A long very informative article about how non-radical leftist views are being economically marginalized


Stripe, PayPal, Patreon: The Right Is Being Banned from Online Fundraising
24 Jul 2018

The creeping exclusion of the right from online platforms like Twitter and Facebook is well-known, drawing the attention of Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale and the RNC. But a greater challenge is on the horizon: the exclusion of the right from financial services.

Conservatives have long been the target of shadowbans, biased algorithms, and account bans on social media. Not content with silencing their voices online, the left now wants to stop the right from using the web to fundraise. Thanks to the increasing willingness of online fundraising platforms and payment processors to ban clients for political reasons, they are getting their way.

One of the most popular fundraising platforms is Patreon, a site that allows users to collect monthly recurring donations from their supporters. With the decline of ad revenue on platforms like YouTube, Patreon has emerged as an important and effective tool for online content creators to earn a living. In some cases, it can take little more than a hundred fans contributing set amounts per month for a creator to support themselves full-time.

In theory, this creates an environment similar to that of talk radio in the 1980s: a decentralized ecosystem where new creators can quickly establish an independent support base, without relying on gatekeepers in the establishment media. With only their fans to answer to, as opposed to controversy-shy advertisers, it should be the perfect formula for free expression.

There’s just one problem — Patreon itself. Like the rest of Silicon Valley, Patreon has decided it wants to be more than just a neutral platform, and now routinely cuts off income from content creators for political reasons. Chief among them is “hate speech”, which Patreon says it does not tolerate on its platform. It has used “hate speech” as a justification to ban a number of figures on the far-right, including white nationalist Jason Kessler. But although the alt-right is shunned by most, including Breitbart News, the idea that politics should dictate whether someone is allowed to access financial services is even more controversial.

As is often the case, banning extremists was the start of a slippery slope. Patreon’s purge quickly escalated beyond the alt-right to target independent conservative journalists. The latest example is YouTuber and author Brittany Pettibone, who was banned from the platform last month. Patreon cited her support for the European identitarian organization Generation Identity, a group Patreon claims is a “violent organization.” (The organization explicitly disavows political violence.)

Patreon also banned the independent journalist Lauren Southern in 2017 over her work exposing globalist NGOs assisting the illegal trafficking of persons into Europe via the Mediterranean. Patreon said her work could “cause loss of life” by stopping the work of NGO “rescue vessels” — but migrant deaths in the Mediterranean actually fell by 40 percent as attempted crossings declined in the wake of her reporting. Also, if interfering with the illegal activities of NGO vessels in the Mediterranean is unacceptable to Patreon, they should make it clear that the governments of Italy and Malta, which now bar NGO ships from their shores, aren’t welcome on the platform either.

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It’s not difficult to build a website. If all existing online fundraising services have been co-opted by censor-happy progressives, why not build competing services that don’t ban users for political reasons? When you don’t like what’s on offer, build your own. That’s the free-market conservative argument.

But it’s not as simple as that.

In order to build a fundraising platform, you need a payments processor. And the market for payments processors is dominated by just two companies: PayPal and Stripe. And they’re just as intolerant as the fundraising platforms.

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But it’s not just conservatives who are concerned by the power of payment processors and financial institutions to shut down political expression. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a liberal organization known for promoting left-wing causes like the Obama administration’s “net neutrality” regulations, has expressed grave misgivings at the decision of financial institutions to withdraw services for political reasons.

In detailed comments provided to Breitbart News (read them in full here), the liberal group said payment processors like PayPal have become “de facto internet censors.”

“EFF is deeply concerned that payment processors are making choices about which websites can and can’t accept payments or process donations,” an EFF spokeswoman told Breitbart News. “This can have a huge impact on what types of speech are allowed to flourish online.”

An Existential Threat

In online fundraising as in social media, the internet provides a tremendous advantage to those who know how to use it. When allowed, conservatives and critics of progressivism have used these platforms to great effect. The dissident Canadian academic Jordan Peterson is supported by over 9,500 small donors on Patreon. Memories Pizza, the Indiana-based pizza parlor forced to close its doors after it was publicly attacked by the establishment media for refusing to cater gay weddings, was able to reopen after its supporters raised over $800,000 via GoFundMe.

As the left prepares for the 2018 midterms and the 2020 general election, they want to ensure that only they have access to that tremendous power. And with PayPal and Stripe withdrawing support from politically neutral fundraising platforms, they are well on their way to achieving that aim. Like the social media purges, this represents an existential threat to the conservative and pro-Trump movement.


https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/07/2...ne-fundraising/

Electronic Frontier Foundation: Banks, Payment Processors Are Becoming ‘De Facto Internet Censors’
24 Jul 2018

Payment processors like PayPal and Stripe are becoming “de facto internet censors”, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the leading liberal nonprofit claiming to defend free expression and privacy online.

The EFF thinks that the behavior of services like Stripe and PayPal — which Breitbart News covered extensively in an article today — constitute a major threat to free expression on the web.

“EFF is deeply concerned that payment processors are making choices about which websites can and can’t accept payments or process donations,” an EFF spokeswoman told Breitbart News. “This can have a huge impact on what types of speech are allowed to flourish online.”

“We’ve seen examples — such as when WikiLeaks faced a banking blockade — of payment processors and other financial institutions shutting down the accounts of websites engaged in legal but unpopular speech.”

“I’m deeply concerned that we’re letting banks and payment processors turn into de facto Internet censors.”

Online financial services have clamped down on right-wingers and supporters of free speech in recent years. As reported by Breitbart News, it has become increasingly difficult for individuals engaged in controversial yet lawful speech to fund their activities online. Right-wing YouTubers Brittany Pettibone and Lauren Southern have both been kicked off Patreon, while attempts to create a free-speech friendly alternative to the fundraising platform have failed due to the refusal of payment processors like Stripe and PayPal to do business with them.

Although the EFF is generally associated with liberal causes like the campaign to reinstate the Obama administration’s “net neutrality” regulations, it clearly part ways with much of the left on the issue of corporate censorship, warning that major financial institutions have too much power to cut off income from controversial speech on the web.

“These financial giants have little incentive to defend free expression online because it doesn’t impact their bottom line, and it’s often difficult or impossible for small websites to appeal decisions to shut down accounts or freeze payments” said the EFF spokeswoman. “Policies by big financial institutions like Visa and Mastercard also influence the policies of other financial intermediaries — including payment processors and crowdfunding sites.”

“That means that speech-restrictive policies by just a handful of companies — especially Visa and Mastercard, and also PayPal to an extent — can make it difficult or impossible for some law-abiding websites to process payments or donations at all.”

Of course, making it difficult for (some) law-abiding websites and individuals to process payments and donations is precisely the objective of culture warriors on the left. The decision of Patreon to ban Lauren Southern, for example, was the result of a lobbying campaign by the British far-left pressure group Hope Not Hate.

The EFF spokeswoman says it should not be the responsibility of financial institutions to judge what speech is and is not acceptable on the web.

“We need to be asking ourselves: who should be deciding what kind of speech should be allowed to thrive online? Should it be Internet users, elected officials, or the courts? Or should it be financial intermediaries, like Visa and Mastercard?”

“In my opinion, financial institutions don’t have the expertise to judge whether speech has societal value or violates the First Amendment. They shouldn’t be making those decisions at all.”


https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/07/2...ternet-censors/

Sounds to me like beta testing for the financial aspects of China's Social Credit System.

China’s “Social Credit System” Will Rate How Valuable You Are as a Human
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https://futurism.com/china-social-credit...te-human-value/