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Comment by bhouston | Hacker News Reader

That can not be actually what happened is it? That would be insane.

It should be against the law to privately retaliate like this.

If banks have to insert themselves into every transaction (cash is banned for larger transactions), then it follows that debanking should be viewed as a legal instrument of punishment, and should only be allowed following a violation of the law, and subject to the usual due process like fines or prison sentences. Anything else is a significant infringement on personal freedom.

Also, "freezing" the funds without a court judgement or the opportunity of retrieving them is effectively theft. If you didn't pay the parking fees on my property for a couple days, it's not legal for me to just boot or chain it or hide it somewhere (at least in the US), and I think the same should go here.

There are now quite a few cases in Europe where the EU or local govs been de-banking individuals. No court, no judge needed. Much more efficient way to shut down critics. We ain't need no people who delegitimize those in power.

Can we have a link? In France, at most you can get your account restricted (can't go into deficit and a sum is blocked) until the issue is resolved (99% because of unpaid taxes, sometimes the money is blocked by a judge until a judgement is passed). It's weird if the EU don't have a standard.

Look at what happened to Jacques Baud because he criticized the EU on the Ukranian war and is now considered a "pro-russia" and propagating "disinformation". [1]

I read what he wrote ("L’art de la guerre russe, comment l’Occident a conduit l’Ukraine à l’échec"), you can download it temporarily here : [2]. His book is absolutely not pro-russia nor pro-EU.

[1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/various/former-swiss-intelligen...

[2] https://www.swisstransfer.com/d/0117e2b4-8e70-4343-8097-7bfe...

The guy has a "Conspiracy theory and disinformation" section in his wikipedia page, that mentions 9/11.

Come on. That's your "totally not pro-russia" example ?

So being pro Russia justifies de-banking?

Qonto is French and so is the commenter on Twitter.

What you are saying is not correct; perhaps you are confusing it with the right to an account?

https://www.banque-france.fr/fr/a-votre-service/particuliers...

Yes, exactly. French citizens have an inalienable right to a checking account, enforced by French government. I don't remember the exact law, but I know someone who was 'interdit bancaire' (took too much revolving credits in the 90s) and the local bank _had_ to let him open a new account (a very limited one).

Anyone living there, not just citizens.

That doesn't mean a bank can't close your account. It just means that if you have none, a bank can be told to give you one.

This sounds like bullshit.

The only debanking cases I've been aware of were the US putting pressure on judges from the International Court and a special appointee of the UN for Palestine.

Yes, as the comments point out, he has 11 K followers and this is most likely a coincidence

I was about to agree with you until i noticed that the bank was backed by peter thiel.

It seems pretty in character and it's not like there is another more plausible reason being offered.

>It seems pretty in character and it's not like there is another more plausible reason being offered.

In character of what, that Thiel is a mustache twirling villain? Did other companies backed by him have a history of banning his critics?

>It seems pretty in character and it's not like there is another more plausible reason being offered.

By his own admission, neobanks have a history of banning clients arbitrarily without recourse. My guess it's run of the mill incompetence, not oppressing Thiel's critics.

> neobanks have a history of banning clients arbitrarily without recourse.

Not just neobanks, sadly. Even old-fashioned banks like Chase do so with alarming regularity.

Well, he destroyed Gawker. Not that I think they were good people. But it was definitely a personal vendetta.

Gawker was a well known website with 23 million visit per month, and a Wikipedia page. This guy has 44k subscribers and no Wikipedia page. It's a stretch to go from "Thiel had a vendetta against Gawker" to "Thiel had a vendetta against this guy".

By contrast this involved flipping a switch. It was extremely easy.

If that were true you'd see much more people getting banned than one streamer with 44k subs.

You seem to be assuming that this is a large bank.

>hat Thiel is a mustache twirling villain?

I mean it's pretty common these days to see that billionaires can be thin skinned little twerps that hold a vendetta. Elon Musk is the biggest example of one that shows up and talks shit when someone tries to hurt his feefees.

Now, if you're powerful but not quite as dumb as Elon can be socially, you're not going to do the work yourself. You'll have a social media management team that takes care of the work for you.

> In character of what, that Thiel is a mustache twirling villain?

Well, yes, exactly. Sorry it's that simple & unsatisfying but it absolutely is.

> In character of what, that Thiel is a mustache twirling villain?

I mean, yes? You don't amass billions of dollars with subtlety?

[1] https://www.inc.com/jeff-bercovici/peter-thiel-young-blood.h...

[2] https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palanti...

(not that I think TFA here is very likely to be true)

> In character of what, that Thiel is a mustache twirling villain?

Yes, Peter Theil is a mustache twirling villain, I thought this was common knowledge?

> In character of what, that Thiel is a mustache twirling villain?

I just did a ctrl-F on this page and nowhere was the word "Paypal" included. So I'm including it.

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