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Comment by ContrarianBrit | Hacker News Reader

This week, Paypal froze the accounts of Toby Young, a British right-wing journalist and bête noire of liberals. Seemingly, Paypal took the decision on political grounds. Surprisingly, many liberals have defended Paypal.

Why can’t liberals recognize the dangers of corporations engaging in censorship? For example, firms have undertaken many of the acts which have eroded Hungarian democracy. Where does this stop? Is it legitimate to deprive Young of electricity and a mobile phone?

When partisans use freedom of speech as a weapon, only demanding it for colleagues, the principle withers, liberal democracy surely following. Whatever one’s opinion of Young, Paypal’s act has undermined liberal democracy. Friends of liberty should oppose it.

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> Surprisingly

Nothing about this is surprising. When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.

Free speech is simply not the main value of what can loosely be called the left. Nor is historical truth or even opposition to slavery, as a review of The Woman King [0] (and the film itself, casting Black slavers as heroes and White abolitionists as villains), and alternating ignorance of or apologetics for the historical Middle Eastern slave trade [1,2,3,4] or present-day African slavery reveal [5].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32967317

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_slave_trade

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Saharan_slave_trade

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade

[4] How Islam moderated slavery - https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/slave...

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_contemporary_Africa - nominally they are against it, yet reserve all their moral outrage and rhetoric only for cases when whites were slavers. The 600 thousand dead, sacrificed in the civil war to end slavery, failed to appease them.

Your statement in italics is new to me and quite insightful, I think. Whoever is the most powerful gets to enforce his own principles. I do think, however, that the Establishment was more supportive of free speech when it was conservative than it is now, now that it is leftist. That is, the conservatives may have been hypocrites at times, but they really did believe in freedom of speech. The woke left is opposed to freedom of speech as a matter of principle.

> Your statement in italics is new to me and quite insightful, I think.

You can credit Frank Herbert for it.

I'm not very political, but some of the random stuff I read online has triggers my contrarian nature. I often see popular statements that are factually incorrect, and have responded with citations... And been banned from subreddits for nothing more than providing citations.

The Internet, in many mainstream areas, has become something fascinating to me. My concern historically has been government censorship, but I've realized, perhaps later than most, the self censorship / Hall monitors of the internet are far more dangerous.

And this is true of right wing or left wing forums. It self regulates to a point where only approved ideas can be discussed in an approved way.

I don't see a way out.

Censorship is needed because the minority of loud people make it mandatory.

Censorship is too big of a job for people to get it right. And AI, frankly, is way to stupid.

I wish there was an answer.

Oddly this applies to all manner of forums. Not just politics. It's human nature, amplified.

> the self censorship / Hall monitors of the internet are far more dangerous

> only approved ideas can be discussed in an approved way

Go outside and talk to people.

Heck, you can print a zine and mail it to people.

You can even set up your own web forum and have whatever (legal) conversations you want with as many people as are willing to join you.

I realize your focus is defending an ideological ally but your zeal is leading you to make two key omissions:

1. PayPal is not synonymous with free speech. His ability to speak and have his views heard by anyone who wants to doesn’t appear to be impeded in any way. A key difference between that and the other companies you mentioned is that you don’t usually have a choice about, say, your water company because physical infrastructure doesn’t make that easy. In contrast, there are many options for sending money and PayPal can interchangeably be replaced with a variety of services.

2. PayPal didn’t exercise their right to freely choose who they associate with because he’s right wing, but rather because he violated their policy about COVID misinformation: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/paypal-free-speech-union-...

That’s a pretty big distinction: he could continue doing everything he’s been doing except for lying about health and safety, and PayPal would be happy to continue processing money for him.

He's not my ideological ally. Rather, I oppose the libertarian doctrine that firms may act as they like. When a bakery refused to supply a cake with a message promoting same sex marriage, I supported the customer.

On your second point, if this is the case then why did Paypal also ban the Free Speech Union?

> On your second point, if this is the case then why did Paypal also ban the Free Speech Union?

I’d assume these were connected given their history of similar dubious claims re:school safety but I think the larger point is remembering that these groups profit from tapping into larger political trends – consider how much money is being spent promoting the idea of “cancel culture” and using it to avoid intellectual engagement with criticism – and so I’d be skeptical that the simple narrative being presented is full and accurate.

The Free Speech Union is just a silly cryptofascist support group, it has nothing to do with free speech.

He's actually not lying about health and safety, and not spreading COVID misinformation either. His work has been dedicated to combating COVID misinformation, in fact. Unfortunately American companies seem to define "misinformation" as anything that contradicts the pronouncements of government agencies, so anyone trying to fact check them or correct them when they get it wrong is bound to be treated in that way. They shut down UsForThem too which is a group that campaigned against school closures. Most people recognize now that closing the schools wasn't a good move.

Depends a bit. I think free speech cannot be absolute and should not be absolute. I've never heard of Toby Young. He's probably a bit of a prick, but a quick scroll along his articles in the Daily Sceptic doesn't show anything worse than that. Is there any reason in particular why "the liberals" hate him?

BTW, what's meant by "liberals"? Toby Young seems to be British.

The obvious google search to perform in cases of "mystery" deplatforming is name + "gender".

https://www.google.com/search?q=toby+young+gender

+ "covid" is also a good contender:

https://www.google.com/search?q=toby+young+covid

Seems Mr. Young is two for two.

Indeed. The worst part is, they didn't give a reason or outline which T&C did they break. He's not the only one. Happened to a left-wing "Lockdown Skeptics" group [0], then another anti-lockdown group to keep schools open [1] and afterwards the creators of Flipper device [2] who recently had $1.3M seized from them for no reason, despite shipping their product.

It is clear that PayPal clearly doesn't care and will kill any business, non-profit or campaign organization they don't like as they won't provide a reason. There needs to be better alternatives like AlignPay [3] which don't arbitrarily ban accounts or seize funds because they feel like it.

PayPal can do it to anyone; left, right, liberal, etc, whatever. They don't care and they won't change.

[0] https://twitter.com/llsceptics/status/1567658400573448192

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/21/paypal-shuts-acc...

[2] https://twitter.com/flipper_zero/status/1567194641610465281

[3] https://alignpay.com/

> which don't arbitrarily ban accounts or seize funds because the feel like it

"Don't" isn't "can't". Paypal didn't arbitrarily ban accounts due to their opinions until they did.

(Though they've pretty much always arbitrarily seized funds -- even back in 2011 the most common reason people showing up in Bitcoin IRC channels cited for their interest was that paypal had at some point in the past randomly seized their funds without explanation and then stonewalled them)

> they didn't give a reason or outline which T&C did they break

Giving a reason is pure downside to the deplatformer as it exposes them to criticism both over their policy and over their errors. Providing one to third parties could expose them to defamation lawsuits.

Better to say nothing and let the rumor mills crowdsource an acceptable excuse that they can adopt later if required.

> Better to say nothing and let the rumor mills crowdsource an acceptable excuse that they can adopt later if required.

So what would you tell those who already signed up to PayPal, had their accounts locked, and can't access their funds for months and need an explanation as to why their accounts are locked? Wait for PayPal and close down their business?

What viable alternatives do you suggest for those affected then?

Better for paypal, not the victims. To be clear: I don't support their actions, but I think its easier to correct them if we don't moralize for a bit and look at the incentives they're responding to.

There isn't a good solution for people who have their funds frozen that I'm aware of. :(

You can mitigate your risk ever so slightly by being setup to be able to accept bitcoin: it won't get back seized funds but it can make a blockade by commercial actors even coordinated ones less damaging, but how viable that is depends a lot on the nature of your business and it certainly isn't without it's own problems.

I wonder if any insurance policies for small businesses might cover account seizures?

And they did it to the Free Speech Union, a neutral organization which merely campaigns for free speech!

Friends of liberty should stop whining about how they’re victims of cancel culture and set up their own PayPal if they feel so strongly about it.

which is all fine and dandy until aforementioned alternative is taken down from the google/apple app stores...

Checks, wire transfers, and cash are all still in play.

Yes, yes, of course. And women who don't like bro culture in Silicon Valley should set up their own companies. And older workers who think they're being discriminated against should set up old people companies. And those whose views are being suppressed at the University of California should create a 51st state, and a new university to go with it.

pity the right wing polemicist, newest victim needing protected status under the law, and their need to violate the first amendment of the united states by needing compelled speech to foment their fascist blather. So very like Rosa Parks, women, and the elderly.

Yes, pity the right wing polemicist, the left wing polemicist, or anyone else who wishes the freedom to communicate ordinary ideas on our de facto communications utilities.

everyone has that freedom. What they also enjoy is the consequences. There is no 'de facto communication utility' in twitter, or paypal, or anywhere else. See Gab, Truth Social, and so on. The idea that fascist propaganda would hide behind the veil of liberty and weep about victimization is screamingly hilarious.

So do I understand you correctly that you're ok with government exerting control over private companies to achieve progressive goals? You just don't want to expand the power of those like myself who spout fascist propaganda?

What on earth? I didn't say anything remotely interpretable as the first straw man thing you tried to make me say.

Governments aren't exerting control over private companies to deplatform fascists. Thankfully, the private companies are doing that themselves, as is their well-proven, well-supported first amendment right. Google "compelled speech" if you need a primer on this.

I understand that fascists would love it if they were heard all the time, incessantly, everywhere, and that anything less makes them burst out into tears of victimization. I guess Fox News being a bona fide propaganda platform now directly supporting Putin and Orban isn't enough for you guys. What a shame, it must be so distressing.

I did google "compelled speech". That was interesting.

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