Gone are the days of Christian bakers or antigay pizza shop owners making hundreds of thousands of dollars off their bigotry through the help of popular crowd funding sites.
Several major online platforms are (finally) putting their feet down when it comes to using their websites to profit off of hate.
Over the past few months, PayPal has begun quietly restricting the accounts of several prominent alt-right activists and hate groups that promote extreme, far-right politics. GoFundMe, Patreon, and YouCaring have also begun cracking down.
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In a statement to BuzzFeed, PayPal said it is committed to “achieving the balance between protecting the ideals of tolerance, diversity and respect for people of all backgrounds and upholding the values of free expression and open dialogue can be difficult, but we do our best to achieve it.”
GoFundMe issued a similar statement, saying, “We don’t tolerate the promotion of hate or intolerance of any kind, and if a campaign violates GoFundMe’s term 7, we’ll remove it from the platform.”
Some of the people and groups banned include hate blogger and “men’s rights activist” Roosh V, White Nationalist and homophobe Kyle Chapman, the anti-gay/anti-black/anti-woman group Occidental Dissent, and Islamophobic extremists Bare Naked Islam, among others.
Related: Homophobic Florist Ordered To Pay $1001.00 Receives Over $100,000 In Taxed “Donations”
Naturally, the bigots are not happy with this latest crackdown, which is seriously cutting into their bottom lines.
“First you get people banned from crowdfunding sites like Patreon,” pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich tells BuzzFeed. “After being banned, the person will seek out direct funding via PayPal. Then you get the person no-platformed from PayPal. If the person moves to Stripe or Square, you attack them at that vector as well!”
KaiserVonScheiss
Yeah, well, SJWs think everyone who isn’t a neo-Marxist is “right-winger,” which means “Nazi” in their books.
The same thing happened to Lauren Southern simply for supporting an organisation opposed to massive immigration into Europe of people who won’t assimilate.
Oh, and what does this have to do with gay anything? Oh, that’s right, nothing. I forgot that SJW lunacy is intersectional.
Captain proton
Are you sure you’re on the right website?
AlexM123
Yep. It’s a sad day for political discourse and free thought.
KaiserVonScheiss
@captain proton
Funny you should ask that. I was under the impression that this was a gay website about gay stuff. There’s nothing gay about this. It’s just ungay leftist drivel.
GayEGO
This is a gay website, why are you here? This is simply about stopping the discrimination that we law-abiding, country-serving, taxpaying, LGBTQ Americans have been putting up with for years. Now that Marriage Equality is the law of the land, we see you homophobic and bigots squawking because you are losing money.
DCguy
What a shock, the anti-lgbt troll is upset that bigots and racists are being blocked from paypal.
KaiserVonScheiss
Some of these people who were banned weren’t actually bigots. They were just expressing their opinions or trying to defend Western culture from mass immigration. But I guess only non-European cultures have a right to exist. I guess that’s what leftists mean when they say “multiculturalism.”
And all people can seem to do is muddle things, like equating people who oppose mass immigration as anti-gay. Who’s a bigger threat to gays, Europeans or the people from the Middle-East and North Africa?
Juanjo
Kaiser sweetie. I know that whole free speech thing is very confusing to anti-gay bigots like you but let me try to explain this to you again. Douche bags promoting hate and bigotry can do so freely within very broad criteria in this country and they have for years. I mean, just look at the drivel you leave all over the internet under a variety of sock puppets. The government cannot shut you down unless yo violate some very strictly interpreted criteria.
The rest of us however can speak out freely as well. This means we can say you are the greatest thing since Hitler took a pistol break in the bunker or we can discuss your ancestry and personal habits. It also means we can go after your fund sourcing efforts, your employment and all other aspects of your life if we so choose. Of course you can do the same. This also means that just as Christian Douche Bag Pizza in Indiana can proudly announce that it will not serve sodomites, it also means PayPal can refuse to allow Christian Douche Bag Pizza Joint to use PayPal as a fund handling source. Isn’t free speech nice?
I am ignoring the rest of your diatribe as it is all a rather pathetic collection of unsupported opinion masquerading as fact mixed with assorted logical fallacies.
KaiserVonScheiss
@Juanjo Guess what, sweetie. I never said anything about free speech. Guess you need to work on your reading comprehension.
Some of these people have valid criticism, but they are being shut down by the SJWs. I fully understand how the first amendment works. I fully understand that these are private companies and may do as they please. However, I still have the right to complain about it, as does everyone else.
It is the common tactic of leftists to shut people down rather than debate them because leftist arguments have no merit. Kind of like how people on this site just call me a bigot, a brownshirter, stormtrooper, etc. It’s all an attempt to poison the well.
It’s also a common tactic to Uncle Tom everyone who doesn’t toe the party line, i.e right winged blacks aren’t real blacks, or right winged gays aren’t real gays, etc. It’s happened to me multiple times.
As for my ancestry, my mother’s family comes from the Grand Duchy of Baden and my father’s side is Anglo-Norman-Irish, not that that matters in the slightest, so I don’t know why the hell you brought it up in the first place.
geb1966
So you complain that this article is not about anything gay, then bring up massive immigration in Europe, which relates to anything gay HOW?? You are not only an idiot shit stirrer, but also a hypocrite.
KaiserVonScheiss
@geb1966
Those immigrants are massive homophobes and totally illiberal.
Kangol
Jesus Christ was a “social justice” warrior. Oh, and they’re calling for you to come back to Breitbart!
jjose712
Everytime you read or hear someone use the SJW word you know you met an idiot on first degree
Juanjo
Kaiser dearie – no one gives a shiite where you claim your parents come from. It is irrelevant. The fact you are a douchebag is relevant. I do love how you dismiss the free speech comment and then complain about how people are shitting down bigots and trolls like you which of course is free speech at work. Comprehension of reality seems to be lacking in you and the bigots complaining that websites won’t let them fund raise on their platform. Seems to me like that is free speech and the free market at work.
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
Well at least they made a show of also banning the loony far left extremist AntiFa so there’s some degree of evenhandedness. But I’m in two minds. I mean if a group is not advocating violence just ideas.. But at the end of the day it’s a private company. Of course I wish we could all just get along and think the exact same way I do, at all times and in every respect.
Xzamilloh
I see it the same way… but one can’t glance over the hypocrisy of some of us on the left championing this kind of action while condemning private religious schools and institutions for doing the same thing to LGBT students and employees, even though legally, they have every right to. So Paypal can do it, and so can St. Mary of Lou Retton’s Budweiser Cathedral
amb.soc
They banned AntiFa after coordinated reporting activities of “alt-right” – and it totally makes sense because actively fighting against racism, homophobia, sexism, discrimination, etc. is identical to being a neo-nazi.
Xzamilloh
Are you serious??Antifa are violent fascists who think anarchy and violence are means to an end, so please miss me with your dishonest wrap up of who they are, amb.soc. They aren’t actively fighting against anything but boredom and aggressively dying alone.
drmiller
Ohhhhh this is too perfect. Flip the argument the other way around. You don’t want to bake a cake for a gay couple? If you’re claiming that’s your right as a private business, then you can’t throw temper tantrums when the financial mediums you use (PayPal) say the same thing to you. You want to discriminate against gays? No PayPal for you. Haha this is fantastic, why didn’t we think of this before?
Typical right wing extremist hypocrites. The law applies to everyone but me. What a bunch of idiots.
Along with Kaiser Von Douchebag up there. Bye girl.
AlexM123
This is disgusting because it is a flat out lie. Most of the people being banned are not trying to commit crime, nor are they hate groups. They are simply guilty of the “crime” of not being far-left. Lauren Southern did NOTHING to deserve to be banned and the lies being told about her are appalling! There is nothing wrong with being against MASS immigration and being against it doesn’t make you racist extremist! It’s so sad the way the gay community has become a hive mind that rejects discourse. Dave Rubin was right when he said the Think-quisition is here!
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
Dave Rubin’s “classical liberalism” jumped the shark when he allowed low-rent troll Katy Hopkins and didn’t even address her Muslim “final solution” tweet. Any pretence of his jornalistic objectivity or evenhandedness has been shed — he’s jumping solely to the tune of his right wing Patreon funders and sponsors…which is a shame because I had high hopes for him despite my cynical world weary leanings.
Xzamilloh
Dave Rubin was once an example of the Left awakening to the regressivism of social justice warriors, and now he is becoming a beacon of the Regressive Right. It’s one thing to challenge a narrative but when presented with other flawed narratives from the right that he does not challenge, it becomes abundantly clear that his self-interests lies more in making sure not to ruffle the feathers of his conservative backers. Who he is on YouTube and who he is on Twitter seem like two different people
Kangol
If we had mass immigration from northern Europe do you seriously think you and other white supremacists would have a problem with it? Do you? If we had the waves of Germans and Irish coming today that we did in the mid 19th-century, would you or Lauren Southern or any of the other fanatics against immigration truly be against it? I doubt it!
AlexM123
@PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID Allowing someone to say their beliefs does not mean that you agree with them. He doesn’t have to challenge them. If you know about him, then you know what he believes in. Why does he have to challenge her tweets? To satisfy YOU? Why do you even defend Islam? The majority of muslims want us gays to be wiped off the face of the planet. Absolutely ridiculous.
AlexM123
@Kangol I’m not a white supremacist lmfao. I’M LATINO. I don’t support white supremacy in any way, shape, or form. This is exactly what I mean when I say that the gay community has become a hive mind that cant think. Take of your SJW glasses before you start typing. It will spare you the indignity of making a fool of yourself.
Xzamilloh
@Heywood Jablowme
No, you and Pinko are right that Paypal has every right to enforce their terms of service, but I guess my real issues is that this seems to predominantly target right-wing pundits while ignoring unsavory elements of the left that are just as divisive and promote the same kind of “hate” that they do, all under the guise of activism. And I am so glad you brought up the pizza place in Indiana, because we saw what happened when progressives tried to make them into an example: they got almost a million dollars as a result.
The way I see, if Paypal and Patreon are in the business of enforcing their TOS, they should be evenhanded in doing it, but if they are anything like Twitter or Vidcon, I have a feeling that these TOS violations are only going to target one subset, and even if I am a leftist, targeting the right doesn’t do a darn thing to help us in the long run. Thanks, Heywood.
Kangol
@ AlexM123, you write, ” I’M LATINO,” but you do realize that
1) Latinx/Hispanic is NOT A RACE but a constructed ethnicity and
2) the majority of Latinx/Hispanic people in the US have tended historically to classify themselves as “white,” right?
So I’ll say it again: if most of the people seeking to immigrate to the US were from northern Europe, most of the people ranting about immigration would have no issue with our immigration policies. Also, many would probably be quite happy with the 1990 immigration bill that favored European–especially Irish–immigrants over everyone else.
Xzamilloh
Keep in mind, censoring them and blocking their sites and crowdfunding sites won’t silence them… if anything it will only galvanize their fanbase and make them look like martyrs. The way I see it, you let bad ideas be presented and shoot them down with better ideas and opinions. This is effectively trying to silence them, and it absolutely perturbs me that we were once the party of free expression and ideas and conservatives have now hijacked what was once our philosophy of logic. We’re letting the extremists on both sides win, and it sucks.
This isn’t going to stop them, and if anything, they will just have more support, and it will tick off the progressives to the point where they really will attempt to police everything until everyone toes the line. And all this will do is give conservatives the platform to argue free speech, while shoehorning in anti-abortion, anti-LGBT rhetoric, and actual nonsense that hurts us, but we’re not paying attention because Suzy was misgendered and now we must change legislation to make Twitter bullying a hate crime. EFFIN BELOW ME HARD!!!
PinkoOfTheGange
First private companies enforcing, even selectively, their TOS is not a violation of free speech.
A public accommodations argument might be able to be made into cyberspace, but political affiliations are not a Tittle II protected suspect class.
Now the martyrdom is a potential blow-back, but we are talking about primarily keyboard warriors that apparently can’t bet off their backsides and send a few bucks to their favorite purveyor of drivel via the USPS.
No the real threat are the activists that think it is a good idea to silence and obliterate people just because they don’t agree 100% with the activists thoughts and deeds. BTW few of them are barely left of a socialist and none of them are actual Marxists in reality, to label them as such is just to demonize them, and what is the point in that?
Corporations have every right to insist that people follow the TOS, but they shouldn’t cave to pressure unless the people they ban are actually advocating for harmful actions against others.
DCguy
This is a ridiculous comment. Blocking their access to easy crowdfunding prevents them from making easy money. Additionally it stops them getting publicity. Third no, it doesn’t give “Conservatives” an excuse to argue Free Speech because Free Speech is about speaking against the govt. and businesses have always been able to monitor speech and bigotry.
Xzamilloh
No, DCGuy, it DOESN’T stop them from making easy money or getting publicity… in fact, it makes it even easier for them to do both because everyone loves a good victimhood narrative, so all it takes is Fox News and/or YouTube conservatives to run stories like these, and the money will come in. You see the crap going on at Evergreen State College in Washington and UC Berkeley, all this does is add fuel to the fire that Conservatives are being targeted for their speech. So you can kindly shut the hell up, and get out of your echo chamber, DCGuy, because your kind of leftism is not helping us at all
Roy Moss
Another lap dog of the far right heard from! One could hope that someday you’ll get your head out Trump’s orange pucker, but I doubt it. Spineless, Log Cabin mofos like you generally go to the grave as whimpering douche nozzles.
Xzamilloh
@Roy Moss
Attempt to open your mind beyond its binary, narrow minded scope. Find ONE pro-Trump comment of mine… just one. It’s like you idiots cannot help yourselves but to just act like petulant babies who think one criticism of your own fellow lefties means you’re a freakin nazi fascist racist homophobe transphobe xenophobe… it’s just super lazy and barely worth countering anymore
DCguy
@Xzamilloh,
Nice try but Paypal and gofundme make it VERY easy for them to set up accounts to raise money. Trying to pretend it doesn’t is idiotic. ANY account can go viral and raise a fortune. Even if FOX does a story on them, that still doesn’t provide an account or fundraising arm.
The same B.S. was used to try to get LGBTs to stop pushing for civil rights. “Ohhhh, golly gosh gee Whiz, it will upset right wingers and they will rise up and we will never get rights”
It was a fake right wing ploy to try to stop lgbts from pushing for rights. So what happened? LGBTs pushed, the Dems got on board, and the anti-lgbt laws fell.
But please, keep explaining why we should let bigots and racists have easy access to free funds.
Heywood Jablowme
@Xzamilioh: (First – yeah, I know you are not a pro-Trumper.)
Yes – In the case of the notorious anti-gay pizza place in Indiana, I recall they received a lot of checks in the simple old-fashioned way: via snail mail. No way to stop that.
I suppose a right-wing version of GoFundMe – perhaps based in Russia, lol – may arise as a result of the righties getting banned from GoFundMe (etc.). I suppose that would be easy enough to do. Though I haven’t heard of one yet.
Meanwhile, though, I don’t see any harm in the existing companies enforcing their TOS. “Victimhood narrative,” yes right-wingers are always going to do that anyway, that’s pretty much inevitable, but meanwhile stands are taken to point out what they’re really up to.
Xzamilloh
@DCGuy
Sigh, you guys just do not get it. Paypal is but one source. Even if it makes it “easier” or them to get money from their base, they can still receive financial support via OTHER channels, like the old school means of donating directly, Western Union, MoneyGram, blah blah blah. Only a narrow minded buffoon thinks this is going to have any kind of lasting impact, and that crap about LGBT rights? What the hell does that have to do with anything I’m talking about? Did you break your ankles making that ridiculous leap in logic?
All this crap is doing is making their base feel more like victims, and this idiotic need to police them just makes them feel even more like they need to support their idiots.
captainburrito
It does have an impact on revenue when you cannot access the most convenient mainstream payment portals. If you’ve ever processed payments, the drop in payments is notable when the major ones are down. Yes the Pizzeria did receive alternative forms of donations but they likely lost far more from not being able to use certain ones. Even a few more clicks is a deterrent, that is how lazy people are.
Of course, it is probably only a matter of time before someone fills the market vacuum.
Xzamilloh
@Heywood Jablowme
(I replied to the wrong thread)
No, you and Pinko are right that Paypal has every right to enforce their terms of service, but I guess my real issues is that this seems to predominantly target right-wing pundits while ignoring unsavory elements of the left that are just as divisive and promote the same kind of “hate” that they do, all under the guise of activism. And I am so glad you brought up the pizza place in Indiana, because we saw what happened when progressives tried to make them into an example: they got almost a million dollars as a result.
The way I see, if Paypal and Patreon are in the business of enforcing their TOS, they should be evenhanded in doing it, but if they are anything like Twitter or Vidcon, I have a feeling that these TOS violations are only going to target one subset, and even if I am a leftist, targeting the right doesn’t do a darn thing to help us in the long run. Thanks, Heywood.
DCguy
@Xzamilloh
So in other words, you have no evidence to back up your comment, just try to insult the people who point out that your comment isn’t based in reality.
Xzamilloh
@DCGuy
If that’s the “so in other words” for you, you simply are too lazy to read or reason rationally. Good bye.
DCguy
Notice how all of Mo Bros screenames, the anti-lgbt trolls are SO careful to avoid the facts. They don’t want to talk about Bigotry or racism. They hide the facts by calling things a difference of opinion, or don’t discuss hatred and bigotry by masking it under “Free Speech”.
Hey bigots, if you have to hide the facts by using obfuscating language, you aren’t fooling anybody.
GayEGO
I remember when the news media used to call us the deviates back in the 1950’s, but they learned and evolved to support us. Now, it is the bigots who are the deviates!
BriBri
Looks like a good business opportunity for some clever, ruthless entrepreneur!
Danny595
No surprise that a piece like this would be written by Graham Gremore, the dullest tool in the shed. He will be there, cheering, when large corporations take complete control of the internet, so long as it is marketed to him as “anti-hate.”
DCguy
Please detail your problem with the story. Please let us know which bigots you think are being treated unfairly.
Invader7
Well. The anti-gay HATERS aka the Neo-Nazi FASCIST republithugs are finally getting thrown off of Pay Pal, et al. Glad those sites took action. And of course ,some self-appointed moralists on this and other sites, sound more right wing extremist with ever word they type. Why don’t you get your panties in a wad about issues that matter HERE in America. Like Trump trying to roll back the basic rights we have fought hard for?