
Visa Blacklisted My Business and My Family for Building Gab - Melchizedek
https://news.gab.com/2020/06/26/social-credit-score-is-in-america-visa-blacklisted-my-business-and-my-family-for-building-gab/
======
IdontRememberIt
Electronic payment is taking a vital importance. In many countries, cash is no
more an alternative as there are now limits on the amounts you are allowed to
pay cash (usually to fight fiscal evasion, undeclared jobs, crime, money
laundering, etc).

I wonder if in the future, electronic payment will be considered like
electricity (basic utility?). Only a juge would be allowed to ban someone
using it.

In the US, are electricity or water companies allowed to ban a customer if he
is having criminal activities? How does it work?

~~~
bediger4000
Visa and MasterCard in particular are hugely profitable businesses. There is
no way that payment processing will be nationalized in the USA.

Big corporations still prefer their customers pay with checks or ACH, because
it costs about 1.25% minimum per transaction for Level 1 merchants. The US
government clears checks, and it costs nothing per transaction.

~~~
IdontRememberIt
In many countries, utilities are not public companies but are obliged to offer
a "universal service".

When the service is considered as "universal", banning a customer is next to
impossible.

Today, electronic payment is practically considered as is but not legally.
However I can imagine that cases will be raised and politician will change
that.

------
exolymph
> Gab is and always has been a legally operated business. We sell hats,
> shirts, and a software subscription service that unlocks new features on
> Gab. My personal credit score is in the 800’s. I pay my bills. I have a wife
> and daughter to provide for, yet we are all being punished and defamed
> because someone at Visa has it out for me.

And why does Visa have it out for him? Operation Chokepoint only ended
formally, that's why.

Payment processing is used as an end-run around the First Amendment.

~~~
bediger4000
> Payment processing is used as an end-run around the First Amendment.

What ever happened to "nobody is required to fund your free speech, buddy"?
Market forces led to TV, radio and newspaper consolidation in the late
80s-early 90s, and the FCC abandoned the "Fairness Doctrine", which was
essentially anti-market. It's good that this fine fellow has funded his own
press in Gab.com, there's also Parler for the less stout of heart, but if
market forces cause him to go bankrupt, I'm sorry, that's personal
responsibility for you!

~~~
dragonwriter
> > Payment processing is used as an end-run around the First Amendment.

> What ever happened to "nobody is required to fund your free speech, buddy"?

It's an end run when, as is not unheard of, it is government pressure on
payment processors that underlies them cutting off services to unwelcome
activities, if what makes the activity unwelcomenand a focus of the government
pressure is an activity protected against government interference by the First
Amendment.

If it's purely the uninfluenced preference of the payment processors, sure,
that's not an end-run around the First Amendment.

------
dna_polymerase
Visa is a private business, they have the right to do business wi... yadda
yadda yadda.

But, in a world in which online payments are more important than ever,
shouldn't the governments provide an alternative for businesses? Or at least
have some kind of guarantee for business to be able to participate in online
business?

~~~
akvadrako
Most places do have alternatives payment methods which don't depend on visa or
mastercard, though they are usually country-specific.

We need an international protocol for sending payments via your own bank's
app.

~~~
the8472
That already exists in europe through the SEPA, using standardized bank
account numbers (IBAN).

~~~
akvadrako
SEPA is not what I’m talking about - there is no way for a store to have a
“buy with SEPA” button at checkout which doesn’t require manually entering
account numbers.

~~~
the8472
With a credit card you enter your own credit card number in the shop's site.
With sepa direct debit you enter your account number in the shop's site. With
instant transfer you enter someone else's account number in your banking app.

The modality differences are minor, all of them are payment methods. Perhaps
not the payment method you prefer, but still an alternative.

~~~
akvadrako
I have never seen a website offer SEPA direct debit and for good reason - that
would be ripe for fraud; they can usually be reversed.

For manual transfers, not only would you need their account number, but you
would need the amount and transaction code and to manually enter those in your
bank's app. Then, you have to manually return to the store's website to see if
it succeeded.

So no, the differences are not minor.

~~~
the8472
> I have never seen a website offer SEPA direct debit and for good reason -
> that would be ripe for fraud; they can usually be reversed.

I have seen plenty of those. Including amazon.

> For manual transfers, not only would you need their account number, but you
> would need the amount and transaction code and to manually enter those in
> your bank's app. Then, you have to manually return to the store's website to
> see if it succeeded.

That is a minor difference in my book. Fundamentally it's still a payment
method and online. And it's not like credit cards are frictionless either,
their verification has become more complex over the years too, redirecting you
through various steps and requiring additional authentication.

------
rvz
> We were told this week that not only is Gab blacklisted by Visa as a
> business, but my personal name, phone number, address, and more are all also
> blacklisted by Visa. If I wanted to leave Gab tomorrow (something that isn’t
> going to happen) and start a lemonade stand I wouldn’t be able to obtain
> merchant processing for it.

Horrific financial suffocation by VISA. This is why they are terrified by
cryptocurrencies and will try to control that as well. If they can do this to
him, they can essentially do it to anyone who they disagree with for any
reason. That's not good.

Perhaps we need to also boycott Mastercard, given that their name too is
'offensive' because it has the historical 'master' / 'slave' reference too,
which must mean someone out there is offended by their name. /s

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
absolutely no fan of gab and I say good riddance.

the cancel culture sure is annoying though. by their logic:

we should not forget Blackberry. They should rename themselves to "berry-of-
color"

Also has anyone looked at all these racist packages in Debian yet?

    
    
       apt-cache search 'master|slave' |uniq|wc -l 
       332
    

... maybe time to flood submit@bugs.debian.org with petitions to end racist
Linux once and for all?

... all this is getting really stupid.

------
kangnkodos
The slippery slope argument is that first VISA is going after white
supremacists. Next they will be refusing to work with any Republican fund
raising efforts. It's a dubious argument, but even it were true that this is
the direction that VISA is taking, where would this lead?

I don't think VISA will choose to walk away from major customers in the
future. More likely, they will continue to turn away the most extreme
customers who are also very small.

But if VISA did go down this road, it would open up an opportunity for a new
Repulican-oriented credit card company. Or more likely, Republicans would turn
more and more to their competitors, such as American Express.

------
sdinsn
Gab is a racist cesspool. If I was Visa, I wouldn't want to be associated with
them in any fashion either.

~~~
rbecker
I, for one, welcome our payment processing overlords. I mean, they agree with
me in this specific case, so what could go wrong!

~~~
loopz
Well, this is clearly a case where the Good Guys and Free Markets finally win,
and ironically so to boot! ;)

------
coopsmgoops
I don't like that the author didn't bother to explain what it was Visa didn't
like, I don't care enough to go digging and so I'm not inclined to take sides.

Visa is well within its rights to blacklist your company, I don't know if they
are in the right regarding your personal accounts. But it doesn't sound like
you've been blacklisted for "building Gab" which to me made it sound like you
were a competing platform it sounds like you ruffled some feathers and now you
are trying to play the "but free speech" card which doesn't apply to
corporations.

------
jdkee
Unleash anti-trust on the credit card processors and break them up.

------
kgraves
"Build your own platform" they said...

------
tonetheman
Mmmmmm. Gab is haven for hate speech and right wing conspiracy theories. I
personally think it is good that Visa will not help them.

But as a techie I would say to them use bitcoin?

~~~
bmarquez
I disagree with your opinion on Gab, but even so, there's a difference between
banning Gab the company and banning Andrew Torba the person.

Why should Andrew (and by extension his wife and anyone else who lives at his
address) be personally blacklisted for corporate activity?

~~~
uniqueid

        > there's a difference between banning Gab 
        > the company and banning Andrew Torba the person.
    

Is it that the latter is much funnier?

------
Ghjklov
just build ur own social media platform bro

just build ur own payment processing platform bro

just build your own internet infrastructure bro

just build your own computer components bro

just build ur own electricity bro

just build ur own food bro

One day they will come for you too, whoever supports this.

------
draw_down
Communists, right...

I dunno what to say. There’s nothing good about this. Unfortunately people
love the free market until market actors do market actor things, then all of a
sudden it’s the Bolshevik terror. (Literally, in this case)

Do you support Visa’s right to transact with, and not to transact with,
whoever they like? Sure you do, till it bites you.

No sides wish to confront their responsibility in forming the system we are in
and heading toward. So it’s full steam ahead. Hold onto your butts!

~~~
adontz
There is no free market when you have enormous monopolies like VISA. Fee
market is when you have VISA, MasterCard and like ten other companies and
still can process transaction of nine other companies. Card processing is not
a free market.

~~~
jhanschoo
Do card processors have a monopoly in payment processing when gab is still
able to receive payments via other (more inconvenient) options?

~~~
rbecker
Not a monopoly, but they have enormous market power, which used to be
sufficient to get into anti-trust trouble.

------
badrabbit
No business should be allowed to turn away a customer without a factually true
reason that directly affects their revenue or profits.

That aside , why isn't btc consumer ready yet? Or what are the stumbling
blocks? Most major platforms won't allow crypto tradig without ID verificatiom
so for most people the blacklisting problem remains.

And make no mistake, I will still be against Visa whethet this was the new
Nazi party collecting genocide funds or anarchists collecting riot funds.
Legislators, judges,prosecutors and mayors are elected to implement rules that
enforce how society feels about any person or group. No corporation or
industry has my consent to enforce any law. They have the privilege, not right
to engage in commerce. Society needs to revoke their privelege so they learn
their place.

~~~
TylerE
Our other customers don't like it when we handle business for a site that
enables neo-nazis isn't a valid "true" reason?

~~~
badrabbit
If they have verifiable proof of other customers complaining, sure it's valid.
But even then, it does not give them the right to actively call other payment
processors to stop them from doing business with gab. Persecution is no one's
right.

------
ytNumbers
> FTA: "Visa tells them that Gab has been flagged..."

And also, flagged here on HN. I thought the folks here would turn out to be
better than the folks at VISA. I guess I was wrong about that.

~~~
haunter
>Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam
or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them
instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
ytNumbers
I didn't mean to imply that I flagged this. I think the story is relevant and
not spam. It's just a shame to see people on HN trying to cancel the story of
someone who got cancelled.

------
imustbeevil
> National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Claiborne
> Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886 (1982), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme
> Court ruling 8-0 (Marshall did not participate in the decision) that
> although states have broad power to regulate economic activities, they
> cannot prohibit peaceful advocacy of a politically-motivated boycott.

> In a decision by Justice Stevens, the Supreme Court reversed the Supreme
> Court of Mississippi's decision, holding that the nonviolent elements of the
> petitioners' activities were protected by the First Amendment to the
> Constitution of the United States and holding that the petitioners were not
> liable in damages for the consequences of their nonviolent, protected
> activity. This decision means that "boycotts and related activities to bring
> about political, social and economic change are political speech, occupying
> “the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values.”

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_v._Claiborne_Hardware_Co](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_v._Claiborne_Hardware_Co).

~~~
scarface74
Why is this so hard to understand?

“that although _states_ have broad power to regulate economic activities...”

The first amendment is binding to the states and federal government not a
private business.

~~~
imustbeevil
_You_ are misunderstanding.

The Supreme Court held that Visa boycotting Gab (or anyone associated with
Gab) is protected Political Speech. I'm pointing out the contradiction of
everyone in this thread only caring about Gab's rights and not Visa's rights.

~~~
scarface74
You are correct. I got triggered because the three things that a lot of people
get wrong on HN are censorship, monopoly, and anti-trust.

