Disaster Paypal Blacklists Bitchute - Here we go again.

It never ends. From Breitbart:

Payment processing service PayPal has blacklisted free speech YouTube alternative “BitChute,” stopping the platform from receiving or sending any money through its service, which BitChute used as its main payment processor. BitChute blames the action on its “stand against the current trend in censorship.”
BitChute announced the blacklisting in a blog post, Wednesday, declaring, “A few hours ago BitChute received a notice that our PayPal account has been permanently limited, with immediate effect, and that we will no longer be able to accept or send payments.”

“The notice included the following information: ‘The User Agreement for PayPal Service states that PayPal, at its sole discretion, reserves the right to limit an account for any violation of the User Agreement, including the Acceptable Use Policy.’ This decision seems to be final although we will try to appeal,” BitChute founder and CEO Ray Vahey explained. “BitChute has had a Paypal account since 2016, we have used it to settle payments and to receive subscription payments from supporters along with other discretionary payments. It’s our belief that it is our stand against the current trend in censorship that has resulted in this action.”


“BitChute is politically neutral and we have a diverse community in interests and backgrounds. We require that users only upload legal content that complies with our terms and community guidelines. We carry out moderation to remove all content that breaches our terms and community guidelines, including but not limited to videos from terrorists, child abuse or pirated video,” continued Vahey, adding, “BitChute is pro-free expression which is a universal human right.”

Vahey concluded that BitChute is currently “working to get a replacement credit card payments processor.”

BitChute has previously called out payments processor Stripe for blacklisting Gab, another alternative social network, and in an April interview with Breitbart Tech, BitChute declared, “What we need is more competition, more alternatives, more freedom.”

In October, alternative social network Gab was blacklisted by PayPal and Stripe, while in August, conservative writer David Horowitz was blacklisted by Visa and Mastercard.

Infowars, Tommy Robinson, Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, WikiLeaks, and 2018 Toronto mayoral election candidate Faith Goldy are also currently, or have previously been, blacklisted by PayPal.

“The creeping exclusion of the right from online platforms like Twitter and Facebook is well-known, drawing the attention of Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale and the RNC. But a greater challenge is on the horizon: the exclusion of the right from financial services,” proclaimed Breitbart Tech Senior Reporter Allum Bokhari in July. “Conservatives have long been the target of shadowbans, biased algorithms, and account bans on social media. Not content with silencing their voices online, the left now wants to stop the right from using the web to fundraise. Thanks to the increasing willingness of online fundraising platforms and payment processors to ban clients for political reasons, they are getting their way.”

“As the left prepares for the 2018 midterms and the 2020 general election, they want to ensure that only they have access to that tremendous power. And with PayPal and Stripe withdrawing support from politically neutral fundraising platforms, they are well on their way to achieving that aim,” he continued. “Like the social media purges, this represents an existential threat to the conservative and pro-Trump movement.”

In the same month, liberal nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation claimed to be “deeply concerned” that payment processors were becoming the “de facto internet censors.”

This was soonafter WatchMojo hopped over to BitChute, too.

 

[LastOfTheMohicans]

This is obscene, but it’s time for someone like Elon Musk to start up a free speech payment alternative.

Bitcoin is exactly that.

 

[CrunkLord420]

THIS STILL WONT SAVE BITCOIN AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

 

[LastOfTheMohicans]

Like, but no, for real.

We're never going to get a payment processor, ever, that's run by a company, that won't be willing to cut you off from payment processing for any reason.

Bitcoin doesn't give a shit what your politics are. Your on-chain transactions confirm based almost solely on your transaction fee, and Lightning Transactions confirm based on you being able to find a route at all and payment will never rely on any one entity.

The only other way we can achieve this is by enshrining "ability to accept money in an increasingly digital world" as some kind of right or by treating payment processing like a utility.

 

[Marvin]

Credit card processors are more of a problem than Paypal.

Though payment transfers in general are a pain in the ass, because you've got to comply with 51 different sets of laws in the US. It's probably a bad idea to try to enter the field without a stable of lawyers.

It might be worthwhile to look into what banks / services porn sites rely on, because they'll be more censorship resistant.

 

[inception_state]

Bitcoin is exactly that.

The problem is that people generally want to buy stuff in USD. There needs to be a normie-friendly way to go from USD to BTC, send / donate it, and then turn it back into USD (with reasonable fees and minimal delays). But that means having banks and other financial institutions in the loop, which opens up the same problem of having a few big entities who can pull the plug at the slightest provocation.

 

[LastOfTheMohicans]

The problem is that people generally want to buy stuff in USD. There needs to be a normie-friendly way to go from USD to BTC, send / donate it, and then turn it back into USD (with reasonable fees and minimal delays). But that means having banks and other financial institutions in the loop, which opens up the same problem of having a few big entities who can pull the plug at the slightest provocation.

We are at a point where a person can live off of BTC alone.

It takes some work which admittedly most people aren't willing to do and a lot of it relies on just a small number of companies in the space -- most notably Bitrefill -- but it is possible. For a tech that only just became ten years old a few weeks ago that tries to unseat the very concept of money as we know it, that's super impressive actually.

I mean with BTCPay Server you can literally just roll your own self-hosted payment gateway. If you run an online store you can do it for like $8/mo. on any rando VPS provider, and no one can stop you. You could be as extreme as being a Nazi OR being Antifa, bitcoin gives no fucks.

I'd imagine we're only maybe about another 5 to 10 years out from bitcoin itself becoming a mainstay in at least American commerce.

 

[Medicated]

We are at a point where a person can live off of BTC alone.

It takes some work which admittedly most people aren't willing to do and a lot of it relies on just a small number of companies in the space -- most notably Bitrefill -- but it is possible. For a tech that only just became ten years old a few weeks ago that tries to unseat the very concept of money as we know it, that's super impressive actually.

Sure that will work, as long as a small handful of people are doing that, it's not a big problem. Just like Watchmojo moving however, if that trend started to increase and became more popular, I'm pretty sure your network of little companies that set up the "live off of BTC" connections would be gradually located and cut off.

It only exists because it's not a threat. In fact for some of those people, its helpful in certain situations.

 

[mindlessobserver]

surprised this got missed

https://dailycaller.com/2018/11/05/trumps-antitrust-silicon-valley-tech-companies-very-seriously/

Trump’s Looking At Antitrust For Silicon Valley ‘Very Seriously’

President Donald Trump is considering antitrust actions against Silicon Valley giants as a means of regulation, he told Axios on HBO in an interview aired Sunday.

“I do have a lot of people talking about monopoly when they mention those three in particular,” Trump said on Google, Facebook, and Amazon. The president continued, “we are looking at [antitrust] very seriously … Look, that doesn’t mean we’re doing it, but we’re certainly looking and I think most people surmise that, I would imagine.”

Trump has long had an adversarial relationship with Silicon Valley, which he views as antithetical to conservative free expression. The president told The Daily Caller in a recent interview he believes Facebook and Google are interfering in the U.S. election on behalf of the Democratic Party.

“I think they already have” interfered in the election, he told TheDC. Trump added, “I mean the true interference in the last election was that — if you look at all, virtually all of those companies are super liberal companies in favor of Hillary Clinton.”

The president also believes Amazon is unfairly taking advantage of the U.S. postal system and driving local businesses out of the market place.

 

[QI 541]

Nice to see libertarians and conservatives getting wrecked by their own "no government regulations" and "businesses should be allowed to refuse service to whoever" mantra.

 

[Regret]

Nice to see libertarians and conservatives getting wrecked by their own "no government regulations" and "businesses should be allowed to refuse service to whoever" mantra.

Getting trust-busted to own the conservitards.

 

[inception_state]

We are at a point where a person can live off of BTC alone.

It takes some work which admittedly most people aren't willing to do and a lot of it relies on just a small number of companies in the space -- most notably Bitrefill -- but it is possible. For a tech that only just became ten years old a few weeks ago that tries to unseat the very concept of money as we know it, that's super impressive actually.

Can I pay my rent in BTC? Go buy groceries with a cryptocurrency? If so, could a stereotypical clueless grandparent figure it out? I honestly hope we get to that point eventually, but in the meantime, I think we should be pushing for "common carrier" type laws for financial processors. We've given them this massive regulatory moat that impedes entry of new competitors, so we should be strictly regulating payment processors accordingly. If a payment is legal, they should be legally required to process it.

 

[Bagronkleton]

So what thought crime did BitChute commit to “justify” this ban?

Wrongthink.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

Nice to see libertarians and conservatives getting wrecked by their own "no government regulations" and "businesses should be allowed to refuse service to whoever" mantra.

Hey, I call myself a conservative, I still don't think standard oil was OK. Not everything is in terms of complete absolutes.
But of course, I've never heard anyone say "No government regulations" so maybe the people made of straw and hay that you argue with did totally get wrecked. They sound kinda dumb, to be honest.

 

[LastOfTheMohicans]

So I will answer the questions, but be aware this is kinda getting off into the weeds.

Can I pay my rent in BTC?

Not universally, but ask your landlord. There's a number of them that will accept it.

Go buy groceries with a cryptocurrency? If so, could a stereotypical clueless grandparent figure it out?

Bitrefill offers Amazon gift cards for crypto. You can use Amazon Fresh, Pantry, or Prime Now.

Admittedly where I'd like to kinda make the point is that Bitchute specifically needs a payment processor that won't cut them off. From where I'm looking Bitchute has to pay their employees and engineers, pay for their servers, and also accept payment. All three of these things needed have solutions ready to go today. BTCPay for a Payment Gateway, Bitwage for employee wages -- and as you mentioned, Bitwage can split incoming payments into Fiat and Crypto, so an employee can just forward their payment to a bank account, and there are several server providers that accept Bitcoin, I personally use LunaNode.

I honestly hope we get to that point eventually, but in the meantime, I think we should be pushing for "common carrier" type laws for financial processors. We've given them this massive regulatory moat that impedes entry of new competitors, so we should be strictly regulating payment processors accordingly. If a payment is legal, they should be legally required to process it.

I go back and forth on this mindset. The payment processors either will never accept it, or will use that kind of regulation as an excuse to skyrocket their processing fees. It's not going to look good for small business or end consumers, but yeah, I agree, we're still a good ways out from Bitcoin being completely ubiquitous in commerce, and we're seeing more and more crackdown from Silicon Valley regarding randos just trying to get into a new space.

 

[mindlessobserver]

Nice to see libertarians and conservatives getting wrecked by their own "no government regulations" and "businesses should be allowed to refuse service to whoever" mantra.

Being a free market capitalist and opposing monopolies are not mutually exclusive, they are part of the same philosophy. A corporate monopoly or even colluding oligopoly are just as big a threat to the free market as an overweening government. Anything that provides artificial restraints on the market that forces less then efficient outcomes are not a good thing.

 

[QI 541]

Being a free market capitalist and opposing monopolies are not mutually exclusive, they are part of the same philosophy. A corporate monopoly or even colluding oligopoly are just as big a threat to the free market as an overweening government. Anything that provides artificial restraints on the market that forces less then efficient outcomes are not a good thing.

Any unregulated market will eventually form monopolies or be filled with collusion. This is similar to how any government that's too libertarian will eventually form an authoritarian government.