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Comment by sverhagen | Hacker News Reader

Isn't that a false choice, that's only phrased to cater to the "that makes it easy for the bank"? They are now categorically refusing certain businesses. If those businesses could at least appeal and demonstrate that they are within the law, why wouldn't banks be mandated to process the transactions? This could go with some sort of safe haven for the banks, that if they did this review process that they won't be liable if an illegal transaction slips through. (And sure, some illegal transactions would slip through, but I'm convinced that this is already the case.)

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Challenging it in court is an impossible burden for most people, so the most important thing is the default. Do we want the bank to assume you're a criminal, or do we want to assume you're innocent and make the police be the ones to prove if you're not?

The DMCA, with all its faults, outlines a challenge process performed largely outside the courts. Something similar could be done for banks: bank shuts down account for company, company appeals providing some proof, bank files proof somewhere and reinstates. If the bank is then sued by government or third party, it is "safe-havened" by such proof. If proof is found to be false, the company is responsible, not the bank.

Yes, that's sounds like a very reasonable system. I like that it shift burden of law enforcement from banks onto actual law enforcement system with proper checks and balances.

> Something similar could be done for banks: bank shuts down account for company, company appeals providing some proof, bank files proof somewhere and reinstates

You're describing your state banking regulator. Also, like a bajillion federal banking regulators.

Well then, something clearly is not working in that process, if we're here.

> something clearly is not working in that process, if we're here

The article talks about credit card networks. I'm referring to banks. Banks are highly regulated, including with respect to account closures. Credit card networks are much less regulated.

If you want a non-court public venue to dispute your bank on something, anything, you have several such venues. Depending on your state, they can be quite toothsome.

Possibly, but those businesses tend to be the ones that lack political cover and that a large section of the public and political sphere would happily ban anyway.

Parent's point seems like what they're doing here. Trading underage porn is illegal, as well as revenge porn in some places, etc. so they forbid that and allow legal porn. Seems like they really are doing "all legal things and no illegal things" more accurately, and it really is burdensome to everyone.

I guess the question is whether the business they serve is legal. YouTube has some pirated content for sure. The business has rules in place to deal with it, for better or worse, and if someone pays with a credit card to watch something illegal in YT, that doesn’t count as the bank facilitating a crime.

I’m not defending porn as a grand corner of free speech but I don’t like banks deciding who can and cannot be paid.

The counterpoint that a banker would make is that they're forced into this position by Congress, regulators, and prudence.

The alternative that might work is charging businesses fees that vary according to the risk of their transactions being illegal. Which sounds good on paper, but also runs the risk of leaving the bank in the position of making a large amount of fees from illegal activity, which rarely goes over well in court. Better, perhaps, to have a unified fee schedule and just refuse any business that could be unprofitable from liability.

I think the banker would have a strong point here. They're not in a place where these are always easy calls to make - transactions don't come with an evil bit. The constraints placed on them don't leave them a lot of viable choices.

> Seems like they really are doing "all legal things and no illegal things" more accurately

Well, they're doing that but there's also a huge set of things whose legal status is "shmaybe?", and AnthonyMouse's point is that this is where the defaults matter. Currently, banks tend to merge that third category into "illegal" set. They could merge it into "legal" set instead, which would arguably be better for society.

Mastercard's BRAM rules involve blocking quite a lot of things that are legal though - you're not allowed to mention hypnosis, or blood, or vampires in adult content, even in a completely fictional context.

Do you have a link for that? I'm having a frustratingly difficult time trying to find a concise list of the BRAM rules.

Not a public one I can hand out, no. The lack of public transparency around the BRAM rules is also a significant issue imo.

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