Dec 29, 2022
It's not just censorship by big tech that conservatives need to be wary of. They also need to worry about being de-platformed by payment processors like PayPal. Recall that PayPal recently threatened to impose a $2,500 fine on anybody accused of spreading so-called "misinformation." But the key thing to understand, according to Corynne McSherry, the legal director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFEF), is that "it's not just PayPal." "Several of the kind of major payment processors have been playing an increasing role in policing online speech. This actually goes back more than a decade. It actually started with Visa and Mastercard shut off WikiLeaks back in the day," she told Fox News in an interview this week. This is true, though WikiLeaks reportedly survived anyway thanks to Bitcoin: In 2010 Visa, Mastercard and PayPal stopped donations to #WikiLeaks to censor it. Thanks to #Bitcoin the censorship attempt failed. pic.twitter.com/CPvM5aV6