Cutting a business off from the financial system seems like a fairly harsh punishment for plagiarism, especially when there are other routes for a remedy. We may never know if that was the reason, though, so it's hard to measure whether justice was done or not.
I suspect that one of the sites they plagiarized which accept PP donations/subscriptions asked PP to take them off or risk the large news company switching to another payment processor.
Well, there's plagiarism and then there's impersonating a well-known (admittedly in niche circles) brand to make money. I think they made a good call here.
So, rather than using our existing copyright / trademark system to handle cases of brand impersonation or stealing content, we're just going to rely on payment processor companies to punish people? That sounds like a really bad idea.
Why should a payment processor be able to make such legal decisions? That's what the courts are for. The current trend of cutting services for political reasons is problematic at best, particularly when there's arguably a monopoly.
There needs to be more transparency, and a clear and fair system for arbitration and dispute resolution. Better still, one that's consistent across all digital services so people know what to expect when signing up without wading through a novel's worth of user agreements.
We have discrimination laws don't we? Are banks allowed to refuse service for any reason whatsoever?
We're talking about people's livelihood here. If transactions don't violate any laws, payment processors should not be permitted to refuse service. When they do refuse service, there should be transparency in reporting.
Yes, there are laws that protect against discrimination based on certain categories (religion, gender, race, veteran status, etc). Business owners still have the right to refuse service for other reasons of their choosing, like the customer being a loudmouth ass, or not following the dress code, without having to refer to a legal statute.
You're changing the goalposts. This thread is about:
1. (arguably monopolistic) payment processors upon which people's livelihood depends, not restaurants or other noncritical services of which there are many to choose, and
2. It's about discrimination for political motivations, not being abusive to your employees.
There's a hardly a line between religious and political convictions, and if you don't find discrimination along these lines troubling, then I think your bias is showing.
You are the one who is moving the goalposts. From your original comment:
> The current trend of cutting services for political reasons is problematic at best, particularly when there's arguably a monopoly.
Your statement asserts this is a problem ("at best") when a business cuts off service for political reasons, especially if "there's arguably a monopoly". Presumably, from your wording, you are also unhappy when a non-monopoly business cuts off service (which, technically, PayPal is, unless it faces antitrust action that I'm not aware of).
> There's a hardly a line between religious and political convictions, and if you don't find discrimination along these lines troubling, then I think your bias is showing.
And yet, in the U.S., there is a line, because there is an actual federal law that protects religious belief, and there isn't one for political beliefs. I'm not interested in arguing with you the validity of the precedent set by the 1st Amendment's protection for religion, or the validity of religion or its immutability in general, but that's the reality of our current legal framework. So yes, I am biased in favor of reality and not fantasy. Try imagining the tangled framework needed to protect political belief in a way that wouldn't infringe on freedom of expression if you want to understand why political belief has not yet enjoyed such protection.
As popular as PayPal may be, it's a far cry from being a monopoly.
That said, I do think holding money should be cause for more stringent regulations. Stopping service is one thing; holding funds entirely should absolutely happen only under direct court order (anything else would be theft).
Counterpoint: The “market system” is already a fiction, and contesting the laws to further promulgate that fiction is a non-starter. Calling a business a somethingnotquitea-monopoly isn’t an incantation that makes it true or legally sound.