(Liberty Bell) – Despite the fact that Americans openly despise censorship and the fake news media establishment, big companies are still going all-in on their crusades against so-called “misinformation.”
Of course, this always results in censorship against conservatives, which is ironic because the only misinformation given to the American people has come from the left.
Nonetheless, “woke” companies like PayPal continue to punish Americans whose views do not align with Joe Biden and his radical regime.
A new policy update at PayPal will open the door for the company to penalize users who they determine are peddling “misinformation” or posing a risk to others’ “wellbeing.” In other words: conservatives.
The penalty will be a $2,500 per offense fine and that’s scary when you consider PayPal accounts are typically linked to bank accounts.
Censorship and penalties for conservative viewpoints is nothing new for the financial services company. They have repeatedly deplatformed organizations and individual commentators for their political views.
The new policy update will expand its “existing list of prohibited activities” on November 3, just in time for the midterm general elections.
Among the changes are prohibitions on “the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials” that “promote misinformation” or “present a risk to user safety or wellbeing.” Users are also barred from “the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory.”
The policy applies only to actions taken while using PayPal’s platform.
Deliberations will be made at the “sole discretion” of PayPal and may subject the user to “damages” — including the removal of $2,500 “debited directly from your PayPal account” per offense.
According to the company’s user agreement, account holders acknowledge that the figure is “presently a reasonable minimum estimate of PayPal’s actual damages” due to the administrative cost of tracking violations and damage to the company’s reputation.
“Under existing law, PayPal has the ability as a private company to implement this type of viewpoint-discriminatory policy,” Aaron Terr, a senior program officer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, explained to the Daily Wire.
“Whatever motivation PayPal has for establishing these vague new categories of prohibited expression, they will almost certainly have a severe chilling effect on users’ speech. As is often the case with ill-defined and viewpoint-discriminatory speech codes, those with unpopular or minority viewpoints will likely bear the brunt of these restrictions.”
Conservative viewpoints, however, are neither “unpopular” or “minority” viewpoints like the radical left would have Americans believe.
The policy update comes just days after PayPal canceled three accounts linked to Toby Young, a commentator who runs a nonprofit called Free Speech Union, which defends clients from censorship.
One such client is comedian and actor Russell Brand who has just recently moved his podcast show from YouTube to Rumble after censorship became a problem on the left-wing video-sharing platform.
The Daily Wire states that around one-third of Free Speech Union members use PayPal as their primary means of processing membership dues.
Toby Young received no explanation from PayPal in regards to the suspensions against him other than he somehow breached the acceptable use policy. The Telegraph reported that PayPal, however, restored the accounts after blowback from lawmakers and even apologized to Young for “any inconvenience caused.”
Companies like PayPal, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook and Google are ramping up efforts to censor and suppress information from right-wing commentators and organizations ahead of the November midterm elections.
They’re working out of the very same playbook they used to influence the 2020 US presidential election and it seems a lot of the focus is on abortion, which the left insists is a top issue for Americans despite record inflation, an open border crisis, and a failing economy.
“These kinds of policies are unwise, threaten free speech, and invite legal risk,” Jeremy Tedesco, vice president of corporate engagement at Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Daily Wire. “When companies apply policies to restrict the religious speech of their customers, they could run afoul of prohibitions on religious discrimination that exist in many state and federal laws.”
“Whatever PayPal’s intentions may be, censorship and chilling free speech is precisely the effect of these kinds of vaguely worded policies,” Tedesco added. “We’ve seen social media companies use similar policies to stifle free speech on their platforms. We can expect a similar outcome with PayPal.”
Fortunately, Americans are now very much aware of these censorship tactics and it’s just even more reason to make sure Democrats are voted out of office come November.
Copyright 2022. LibertyBell.com
