Bitcoin News and Finance Paypal Plans to Study Transactions That Fund Extremism, Anti-Government Groups Skip to main content

Paypal Plans to Study Transactions That Fund Extremism, Anti-Government Groups

The payment processing giant Paypal has revealed it has partnered with the nonprofit organization the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). According to the announcement, Paypal is researching transactions settled on the payment network that allegedly fund hate groups and extremism.

Paypal to Study Transactions With the Anti-Defamation League

A report from Reuters notes that Paypal is studying transactions that involve “extremists” and that fund “hate movements.” The company will investigate and disrupt the financial flows that support specific hate groups and alleged “anti-government organizations.” The announcement notes that the initiative will be completed via ADL’s Center on Extremism.

According to Paypal’s chief risk officer and executive vice president of risk and platforms, Aaron Karczmer said the company has been working on “sophisticated systems” that help curb illegal activities.

Paypal Plans to Study Transactions That Fund Extremism, Anti-Government Groups
When the ADL announced its partnership with Paypal on Twitter, the thread got a massive number of responses criticizing the ADL’s practices.

Karczmer hopes this previous knowledge and the current systems can help create a “positive social impact.” The centralized payment processor has been known to censor transactions for quite some time. In 2010, Paypal froze the account tethered to the whistleblowing web portal Wikileaks and caused an uproar.

The combination of Mastercard, Visa, Paypal and others using a financial blockade against Wikileaks was controversial and the actions drove the website to accept bitcoin donations. In 2016, male escorts in the UK leveraged bitcoin to bypass Paypal censorship. In 2019, Paypal stopped servicing Pornhub models and by January 2020, Paypal suspended all Pornhub accounts. In September 2020, Paypal’s sophisticated infrastructure censored merchants selling tardigrade merchandise.

Extremism Considered a Slippery Slope and Debatable

The ADL’s definitions of extremism and hate are also quite debatable. For instance, five years ago the ADL classified the famous Internet frog meme “Rare Pepe” as a hate symbol. This caused the meme to get blockchained and turned into an immutable collection of non-fungible tokens.

Paypal Plans to Study Transactions That Fund Extremism, Anti-Government Groups

Moreover, the ADL’s definitions of anti-government organizations being dubbed extremists are also considered extreme by those who believe in libertarianism and think that governments are currently corrupt. The latest move by Paypal and ADL has already been criticized by activists, libertarians, and even bitcoiners.

“Bitcoin derives its value from censorship resistance,” a Redditor on the subreddit r/bitcoin said on July 26. “Paypal, your days of forced-relevance are over,” the individual added.

The former American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) director, Ira Glasser, explains how banning hate speech is a never-ending slippery slope. “When people say they want to ban hate speech, what they mean is they want to ban speech that they hate,” Glasser stressed in an interview. “But if you allowed something called ‘hate speech’ to be banned, then the only important question would be ‘who decides?’”

The report concerning the ADL and Paypal partnership explains that the payment processor has already been taking action against “extremism” over the last several years. The announcement also notes that Paypal and the ADL will be working with select civil rights organizations. Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL’s CEO, sees the partnership as a window of opportunity.

“We have a unique opportunity to further understand how hate spreads and develop key insights that will inform the efforts of the financial industry, law enforcement, and our communities in mitigating extremist threats,” Greenblatt said in a statement.

What do you think about Paypal joining up with the Anti-Defamation League in order to research transactions that fund extremism? Do you think there’s a slippery slope when it comes to classifying extremists? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Custodial Lightning Network Service Attack Discovered by LN ‘Newbie’ — Hacker Strikes 6 LN Custodians

On September 18, a Redditor posted to the r/bitcoin forum and explained how he discovered a way to “attack [the] lightning Network’s custodial services.” The Reddit account dubbed “Reckless Satoshi” wanted to figure out if a “discrepancy between real routing fees and service’s transaction fee can be exploited for a profit.” The researcher disclosed that he wanted to see how large the damage could be and said “it is bad.” 6 Lightning Network Custodial Services Attacked, Researcher Discloses Findings to Offenders Prior to Public Disclosure A Redditor called Reckless Satoshi published a disclosure post on r/bitcoin this past Saturday and disclosed how he had found a vulnerability with routing fees and some of the Lightning Network’s custodial services. The research attack was done in good faith and after it was complete he disclosed the bugs to the offending services before publishing his findings. Reckless Satoshi used the Lightning Network (LN) attack on six different services incl...

Axie Infinity Down 40% Since Last Week’s Price High, Protocol Revenue Outshines Competitors

Last week, the game token leveraged within the Axie Infinity gaming universe skyrocketed to all-time highs, while other crypto markets remained extremely lackluster. During the last seven days, Axie Infinity’s platform token has dropped significantly in value shedding more than 12%. Meanwhile, the game platform’s smooth love potion token has slid over 8% over the last 24 hours. Axie Infinity Down More Than 40% Since All-Time High Not too long ago, the axie infinity (AXS) token was a topical conversation because it reached an all-time high on July 15. At the time, AXS managed to capture $28.93 per unit and since then it has shed 12.8% during the last seven days. The axie infinity (AXS) token is used within the blockchain-based game that involves battles between token-based creatures called “Axies.” AXS is used for the game’s governance system as well as other actions within the game. At the time of writing axie infinity (AXS) is exchanging hands for $16.70 per coin. AXS/USD on Ju...

Play-to-Earn Game From Polker (PKR) Exchange Listing – Endorsed by Akon

The Play-to-Earn NFT based Polker.Game ‘s native token $PKR has been officially listed on the popular centralized exchange BitMart. Polker.game has been in the spotlight recently as Akon, the American R&B superstar and record producer gave his official endorsement of polker stating that the “game is revolutionary” and that Polker is “hands down.. the best play to earn, NFT game in the space.”. With the BitMart listing and celebrity endorsement from Akon, Polker is perfectly positioned to become a major player in the Play-to-Earn league. Watch Akon’s Video Here What is Play-to-Earn? Although not a new concept, play-to-earn has become a trending term due to the popularity of the NFT game AXIE infinity. In the past, previous play-to-earn games have also achieved success – however, thanks to the huge amount of development in the blockchain space in recent years the gaming experience is now massively improved. Play-to-Earn games are essentially free to play and open to anyone and...

China to Crack Down on Copyright Infringement Through NFTs

Authorities in China are going after creators of digital collectibles based on other people’s works of art, the use of which was not authorized. The government offensive is part of a campaign to combat online copyright infringement and piracy with the participation of several departments. Regulators in China Move to Strengthen Copyright Supervision of Online Platforms The National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC) has recently launched a campaign against copyright infringement and piracy on the internet, together with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, and the State Internet Information Office of the People’s Republic. A major objective of the initiative is to improve copyright supervision of online businesses by investigating cases involving the sale and distribution of infringing products on short video, live broadcast and e-commerce platforms, and promptly dealing with infringing content, the agency announced in a press r...
Blogarama - Blog Directory