Topic: Censorship resistance is underrated, move to bitcoin and #DeletePaypal (Read 984 times)

Does it really matter, though? Whether PayPal are appointing themselves judge, jury, and executioner here to advanced their own agenda, or whether they are just enforcing rules set by the government, does it make any different to the end user? Does it matter who is censoring your when you are being censored either way? The end result here is identical - some faceless entity is dictating what you are allowed to say, and if you step out of line, they take away your money.

Reminds me stories of businesses such as car manufacturers which, upon discovering a possibly fatal flaw in some model they have released, calculate the cost of the recall and weigh that against how many people are likely to die because of this flaw and the cost of the resulting lawsuits. If the recall will be more expensive, then they shrug their shoulders and let people die.

Quoting from the article you linked:


I bolded the text I really think matters. They don't give a crap about anything but making money. That is the objective of a services business, they don't make widgets or anything else so there is no way to generate more money by making more widgets. They move and hold money.

The second there is work involved that regulators want, you need to pay people to do it. So make sure there as little as possible for regulators to want your people to do.
Is it fair to all users? Nope
Will they loose more business then they gain because of it? Possibly.
Did the accountants & lawyers and everyone else say that doing it this way was the way to make more profit? Almost definitely.

-Dave

I am Jack's complete lack of surprise:

And even if for some reason this ridiculous draconian nonsense doesn't bother, consider for a second they outright lied to all their customers saying "Oops, what a silly mistake!" and then slipped it back in when they thought you wouldn't notice.

If you haven't deleted your PayPal account yet, now would be a good time.

Word on Twitter is that after initially removing that $2500 fine for spreading false info, PayPal reinstated it. Well, so much about it being just a mistake as their PR team tried to present it lol. So glad I got rid of my PayPal  account few years ago so I don't have to deal with their bullshit anymore.

edit: found an article about it https://viewfromthewing.com/paypals-objectionable-terms-are-back-2500-fines-for-content-they-dont-like/

As someone who's personally used them for years before, I can attest to that. They've reversed payments, frozen balances (not for days or weeks, for months) even though I repeatedly KYC and verify whatever they ask for. Not once have I ever been tagged for fraud, all invoices were clearly from freelance work. And yes, they will draw from linked accounts and cards.

Last time I used them to receive was in 2017, mind you. It's probably a lot worse now.


Oh damn, now you made me fall for that too as I told my kid about it and he was like, "really?" and I said really. See, even we can get influenced too easily now. We should be worried.

Good luck with that...

My understanding is accepting PayPal is always a risk, since it is trivial for the buyer to initiate a chargeback. It's for this reason that good DEXs such as Bisq don't support PayPal as a payment option.

It makes no difference. Have a look at the quotes from their User Agreement I shared in this post. If they want to seize your money or reverse a payment, they will take it from your PayPal balance. If your PayPal balance is empty, they will pull it from any of your linked payment methods, including bank accounts or credit cards. If they still can't take your money, they'll send debt collectors after you. Whether or not the money is in your PayPal account is irrelevant. If you use PayPal at all, they can unilaterally decide to take your money.

when doing the "we wil send you 2 payments of under $1 to verify your bank account" you are agreeing to let them link and access your bank account

the thing is...
people need to be more risk aware. and learn about what they are getting into. rather then having a blind ignorant mindsete of trusting.. they need to do research and be self aware.

bitcoin is about people taking responsibility of their own property/value. where you should not just blindly trust some third party to look after it and not harm you.

we should have not celebrated the "currency" mainstreaming but instead looked at the ramifications of redefining bitcoin as a mainstream currency. as yes it had negative ramifications to peoples beloved "privacy rights"

putting bitcoin into a custodian is also something people need to be aware of.
its the whole point of "not your keys not your coin" its about understanding that businesses can fail you.

dont cry that they can fail you. learn that they can and probably will.. and if you dont like it. use something else or make something else but no matter what you decide to use. dont just have the ignorant mindset of utopian hope that the new thing you found is perfect. and instead learn about its risks and flaws and understand them

I try to avoid PayPal as much as possible, but I am not sure if I could actually delete my PayPal account. My main concern is that PayPal is so closely connected with ebay and the small advertisements sites. My preferred payment methods would be cryptos, cash or a bank transfer. But whenever I get contacted by a potential buyer they also ask for PayPal. It's annoying how dominant they are in the market. And now with all the changes to their services it becomes a huge risk for anybody dealing larger sums of money through them. I would advice everybody to move all his money away from PayPal as soon as it arrives, don't let anything sit there for a few days. I wonder how many reports are enough to freeze your account and give you a hefty fine. Imagine you get a false report and did nothing wrong to still face to pay a big fine. The new system sounds exploitable and not save at all.

Ik that. My point being: we don’t need to sit here and intellectually defend continuous wrongdoings for them, just because a corrupt, inefficient, lagging behind and unjust entity didn’t tell them yet, that they can’t live out their authoritarian fetishes on their users without punishment.

What the government legislates doesn’t make things right or wrong, it just decides about it’s legal status. Doing wrongdoings just because they’re legal or mandated doesn’t make them right or justified. It was probably the cause of most human suffering in history, so it should be resisted as best as possible.

Ik that it won’t happen in practice, but i also won’t sit here and defend wrongdoings just because they’re legal. Censorship resistance starts with our tolerance to bs, this is one thing i won’t ever get stoical about.


Nice quote. Im still unsure whether we’re only a minority that opposes tyranny and a large portion of people would actually enjoy being able to legally tyrannise their peers without consequences. I dont think franky is one of them, but he bases part of his judgment strictly on legal frameworks, which are flawed in itself. It’s enough to navigate life, but wrong on many ends like tolerating this bs.


Already on it, thanks. There isn’t much of value in this thread except lies and insults, so i won’t even comment on them.

oeleo. blackhat, tademichi.. the usual culprits of censorship
your little club defended cores main dev employers business property rights (blockstreams products) which were pushed into core roadmap plan) to do the mandatory split.  where anyone opposing blockstreams product push into cores roadmap were treated not as just bitcoiners that reject a bip. but instead treated as complete opposition/enemies to all of bitcoin..

your lil gang even made a topic trying to to get me banned because i dont stop trying to remind people of that corporate push

so stop playing censorship victim when you are highly censorship instigators. yep your group are also the main 12 preachers of saying the same echo'd scripts of denying bitcoin access to billions of people with your ignorant and narrow minded  recited speaches of "bitcoin shouldnt be used for coffee purchases" which in your narrow minds dont realise is the spending amount of 1 billion 3rd world countries weekly wage (yep $3 is a weeks wage for billion people who you decided should not be using bitcoin)

so instead o crying/playing victim. and then shouting some unresearched conspiracy theory that lacks basic knowledge of facts, data and how the world actually works, EG that a fiat business is using its legal rights on its guests...
.. realise what those rights are.. realise how its able to have those rights, and then instead of cry about it.. use it

instead of playing victim that it uses its rights.. instead grow a conscience, some morals. and think of (for once) offering a service that competes against the service you hate. that actually morally and ethically offers something better for everyone

---

its not about me defending "survellaience state" (because i dont))
its about me not being a drugged up paranoid idiot (because i dont do drugs)
its about me being a sober person that has done the research to know what the laws/rights/rules are to understand the rights rules and laws are..

put simply.. i have been involved in bitcoin since 2012. i have a larger hoard then your motley crew put together. and while you cry about privacy of your small illicit activities.. guess what. you cannot find my stash of coins, i dont advertise businesses that cause red flags of surveillance(unlike you lot) and i know how to be risk adverse and protect my property

knowledge is power

you dont have to side with something just because you know how it works

its not about me siding with "gov"/"them". because get this.. i do not side with the globalist elite of corporate greed and control

you can play ignorant and the name call and try to pigeon hole me as "enemy" to anything you want to promote all you like.
but just do the research

stop shouting "government surveillance" when the reality is there is no government department watching everything..
realise the REALITY. its BUSINESSES that are delegated to keep records on their customers.

the foolish thing is you want to cry that businesses are using their laws against customers and so want to then lobby governments to then regulate businesses and destroy the fundamental principles of property rights..


when you learn how the real world works. you can learn the real targets to avoid. and then learn the knowledge you need to then defend your property better by using some of the rights that you are crying are being used against you

so please do some research
then you can learn to offer solutions that work around the real threats

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while you idiots created paranoid anti-gov conspiracies to then want to brutilise bitcoin as your silly foolish "solution" for your own personal greed without thinking of the ramifications..

learn whats really happening. learn who to actually target/avoid. such as CEX/mixers/buggy flawed subnetworks over promised and over promoted as utopian "top" next gen shit

bitcoin was created to be something different to fiat rules.
yep fiat is a property of central banks and central banks are a business. as are the SEC and the CFTC they are businesses too set up to makage things. LEARN THIS SHIT

stop advertising companies/ broken networks and crying about other companies. stop calling bitcoin broke and censoring bitcoin with your foolish tin foil stories
yes
governments have gained a footing into jurisdictions that then allow businesses to not treat bitcoin as a property of people but as a currency which puts it in the realm of laws that restrict privacy

yep again i need to remind you since the 2014 inception of mainstream definition of bitcoin as a currency. the ramifications of that is that bitcoin is  no longer 100% protected by its own property laws. but instead weakened those rights by now being a currency.. because once you put currency into a businesses hands. its their property, along with you giving them your personal info and bank account numbers allowing them access.. meaning dues to currency laws of bank secrecy act (bank being a business)  privacy has be  redefined.
businesses can monitor things more.
this is not a bitcoin fault/flaw.. its about being defined as a currency instead of a property


so stop trying to brutilise bitcoin to work around the currency laws. by defining bitcoin as useless for accountable property ownership. (you wanting to destroy the provenance/accounting system of bitcoin) and shift people to other networks
stop saying bitcoin is not fit due to your ignorance of whats actually occurring..
stop crying that property rights should not exist

and instead realise we should actually be USING property rights to defend bitcoin against the silly rules of other businesses trying to get their finger into bitcoin

if all you want to do is cry about a business using its property rights. while playing ignorant that you dont know or understand property rights and want to say lets avoid or try to lobby to destroy property rights.. just take a step back. learn something.. and then
USE THE rights. not fight them

oh and if you want to play ignorant and just turn this into a opportunity to respond about your lack of knowledge of property rights to say i must be wrong due to baseball bat analogy (something you are hung up on)

realise this.
2 people can enter a room purely for the sole purpose of punching the heck out of each other until one person is knocked out. where there can be thousands of witnesses. and none of them would call the cops about an assault. and none of them would get arrested even if cops turned up..
yep. property owner sets the terms of use of his property that people can enter his property and fight until knocked out and not be a criminal.... its called.. a boxing arena

also its not allowed to drive a unlicenced go-kart on county/country/main roads.. its not legal to shoot a gun in public

yet there are shooting ranges and go-kart circuits on private land..

uber found ways to set up a business to compete against the taxi regulations..

so think beyond your cries of playing victim that paypal might hurt you. and instead think beyond your tears and find solution
but just be sure your solutions dont have flaws, bugs or ways to rip people off.. in short try something different

This is silly, because PayPal is favoring the customers greatly and is imho unfair against the merchants, so the merchants should be pretty eager for a change; actually should have been long ago already.


Ow too bad. (I'm now embarrassed I've fallen for this so easy.)

That's why we need education. There's a superior alternative now more, there's no need for PayPal. But, if merchants don't recognize the benefits for both themselves and the customers, they're not going to see an alternative. Just like prior 2009, when third parties for electronic transactions were necessary, they still are for some if they don't acknowledge they aren't needed.

I do too, but unfortunately it was a photoshop. 

That's correct. Still, their platform, their rules. This is what people seems to fall to understand: the companies are not forced to have nice and correct rules. Of course, the users are not forced to remain there.


LOL, well said! It's called "shooting themselves in the foot"
I just love Kanye West's newest hat

You guys can continue to argue about what paypal does or doesn't do, you can find them right or wrong, but that doesn't change the main topic. If you use crypto, there is none of this, it’s all on both parties to have an agreement.

If one side scams the other, then the scammer did their job better than the person who got scammed, do not get scammed if you can, but do not put your entire life and economy in the hands of paypal just because you do not want to get scammed, which is also another way of you could get scammed because even with paypal there are scammers. So, I have to say that the best thing is still crypto, gives 100% control, you just need to be careful.

I have pointed this out to franky1 multiple times before, as he defends mass surveillance and government intrusion, while saying that nobody should use mixers or other privacy tools.

I'll repeat the quote I shared in that post above:

franky1 epitomizes this mindset. "PayPal are free to censor anyone who uses PayPal, they are just protecting their business", he says. Even if you think that is a reasonable position to hold, you really think it will stop there? Given the history of government repression, mass surveillance, censorship through the fiat system, social credit scores, and all manner of controlling measures being forced upon us, you really think this isn't just the next step in ever more censorship and control over your lives? Governments would force fiat institutions to freeze all your accounts if you say something they don't like if they thought they could get away with it, and indeed, have already done exactly that with the Canadian truckers, Russian oligarchs, and others. If PayPal had got away with this (and I am still 100% sure they will re-implement it at some point in the future), then they will soon move on to ever more repressive policies.

Agreed. I shiver with some enjoyment each time I see PayPal or some other guy bending the knee to a cause not even worthy. Not that I'm a fan of anyone called celebrity but also really enjoyed reading JPMorgan cutting off Kanye West for Tweets (but of course still running Epstein's).

I know it ain't fun for people who rely on it, but as a person who relied on PP most of my freelancing life, if they didn't mess with me the way they did, I'd never have looked for an alternative, and wouldn't have found Bitcoin until much later (and may never have been prompted to use).

Nice theory, but:
And there was reports that it even happened to people who donated before the "Emergencies" Act was in place, retroactively. Then its a question of who to trust more, the people/ institutions responsible for repeated tyranny, that have an incentive to lie and are caught lying to the public 24/7 - or people who stood up against years of tyranny that was based on proveable misinformation.

It just has nothing to do with abuse, misinformation or scammy promoters profiting, none of these actions were taken because of this. There are ∞ counterexamples.
 
Any of these institutions and the dumber/ or corrupt part of the population will comply with tyranny no matter what nowadays, that is the real problem. They will break/ abuse all rules and policies the moment it is convenient to them. Idk where you still take your trust from that any of these policies will only be used for legitimate reasons, reality actually proves the opposite. It doesnt make sense to repeatedly refer to rules/ laws/ regulations/ policies when the only thing they do in practice is to protect offenders and are used to attack victims, basically giving anarchy to big property holders(as you like to call them) and everyone else having to live under the strictest most snowflake rules with no possibility to even defend themselves in practice.

Saw this the other day, had to share it. I sure hope people watched this cult classic and I never thought (at least not back in 1993-1994) that world depicted in Demolition Man will start becoming reality.

Just some more PayPal censorship: https://hongkongfp.com/2022/10/12/paypal-hk-halts-payments-to-hong-kong-pro-democracy-group-citing-unspecified-excessive-risks/

Censoring any donations to a Hong Kong pro-democracy group due to "excessive risks", but at no point tells anyone, including the group themselves, what those "excessive risks" are. Sounds like China are in charge of PayPal company policy now.

Great to see more and more fiat companies shoot themselves in the foot like this. Can't censor donations with bitcoin!