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Comment by rgbrenner | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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