April 1, 2015 - 3:13 pm

Two months after a representative for PayPal requested a list of radical right groups and individuals using its services to raise money from Hatewatch, the company has not moved to restrict the groups’ usage of the service to promote racism. That stands in great contrast to other web-based services such as Spotify and iTunes that have moved swiftly to drop hate content once notified.

PayPal’s own “acceptable use policy,” which governs the use of its services, prohibits “use [of] the PayPal service for activities that … relate to transactions involving items that promote hate, violence, [or] racial intolerance.”

Yet, as the Washington Post reported last month, repeated requests for PayPal to enforce its own guidelines have been met with obstinacy, if acknowledged at all. This effectively means that PayPal, the largest online payment system, has given a tacit blessing for white supremacists to use their services as an unofficial banking system.

That obstinacy has spawned a petition campaign on the care2care website demanding PayPal (and other companies) stop providing its services to hate groups. The petition now has more than 80,000 signatures.

Link: http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2015/04/01/paypal-has-not-moved-to-restrict-hate-groups-from-using-the-service/