Hey, haters, PayPal can still steal your $2,500

PayPal backtracked on fining people for "misinformation," but can still fine users for promoting "intolerance"

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Dear Friends,

PayPal users rebelled after learning the company’s policy allowed it to fine them $2,500 for spreading “misinformation,” deducting that money directly from user accounts. The company swiftly reversed itself amid the fallout, saying the policy was posted in error.

While it backtracked from “misinformation” it still maintains that if you promote “intolerance” or “hate” they can steal $2,500 of your money. Per infraction.

All you need to do is read through the company’s 23,478-word User Agreement, and then click on its Acceptable Use Policy, section 2(f), which makes things clear:

“Prohibited Activities … the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory.”

“Violation of this Acceptable Use Policy … may subject you to damages, including liquidated damages of $2,500.00 U.S. dollars per violation, which may be debited directly from your PayPal account(s).”

When the original story broke, the company’s former president called the policy “insanity,” and co-founder Elon Musk agreed.

The company explained it was all a big mistake: “PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy.” (Notice that they don’t say anything about promoting “hate” or “intolerance.” That can still cost you a lot of dough.)

Of course, hate is bad, assuming we’re not talking about hating Nazis or Russians or Trump or fundamentalists or Republican candidates or … you get the idea.

So who gets to decide what’s hateful or intolerant? According to PayPal:

If we believe that you’ve engaged in any of these activities, we may take a number of actions to protect PayPal, its customers and others at any time in our sole discretion.

Yeah, we have a pretty good idea of how that’ll go down.

What we can do

Well, if you’d like to close your PayPal account and move your money elsewhere, here’s a handy guide.

And please share this article around. This nonsense has to stop.

And then there’s …