The Internet has raised $10k for the Palestinian researcher snubbed by Facebook | Hacker News Reader

The Internet has raised $10k for the Palestinian researcher snubbed by Facebook

qz.com

33 pointspeter12310 comments

Business owners the world over are hoping this becomes a trend. Outsourcing your QA to the global market, but better than the current model because it's free. Why pay out when other (completely uninvolved) parties will do it for you? Bizarre that people see this as a positive.

That he will not be able to receive because no-one bothered to check that the service they used cannot pay out to people that live in countries where PayPal doesn't service. Which doesn't include Palestine.

PayPal for non-US -> https://gofundme.zendesk.com/entries/22590777-Is-my-country-...

No Palestine -> https://www.paypal.com/worldwide/

Not for years -> https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/Getting-started/Palestin...

I'm surprised that gofundme didn't stop it before they have to reverse all the charges. I guess they like the free publicity.

So everything will revert, everyone will forget about him and he is back to square one.

Probably will be possible to use Western Union to send the money over. Online money exchange is super hard in some countries though (I've experienced it first hand in Haiti.) It's a shame because it really holds the people there back. I sent an inquiry to Paypal once asking them about their plans to expand to more countries (specifically Haiti) and got this canned response:

The primary reason is the challenges and complexities associated with the worldwide financial network which becomes even more unique within each country. It is not a reflection of the status or reliability of individuals in these countries.

We currently support services in nearly 200 countries across the globe. The global financial marketplace is unique and varies locally between each country. PayPal always seeks to ensure compliance with local and international laws before unveiling any new service. This is why we cannot offer a firm date or timetable for expansion of specific services.

Though we can't provide an exact date for coming to your region, we can promise you we're working hard to get there. For more information, just go to the PayPal website and click the "Worldwide" link at the bottom of the page.

Except they don't bother to mention Western Union and WU has a $1500/month limit in Palestine.

I'm sure there are other ways to get the money to him through a proxy individual.

Except gofundme will not be able to legally do that.

Who would insure a process like that? They will just refund everyone and forget about it, not their problem.

They should make a statement one way or the other if they can accomplish this, I am pretty sure they cannot. Many companies are restricted from business in Palestine by Israel, Palestine is not even allowed to send mail internationally.

I don't get how gofundme works.

How do gofundme knows which address to send the fund to/verifying the receiver, etc... when the campaign ends?

What's the purpose of the campaign creator in here?

No one would say "the mail has raised $10k for ... "

These are just people using tools. The internet is not a person or subset of people, it's a utility open to anyone.

Obviously. However, "The Internet" sounds much better and is much more concise than, say, "The People on the Internet".

The phrasing would probably be closer to "$10k raised for..." or "individuals raise $10k..." The fact that they did it through the internet doesn't seem hugely novel (aside from the fact they evidently can't get the money to him

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