
Dreamwidth Banned by PayPal in 2008 for Refusing to Censor Users - CM30
https://dw-news.dreamwidth.org/38065.html
======
dang
The article is from April 2017. The title has been editorialized, which breaks
the HN guidelines
([https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)).
On HN, submitters don't have special rights over articles and don't get to
frame them for everyone else. Doing the latter, as this thread amply
illustrates, amounts to controlling the discussion.

Worse, the detail that was cherry-picked (presumably because censorship issues
are a hot topic) refers to something which the article makes clear happened
years ago. Making it sound like it happened today ("Dreamwidth Banned by
PayPal for Refusing to Censor Users") was egregiously misleading. We take
story submission privileges away from users who do this kind of thing, so
please don't do it. I've added 2008 to the title above as a fire extinguisher.

Submitters: If you want to say what you think is important about an article,
you're welcome to do so by posting a comment to the thread. Then your view is
on a level field with everyone else's.

------
raziel2p
"About six months after opening, PayPal -- our payment processor at the time
-- demanded that we censor some of our users' content (mostly involving people
talking about sex, usually fictionally, in explicit terms) that was legal and
protected speech but that they felt violated their terms for using PayPal."

Seems reasonable to me.

~~~
SquareWheel
To me, too. Paypal isn't a government institution. They can choose who to
partner with by whatever metrics they want.

~~~
devrandomguy
That argument becomes weaker as responsibilities and power are transferred
from the government to the private sector. How many of the rules that we
follow are currently dictated by a corporation, rather than a government? Do
we not want checks and balances on all rule-makers?

~~~
spaceseaman
Then why shift such responsibilities to the private sector in the first place?
If they must be regulated as stringently as the public sector (especially in
terms of things like free speech) then they should be public goods.

I think it's much more viable to translate some of these privately owned
aspects of the internet to publicly owned institutions. Then you obtain the
free-speech allowances you desire without burdening a private company with
further regulation and restrictions.

This isn't the only solution of course though. But just claiming that these
goods are so important doesn't necessarily mean they _should_ be treated like
government entities. They're not - that's not how the laws here work.

~~~
devrandomguy
I don't believe that government is seriously hindered by free speech, but
rather by it's lack of profit-incentive and by the perverse incentives of our
current implementation of democracy. We should expand the free speech rights,
and other basic human rights, to cover all people in all situations.

Actually, that profit incentive thing is debatable, I take that back. A for-
profit government could be quite horrifying.

------
rdiddly
_" It took us a few months to find a payment processor willing to take money
for us without concern trolling about our users' immortal souls or
whatever..."_

Pretty much the best line ever.

------
lawn
This is a perfect use case for cryptocurrencies.

~~~
rothbardrand
Imagine if they had started taking bitcoin payments in 2009, 2010, 2011 or
2012?

They wouldn't have to be worrying about their seed fund or keeping the doors
open at this point.

------
Overtonwindow
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and take what may be an unpopular position: If
you're a financial services firm, you should be forbidden from refusing
services to anyone who is not committing an illegal act. Services like PayPal
are starting to sound like insurance companies prior to the ACA. If it's not
illegal you should not be allowed to turn customers away.

~~~
yock
Doesn't this open up the door to using legality as a proxy for morality?
Shouldn't a company, regardless of the service they provide, be free to
establish their own conditions under which they will act or not act?

~~~
mars4rp
morality is relevant, rarely people that is doing something that we think
immoral see their acts as immoral too.

"Shouldn't a company, regardless of the service they provide, be free to
establish their own conditions under which they will act or not act?"

like a restaurant in south refusing to serve blacks? with restaurant you have
at least some options, but with businesses with monopoly finding an
alternative is very hard or expensive.

~~~
EpicEng
>like a restaurant in south refusing to serve blacks?

Which would be illegal as race is a legally protected status.

~~~
Danihan
Isn't sexual identity / orientation protected as well? These companies are
banning clients for simply talking about sex.

That seems like a grey area but it's treading pretty close to discrimination
in my mind.

Then again, should Google be forced to put adsense ads on a porn site? Really
murky territory.

~~~
sparky_z
> Isn't sexual identity / orientation protected as well?

Nope. As I understand it, sexual orientation is not officially a protected
class[0]. Seems like it should be, but it isn't.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class)

------
busterarm
[https://www.manilaprinciples.org/](https://www.manilaprinciples.org/)

------
ryandrake
I'd love to understand the business benefit to PayPal of censoring its
customers, particularly when the content they are trying to censor is not
"criticism of PayPal." Has PayPal actually measured some negative effect on
its bottom line when people who use their service talk about sex?

~~~
bcrescimanno
Disclaimer: I'm a PP employee.

While it's complex (and I don't fully understand it all myself), the simple
answer is risk management / fraud. Adult content tends to be extremely risky
from a fraud and legal compliance perspective and companies like PayPal (and
Stripe, and Google Checkout, among others) choose not to do business in this
arena because the risk / reward model just doesn't justify it.

Specifically, subscriptions to sites that offer digital adult content are not
allowed per ToS:

[https://www.paypal.com/us/selfhelp/article/faq569](https://www.paypal.com/us/selfhelp/article/faq569)

~~~
JBReefer
Netflix certainly offers "digital adult content" in shows like Easy, movies
like Below Her Mouth, but PayPal accepts their business. You can buy content
on Amazon with PayPal, which sells a TON of out and out porn.

Is it maybe more fair to say that small sites that offer adult content are not
allowed?

~~~
delinka
Likely it's those selling _predominantly_ adult content. Amazon's offerings
are not predominantly adult in nature. Nor are Netflix's. Presumably, if
there's a higher occurrence of fraud with those merchants whose wares are
predominantly adult in nature, processors consider these types of business
more risky. However, they (processors) already have a tool at their disposal
to combat fraud: the rate that's charged to the merchant for taking payments.
My understanding is that riskier businesses tend to pay a higher rate for
their card processing as kind of an insurance against (inevitable?) fraud. And
then it would be my opinion that an account shouldn't get terminated except
due to actual (excessive?) fraud.

~~~
drunken-serval
> And then it would be my opinion that an account shouldn't get terminated
> except due to actual (excessive?) fraud.

Except VISA won't tolerant a fraud rate that requires 300% fees to cover
costs.

------
petraeus
Good for PayPal, they are a private business and can choose who they will
allow on their platform.

------
guiriduro
People still use Paypal? Abandoned my account 2 years ago, never looked back.

~~~
brink
What do I do if I want to purchase something off of eBay?

~~~
frou_dh
Buy it, but be aware that guiriduro is going to look down on you for not being
hip.

------
quoquoquo
How is this allowed in Paypal policies?

~~~
bcrescimanno
[https://www.paypal.com/us/selfhelp/article/faq569](https://www.paypal.com/us/selfhelp/article/faq569)

------
marksellers
Ah yes, the eminent moral authority of PayPal.

------
donquichotte
Time to move to Stripe.

~~~
nsxwolf
And they don't allow things like porn, gambling, and guns. I'm OK with payment
processors setting their own rules based on their own ethics, but its a
problem if all we have is this little oligopoly of choices. We need more
choices.

~~~
winslow
What's the reasoning for not allowing those things? Does it bring additional
legal problems or something? I could see the issue with potential child porn
or something like that but shouldn't a payment processor be siloed from any
legal issues there?

~~~
dradtke
The biggest thing payments processors are concerned about is fraud. Certain
lines of business are risky because they simply result in more fraud, plus
there's a whole other level of restrictions enforced by the banks themselves.
I don't know what the exact reasoning was behind the ban in the article, but
there are entire teams dedicated to developing risk models that attempt to
identify merchants that will end up resulting in a loss before it happens.

Payments processors like PayPal may just be middlemen between banks, but if
the merchant owes the bank money and is suddenly nowhere to be found, the
processor is the one who takes the hit.

~~~
smsm42
> there are entire teams dedicated to developing risk models that attempt to
> identify merchants that will end up resulting in a loss before it happens.

And yet they are unable to distinguish a legitimate and widely popular blog
hosting site which does not intend to defraud anyone but allows people to host
erotic fiction, from a shady porn site. Makes you kinda question what those
teams are doing the whole day, doesn't it?

