazy? Does thinking calling Hillary Clinton a serial rapist and murderer is absolutely insane make one a biased 'Liberal'?:

[0] http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/alex-jones-hillary-clinto...

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