[Traster]

I find it interesting the process that seems to have taken place here. There is quite clearly no monopoly on payment systems on the internet. There's bank transfer, visa, western union, paypal, a million different bitcoin exchanges.

So for Gab to not have access to funds either one of two things can be true. 1: There is a large conspiracy of banking organisations to stifle Gab for reasons we can speculate about. 2: Each of these organisations have seen Gab and made individual decisions about whether they want to associate themselves with Gab.

What boggles my mind is how many people think that it must be 1.

[benj111]

I havent seen anyone claiming it was 1. Although I don't visit gab, where most of those people probably are.

Having said that, who are all those companies regulated by?

I don't have a fully formed accusation here. All I know is that finance is heavily regulated. I suspect even the fear of regulators asking questions, and all the paperwork that would entail would be enough reason for some companies to cut their links.

[javagram]

Another commenter has already mentioned https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point which was a recent government attempt to block banking services to various legal activities such as gun dealers.

I suspect Gab isn’t related to something like that though. It’s more that media focus on Gab means each company they do business with will want to drop them as a PR hot potato, to avoid news articles saying “why is X still willing to work with Gab?”

[gamblor956]

You're deliberately misrepresenting what that Operation was about. The target was money laundering, and they investigated the 50 or so businesses most associated with laundering. The point was to prevent money laundering without significantly interfering with those industries' access to financial services.

Meanwhile, Gab is just reaping what it has sowed. They claim that they represent the silent majority, and if that's not another one of their lies they shouldn't have any problems setting up their own financial services.

[javagram]

I completely disagree with the statement that I "deliberately misrepresent[ed]" anything. I read through the wikipedia link before sharing it. Did you bother to read it before attacking me?

A small excerpt:

> On May 29, 2014, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform published a highly critical staff report that concluded:[21]

> “ Forceful prosecution of those who defraud American consumers is both responsible and admirable. However, Department of Justice initiatives to combat mass-market consumer fraud must be legitimate exercises of the Department's legal authorities, and must be executed in a manner that does not unfairly harm legitimate merchants and individuals.

> Operation Choke Point fails both these requirements. The Department's radical reinterpretation of what constitutes an actionable violation under § 951 of FIRREA fundamentally distorts Congress' intent in enacting the law, and inappropriately demands that bankers act as the moral arbiters and policemen of the commercial world. In light of the Department's obligation to act within the bounds of the law, and its avowed commitment not to "discourage or inhibit" the lawful conduct of honest merchants, it is necessary to disavow and dismantle Operation Choke Point.

regarding Gab, your 2nd paragraph seems to agree with what I said, so nothing to say there.

[beaner]

It's sort of in between, it's not as clear cut as you make it sound.

All of these processors ultimately depend on their banks, who are super strict. Banks are super strict because money is an insanely regulated industry. Banks are directed by regulators and lawmakers. They do not take any chances.

Services like these each somehow coincidentally (not really) come to the same conclusions because they're all trying to appease the same industry, directed by the same regulators. If they lose their banking relationships they are dead.

It's not a conspiracy and they're not really making individual decisions either, it's just how modern banking works.

[sadris]

Gab has been rejected from 18 banks.

So closer to 1.

[beatgammit]

Can you prove, or at least find some evidence of conspiracy? Gab is an unpopular service, and doing business with them would become news and risk their other customers, so it's not too surprising that payment processors and banks choose to not to business with them.

I think it's less conspiracy and more defensive business strategy.

I wish payment processing and banking were more anonymous, and I'm very interested in projects like GNU Taler[1] that seek to find privacy conscious ways of doing transactions online. However, if they can't even find a bank to do business with them (or start one themselves), they're kind of screwed.

- [1] http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/taler/

[ryanlol]

18 banks isn't a lot.

Why do people care so much about Gab, but not gambling sites which have been successfully dealing with far worse problems for years now?