Comment by lettergram | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lettergram | Hacker News Reader

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The reason I posted this was the new section - #5.

Effectively, they can charge anyone using PayPal $2500 per incident of the following violation after Nov 3, 2022 (why the title was changed I don’t know):

> involve the sending, posting or publication of any messages, content or materials that, in PayPal’s sole discretion, (a) are harmful, obscene, harassing or objectionable, (b) depict or appear to depict nudity, sexual or other intimate activities, (c) depict or promote illegal drug use, (d) depict or promote violence, criminal activity, cruelty or self-harm (e) depict, promote or incite hatred or discrimination of protected groups or of individuals or groups based on protected characteristics (e.g. race, religion, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation etc.) (f) presents a risk to consumer safety or (financial) wellbeing, (g) are fraudulent, promote misinformation or are unlawful, (h) infringes the intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights of any party or (i) are otherwise unfit for publication.

> b) depict or appear to depict nudity, sexual or other intimate activities,

So you're not allowed to sell a significant amount of art? I'm not talking about artistic nudes, I'm talking about a lot of Renaissance style works (e.g. Birth of Venus[0]) or Art Nouveau (e.g. By the River of Tuonela[1] -- which also isn't child porn), which I think everyone agrees aren't pornographic in nature.

> (c) depict or promote illegal drug use,

Are Snoop Dogg and Willie Nelson promoting weed? Cheech and Chong? Harold and Kumar? Do you incur a >=$2.5k fine for selling H&K Go to White Castle DVD to your friend?

> (e) depict, promote or incite hatred or discrimination of protected groups or of individuals or groups based on protected characteristics (e.g. race, religion, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation etc.)

Can we not sell old Disney cartoons collections? Or Loony Toons? What about more modern things like Django Unchained? Does this apply to books? That sure rules out a lot of important books.

I get wanting to be moral, but these rules are so broad it feels like PayPal is just saying "Don't use our service." You can make Nazis, fascists, Klan members, pornographers, and sex traffickers violators of your service without making people that sell historical art, popular music, and books violators. I can't imagine how someone approved this language. Is there context missing?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_Venus#/media/File...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau#/media/File:Gallen...

> (e) depict, promote or incite hatred or discrimination of protected groups or of individuals or groups based on protected characteristics (e.g. race, religion, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation etc.)

This one is truly outrageous - "depict"??? There goes 5/6 of human culture. I seriously doubt you can find much literature or cinema that doesn't "depict [...] hatred or discrimination of protected groups or individuals". Especially not in any kind of socially conscious writing. Goodbye, any portrayal of MLK. Goodbye, any movie about gay rights.

> This one is truly outrageous - "depict"??? There goes 5/6 of human culture. I seriously doubt you can find much literature or cinema that doesn't "depict [...] hatred or discrimination of protected groups or individuals".

Of course the policy as written is outrageous, dumb, and silly even by clown world standards. You couldn't make Roots or many other thought-provoking works today with a proper reading of that policy.

However, the real goal of this policy probably isn't to dictate actual policy into stone tablets for the masses to follow. The real goal of the policy probably is to give PayPal carte-blanche to do whatever the hell they want to dictate culture and impact politics without getting sued.

If you become annoying or a political adversary of PayPal's management, they can find something to ban you and hurt you with.

If you technically violate the policy, but aren't their opposition, I'm sure you will be ignored.

Yes, I was just talking about the face-value of what they wrote. Obviously, they won't stop doing business with Netflix just because Netflix is streaming Shindler's List, though that is in clear violation of this policy as written - they will selectively enforce this whenever the mood hits them.

> Is there context missing?

Yes. The missing part is that when every customer is technically violating one or more policies, they can pick and choose who to target without further justification. Like discretionary traffic enforcement, they're not going to "fine" everyone who sells a Snoop Dogg CD, but they can keep the option in their back pocket as a pretext.

So PayPal can't be used to sell most contemporary pop songs???

It's completely ridiculous, this language seems to make me selling a DVD of Schindler's List a violation. That depicts violence and discrimination quite a number of times.

> (g) are fraudulent, promote misinformation or are unlawful

Say I run a UFO spotting website with 300 posts on UFOs. I have a steady stream of revenue of $5,000 per month from subscribers and use PayPal to collect payments; have been for a decade.

If paypal labels my website and all its posts as misinformation, given the terms as I understand them I could instantly have $750,000 frozen or withdrawn from my PayPal (and bank account? - unclear). That's 300 posts x $2,500 minimum fine.

It would seem, given the vaguely described religious animosity incitement clause.

> (f) presents a risk to consumer safety or (financial) wellbeing

By some measures, PayPal itself does. Should PayPal ban itself?

(for example, anecdotally from an acquaintance in Germany a few years ago, there are some flows that can and will, without the appropriate checks, lead to a customer ending up in a debt to PayPal, and they have some of the worst debt collectors in this regard)

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