The online payment system gave no warning or reason why Consortium News‘ account has been “permanently limited.” PayPal indicated that only if “applicable” will the balance be returned.
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
PayPal has canceled Consortium News‘ account without any prior notice or due process and with virtually no explanation.
As Consortium News is today launching its Spring Fund Drive, it has lost one of its most important ways for its viewers and readers to show their support through donations. Clicking on the yellow PayPal donate button on our home page now yields this message:
PayPal has sent an email to CN that says:
“You can’t use PayPal anymore. … We noticed activity in your account that’s inconsistent with our User Agreement and we no longer offer you PayPal services. … Because of potential risk exposure, we’ve permanently limited your account. You’ll no longer be able to use the account for any transactions.”
The message says that “any money in your PayPal balance will be held for up to 180 days,” after which, “if applicable, we’ll email you with information on how to withdraw any remaining money.”
Consortium’s PayPal account page now shows a similar message (click to enlarge):
No Prior Notice or Explanation
There was no prior notice sent nor was Consortium News afforded any due process. A PayPal customer service agent confirmed in a telephone call on Sunday that the “back office” gave no specific reason for “permanently limiting” CN‘s account other than that an “investigation and review” of CN‘s “history found some potential risk associated with this account.”
She said the “potential risk” from CN is “not exactly specified by the back office.” The agent said, “It has something to do with the history of this account.” Asked whether any agency, government or private, or any individual had complained to PayPal about CN, the customer service agent replied, “I don’t see any existing case.”
The agent could not explain why Consortium News was given no notice or any due process, but promised to ask the “back office” to contact CN to explain.
Regarding the $9,348.14 balance in CN‘s PayPal account, the agent said that after a 180-day review PayPal would decide whether to return it. “If there was a violation,” she said “it is possible” the money could be kept as “damages” to PayPal. Violations under the Restricted Activities of the User Agreement include providing “false, inaccurate or misleading information” to PayPal, other PayPal customers “or third parties.”
Given the current political climate it is more than conceivable that PayPal is reacting to Consortium News’ coverage of the war in Ukraine, which is not in line with the dominant narrative that is being increasingly enforced. Last week PayPal also froze the account of the alternative news site MintPressNews.
PayPal was sued in California in January in a class action for similarly shutting down accounts.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe
This is the freedom that Elon Musk is fighting for in public :D
PayPal is one of his creations
PayPal just made you famous. The RT article about this scandal did help as well. Don’t give up fellows, continue the great work! There surely must be other methods of collecting donations. Ultimately, truth will protect those who protect the truth.
I just closed my 20+year old Paypal account and sent CN a donation. Consortium News forever!
Thank you!
I am going to do the same.
FYI: Matt Taibbi’s on the case:
hxxps://taibbi.substack.com/p/paypals-indymedia-wipeout?s=r
Hello friends,
You are probably aware of this but I’d like to say it anyway, since I would be unable to send a check.
As an alternative to paypal, you should opt to accept crypto payments and donations. USDT tokens carry a very low transaction fee on the TRON network (TRC20 tokens) and there are several payment processors that can help integrate this functionality on your website. This also opens up the possibility to accept payment in XMR (Monero), which obscures various transaction details from view, tampering by 3rd parties like paypal will be impossible and you would enable many more people’s support.
Implementation is fairly easy (especially in wordpress) and it’s pretty safe.
Best wishes from the Netherlands and best of luck. You have my respect and support.
call a lawyer
So PayPal collected $9,348.14 from various people under the pretense that it would be donated to Consortium News, but is now just pocketing it instead.
Isn’t that fraud?
Are there any lawyers among CN’s readership who can comment on this?
That is capitalism. You know, freedom and democracy.
If “the man” can steal $600 billion from Russia’s bank accounts without even a “by your leave,” they can strip you of all your assets without making a peep. They can do it to any US citizen using the Civil Asset Forfeiture “laws.” They can do it under an addendum to the Patriot Act, which made it problematic to even criticise American government policy in its “war on terror.” Yeah, that one was little talked about and apparently long forgotten whether it’s been implemented or not.
American dictator Biden recently requested and received approval from the House to liquidate all the assets seized from Russian citizens being carried out in Washington’s proxy war against that country under what he calls the “Asset Seizure for Ukraine Reconstruction Act.” The targets are allowed to include any person “sanctioned” by Washington or any other third party engaging in business or trade with any of these sanctioned individuals or companies. Of course, the list includes anyone in political power or having any influence within that country. It would be like Russia declaring open hunting season against the entire US government and all of the Fortune 500 companies, their directors and trading partners. So, basically they give themselves carte blanche to steal from Russia and/or Russians anything they can get their hands on.
No wonder they need to balance their books through blatant theft since they have initiated a giveaway to the tune of tens of billions of dollars to the fascist regime in Kiev ($33 billion for just the first installment this year) when absolutely no consideration is given to the needs of the American people and the shakey finances of the already de-facto bankrupt federal government. The oligarchs in Kiev and the American military industrial complex can thrive on your tax assessment, but you can go scratch, as far as the demented dictator in DC is concerned.
Dictator Biden claims the stolen money will be used to finance his proxy war against Russia. His idea of “justice,” as the one who rejected reasonable diplomacy and, through the logical chain of causality, actually started the war–nay, pressed mightily, employing continuing genocide in the Donbas, to make it happen. Frankly, US law all too often protects and promotes heinous acts that should be themselves considered crimes against humanity. In my opinion, this is what we are seeing in action in Washington’s cryptic war on Russia using Nato as economic hostages and Ukraine as cannon fodder in its shameless acts of aggression.
One wonders whether this is all unfolding according to the Obama administration’s fondest plans when Vicky Nuland toppled the first domino on the Maidan, or if this rendezvous with Armageddon sort of escaped their power to control. One thing that the new circumstances call for is a new American flag! What would be more appropriate to the occasion than the good ole “Jolly Roger?”
I was lucky enough to catch Joe’s appearance on Shadowproof this morning. Joe’s comments about free speech spurred me to look up Glenn Greenwald’s article of Feb. 20, 2021, titled “Congress Escalates Pressure on Tech Giants to Censor More, Threatening the First Amendment,” (hxxps://greenwald.substack.com/p/congress-escalates-pressure-on-tech?s=r) in which Greenwald cites Norwood v. Harrison (1973) and Bantam Books v. Sullivan (1963) as Supreme Court precedent holding that “government efforts to coerce private actors to censor speech implicate core First Amendment free speech guarantees.”
In short, if some government official(s) played a role in Paypal’s suspension of CN’s account, they violated CN’s First Amendment rights.
But of course violating Americans’ First Amendment Rights is the unstated mission of President Brandon’s newly christened “Ministry of Truth.”
This is truly sickening, though certainly not surprising. Who else but USians would devise privatizing government censorship and repression for corporate profit? And this is happening while the madmen’s war with Russia is still in its proxy phase. Reasonably reliable sources report Ukrop forces are collapsing on all fronts. This is going to get seriously ugly pretty quickly.
Don’t you just love this description of Pay Pal’s CEO found online:
“Dan Schulman is focused on democratizing and transforming financial services and e-commerce to improve the financial health of billions of people, families and businesses around the world.”
Indeed, he is truly “democratizing” financial services and e-commerce “to improve the financial health of billions of people.”
It’s these multi-billionaires in the US who are the leading powers of the US Hegemony. They are the worst enemies against “democracies.”
Why am I not surprised? What I am surprised about is that something like this (fiduciary censorship) hasn’t hit other alternative non-corporate news sites that I read and support…oh wait, it has in the form of being de-platformed from FaceBlech. Expect this rightwing conservative Paypal Oligarch move to happen to a lot more investigative alt-news sites in the near future I’m sorry to predict.
Maybe the US Oligarchs need to have THEIR yachts stolen or sunk, eh? Here’s a joke I just made up:
What’s the difference between Russian Oligarchs and USA Oligarchs? USA ones still have their yachts. I know, it’s not very funny but truth through humor rarely is
__
This is what Capitalist Fascists have always done to control the narrative. Along with their using ignorant but very disposable violent Fascists to do the physical attack side of the dirty work they require. Of course, fear works.
Expect to hear more Paypal theft of resources with very little that the recipients of these actions can do to mitigate government censorship through the use of corporate entities that control this country. Good timing with the ongoing Spring Fund Drives, eh?
Isn’t it fun finding out what the ‘good Germans’ felt like in the 1930s as more and more of their world turned insane and corrupt?
As usual I will continue to send my small contribution by check as I do with the others I read & support. Thank you for what you do.
sealintheSelkirks
Moderators – I need your help once again. Please find and deliver this message to
sealintheSelkirks. Thank you.
_____
I was going to close the portals and swim away, but I found the link to your store and I bought my crazy hat. It’s too late to return it and Sweden does not want to freeze in the dark this winter. You can’t go back to mainstream media propaganda and lies. You can’t go back to being an unawakened one.
When I thought of leaving, I wrote, not intending to share with anyone, about a place I called a forest of grabby hands…
there are grabby hands everywhere
beckoning you to come closer
there are grabby hands in the trees,
who speak about climate change
there are grabby hands in the clouds,
who speak about truth and light
there are grabby hands in the mud
who threaten to pull you down
there are Escher hands
of self-reference
and self-reflection
‘do you see how educated people call you names?
it’s because they don’t have an argument’
When I returned I saw the cover of Seal’s book from the link. It contains a photograph from the forest. I did not see anyone taking pictures, but it seems you are partial to the clouds. Mark Stanley confirms. In his comment to Patrick Lawrence, he imagines being in a wooden boat and looking up at cream-puff clouds. I still don’t know what is the goal of the forest and the chorus, and I’m not going to ask, but I trust that you will achieve whatever it is you set out to do.
P.S. Mark’s comment was the only one Patrick Lawrence replied to from the Nation of Geophobes article. I guess he appreciated that someone noticed his style as well as his content.
There was a lawsuit against Paypal years ago for stealing people’s money. I sent a check to Black Agenda Report and the thank-you I got — which was so very nice — compared Paypal to payday lending companies, which I think is highly appropriate. I truly wish all alternative news sites would simply have a post office box to which one can mail a check.
We have a post office box where a check can be sent:
Consortium News Mailing Address:
Consortium for Independent Journalism (or CIJ)
Suite 102-231
2200 Wilson Blvd.,
Arlington VA 22201
The problem is that we are so beholden to minor conveniences that we give excessive power to corporations.
Actually, because of such minor conveniences, I have too little use for the checks and envelopes that I have at hand. And I am grateful for the convenient framed address you have provided.
I’m responding from Eritrea, the tiny, fiercely independent nation on the eastern edge of Africa—across the Red Sea from Yemen and the rest of the Arabian Peninsula—after spending a month in Ethiopia attempting to understand and report on the war there for Black Agenda Report and Pacifica Radio. (If you haven’t noticed this US-backed war that’s created millions of refugees and probably killed hundreds of thousands, then you might check out my Black Agenda Report author’s page, Alan McLeod’s work on Ethiopia in Mintpress News, or Andrew Korybko’s in various outlets.) Or read the brutal sanctions legislation targeting both Ethiopia and Eritrea, House Resolution 6600 and Senate Bill 3199,
Despite the constant effort required to get my head around all this, I shared this deeply alarming news about what Paypal’s done to Consortium News on Twitter and shared it with my new friends here as soon as I noted it.
The argument over free speech and censorship in the age of digital media is very much alive here on the periphery, where Ethiopian and Eritrean opponents of US support for the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and its war face unprecedented US government/social media censorship proposed in the aforementioned sanctions legislation, HR 6600 and SB 3199.
Twitter hasn’t waited for the legislation to pass. It’s already censored peace and justice activists in Ethiopia and Eritrea and in the Ethiopian and Eritrean diasporas. Among the first to go were diaspora activists Dr. Simon Tesfamariam and Nebiyu Asfaw, along with @HornofAfricaHub and @NoMoreHub. @NoMoreHub was the account of the #NoMore movement founded by Tesfamariam, Asfaw, and others. It shares this dangerous self-description on its website: “#NoMore is a global movement originating in Africa whose mission is to create a cooperative network of diverse peoples and organizations who explicitly say ‘no more’ to the tools of exploitation—disinformation, division and war—with the ultimate goal of building a more peaceful, creative and prosperous society.” hxxps://www.nomore.global/about/
Ann: Wonderful effort, much success!
I have survived this long without a PayPal account and will continue to do so, Wasserman-Schultz be damned.
Big tech continues to tighten the noose around its neck by continuing this censorship game. As we speak solutions to this are being built. The era of cloud computing services where these gate keepers control data through the services they provide is coming to an end. Users will be controlling their own data and be able to share this data on a decentralized computing structure.
Within blockchain & others technologies there are projects that will take the control of data out of the hands of these gatekeepers. Gone will be the era of censoring or blocking funds due to what “they” perceive as requiring censorship. They will no longer control the data by holding it on their servers and within their buildings. I can give just one example of many and it’s called Block stack or just Stacks. There are others also of course. The days of trusting, depending, and having limited options available to us are coming to an end. Monopolization always leads to corruption. And censoring anyone or anything is wrong through and through. Let’s educate ourselves. Knowledge is truly power. Look up on YouTube a video called The next era of computing-Blockstack. The channel is called Stacks. Again this is only one example. Power to all the people. ??
Ha ha ha! Good! You don’t provide a news service – you spout “anti-American” and “anti-Western” propaganda. You will NOT have a single, solitary, bad word said against Russia, no matter what atrocity it commits. Everything – ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING – is America’s, Britain’s, or the West’s fault.
Go move to Russia or China – they won’t cancel your payments services – instead, you’ll be given money – hand over fist! – to continue your propaganda.
HEADLINE: “Putin detonates a nuke.”
CONSORTIUMNEWS: “We told you America would do this! We said Zelenskyy was a war criminal!”
NUREMBERG: “To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”
RUSSIA MUST TAKE THE BLAME FOR EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS.
That’s the standard to which you hold the West.
Oh look! A brainwashed individual incapable of individual thought celebrating censorship.
You really stand for liberty and democracy mate, shame on you
I guess we’re all “East Berliners” now.
Fuck you, Paypal. We will no longer do any business.
I have known for a long time that Pay Pal is linked to the Deep State. Never used it, though I keep getting buggered by them to use their services. We are just going to have to be creative to ignore these Bankster-driven vehicles. They are totally controlled and manipulated. We have to realize that a dark, sinister apparatus runs the financial machines. Conspiracy theories here? Of course. The big-bank and big-investment firms are tied to the big government apparatus that ensures their profits. They conspire and collude to fulfill their agendas. Is this news? Is this startling? Many of our Supra-nationalist companies go to the World Economic Forum (WEF), or some other organization, to dream up plots to take money away from the working people, the dreaded Nationalists, the poor and weak, so as to exert more control and to extract more money. They also scheme about how to divide the world. These are bored people. They are maniacs and psychopaths. Most of us think about how to raise our kids, while these “useless eaters” are trying to add a few million to their bank accounts. These are toxic people that we should realize are only self-motivated for ideology and greed. We have to wake up and focus on the threat to our daily life. The world tends to decentralization, better communication, and more harmony. These elites want to wreck all of this to create their fictional playground. Enough of them already.
War on Truth!
This should remove any remaining doubt that our country has been captured by criminals.
The headquarters are banks in the City of London and Wall Street. Hence their love of sanctions. Through vast illegal wealth they control the mainstream media and politicians. That’s why those people blatantly lie to the public. That’s why there is massive censorship.
War Profiteer Story
hXXps://war**profiteer**story.blogspot.com
[Note: Remove all asterisks to use link, as well as replacing XX with tt.]
Elon may be prepared to file an amicus brief on your behalf if you sue PayPal. He’s in a feisty mood.
I donate using my credit card & have for years.
I used PayPal when making several one time donations in 2016. However, when looking over my bank statement several months later, I noticed PP continued to take money from my account. I contacted the authorities in the fraud dept. of my bank, and the associate was not surprised at all. She easily got my money reimbursed and said that it often happens. FAK PP.
Anyone involved in just saying anything the US regime may not like needs to stay off paypal. It is just a matter of time before they steal their money.
Is that what it has finally come down to, that the popular opinion fostered by the current government is mandatory or you will, or your account be disposed with?
MORE REASON WHY YOU GUYS NEED TO HAVE A BITCOIN ACCOUNT. I HOPE NOW YOU UNDERSTAND WHY IT IS SO IMPORTANT TO HAVE.
NO. Cyber currency uses ENORMOUS amounts of electricity; they are even reopening coal plants to provide the power for bitcoin, etc.
People should consider how a run on the bank operates and then check to see if it would violate any laws to advocate generation of a run on PayPal.
I have been waiting for the Spring Fund Drive, as I had determined to double my usual contribution in appreciation of the integrity and courage of Joe and everyone else keeping CN going during this deepening crisis. For as long as you can continue, I will support you; just completed my donation.
Have never used Paypal – never trusted them.
Just closed my PP account, which I’ve rarely used anyway.
I didn’t know PayPal was part of the IMF.
I’m not surprised, but oh yeah I am shocked. It’s a play on the “First they came for the trade unionists” but silence in the face of that was not Consortium News’s sin of omission; no, not at all or ever!
But so it is, the day is here, the ratcheting of the screws, the boot and now ‘bot’ too heels’ grinding down, they’ve made their play after thoroughly polluting as much of the American mindset (mind-set, cast in concrete) spectrum as they could reasonably expect to nail down; especially the now reactionary liberal left gone loony which is afraid of its own shadow, individually and collectively. ” ‘We’ have lift-off!”
What a grand psyop of the decades it has been, and now “Voila!” — Fruition! And time for ‘Application,’ while pulling out all of the stops with a demented and lifelong corrupt old pol figurehead they have proven adroit at leading from room to room, place to place; an object of pity to the public at large (?) but most assuredly derision/utility to his DNC handlers. Not that ‘Joe’ wouldn’t be amenable to this if still rational enough to understand the consequences of his now traitorous assault on the scraps of the US Constitution Bush and Obama left him to toothlessly masticate, but those who have kidnapped and hold hostage the American State have plenty of room with which to work with President Cornpop Husk. It brings a new meaning to ‘a husky fellow’ just in time for these times.
We’re up to our knees in concrete; up to our asses in alligators; and up to our necks in treachery and perfidy as our once ostensibly-goaled-for-goodness nation has truly been hijacked off of the always-thin rails of nascent democracy. This democracy has matured as predicted—straight into an oligarchy with whatever further attendant perversions of its principles lie ahead; each of form and definition laid down thousands of years ago in their predictability of human nature: the one constant whose ill attributes we cannot seem to shake.
The innocuous, nondescript ‘Newspeak’ they trotted out in dealing with CN is stunning in its sunning rattlesnake faux-insipidness and should be noted here for its actual intent and presentation to those ends:
“… “back office” gave no specific reason for “permanently limiting” CN‘s account other than that an “investigation and review” of CN‘s “history found some potential risk associated with this account.”
“…. the “potential risk” from CN is “not exactly specified by the back office.” The agent said, “It has something to do with the history of this account.” Asked whether any agency, government or private, or any individual had complained to PayPal about CN, the customer service agent replied, “I don’t see any existing case.”
“… but promised to ask the “back office” to contact CN to explain. (Are we getting dizzy/disoriented yet?)
When an accusation is not an accusation, and is purposely dangled out there to hang in and out of sight before our eyes almost wraith-like… to twist into a form of subtle but omnipresent torture the intemperate breezes of today’s incipient repressions. And its mindfuckery foremost.
Folks, it’s way past time to re-read Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.” Because it’s obviously been on the corporate state’s study guide in “How To…” All of our names are on their list already. revel in that. stay strong. And don’t be forgetting that in your day-to-day presumptions that this is just a passing thing. It ain’t.
Again: “It’s way past time…”
P.S. I’ll be donating by personal card again. Like so many already attesting, I saw through ‘PayPal’ a long time ago.
As of today, I am going to discontinue my use of Paypal, with the goal of closing the account entirely in a short amount of time.
I live on a peanuts SS pension since 2008 wiped out my company (and Obama’s 3 Billion dollars never got to the announced small business loans,) but I just VISAed more than I normally could. You are the best of what’s left of independent journalism. I’m sure that if there’s any way to help, your readers will do it.
I just went on the Pay Pal Facebook page and clicked on the comments under the most recent post. What a revelation! Not one positive comment. People are being scammed and robbed of funds left and right. Even after they are told by PP to follow up via their instructions, the same “glitch” occurs. People are getting no assistance with their problems. Legal action needs to occur as this appears to be a criminal racket. RICO anyone?
Try GabPay on GAB.
you folks must understand the enemy owns the digital platform.. they do not own, nor do they want the expense of owning the global Internet.
The digital platform is privately owned because to make the internet useful it is necessary to enable devices and to develop protocols that can be used to encode, transmit, capture, store and decode the propaganda contained in, or the information found in, the messages. How do they own the entire benefit of the Internet. without paying one dime for its installation, operation of maintenance? Its called copyright and patent monopoly power.. and to use any means to convey currency between buyers, users and sellers on the digital platform is always subject to takings by the owners of those digital platforms.
Joe, this is unacceptable. PP has blocked my last payment to CN as well as G Galloway for MOATS. It’s interesting they seem in league with Twitter as far as cancellations. Do they share some of the same board members?
I hope CN joins the class action law suit and you win. CN has been stellar in its reporting and news articles.
I am cancelling my PP account as well as 10 of my friends, which won’t make a dent, but if some ‘high rollers’ follow, maybe PP will at least reconsider their ridiculous, contrived policy, which is really defending neo-nazies in Ukraine and the 8 year slaughter in the East. Unforgivable. We have even moved over to ‘virtual credit card’ numbers for single use payments as so many cards have been compromised due to companies being hacked.
I closed my Paypal account. I will never again use it.
I guess I should not be shocked … but I am. We are moving in an absolutely terrible direction. I’m afraid the sheep-like response to Covid lockdowns, demonstrated that our rulers could get away with a lot more than they dreamed. Never used PayPal. Some sites on the ‘naughty’ list have resorted to using crypto only. I guess I will look into that. I don’t even know if that is ‘safe’ from theft.
I stopped using Pay Pal months ago.
So much for Elon Musk’s attitude on Free Speech, or did he not yet get the memo?
Elon Musk no longer owns any share in Paypal.
I don’t use PayPal and haven’t for years. Most of these massive tech platforms exist these days solely as extensions of the “Ministry of Truth”. Canada has shown us that even your bank accounts aren’t safe from the MoT; say something it doesn’t like and you can kiss access to your own property goodbye.
These are truly Orwellian times we’re living in.
Every reader here with a PayPal account should cancel it immediately.
I canceled mine years ago after they locked my account for no reason. It took 9 months to get my money out.
I am going to complain to PayPal and also contribute here–if only a token amount. We are ruled by robber barons, and our democracy, such as it is, is dying. It’s both tragic and infuriating, especially because so few decent, well-meaning citizens don’t see this.
Don’t waste your valuable time contacting Pay Pal. These multi-billionaires, along with US’ Big Banks, Hedge Funds, the ENTIRE Financial Markets are stealing money as fast as they can.
You can see the volatility in the Stock Market, particularly with STOCKS.
We have been studying this heavily corrupted US Hegemony for years. The Big Guys know the whole thing is either going to blow sky high, or die slowly of its incessant greed and corruption.
Just pulled my Paypal account after 25 years of patronage. I explained that I was doing so in protest and specifically referenced
Consortium and Mint.
I use PayPal for almost everything, but will be reconsidering now. I would have to make so many changes to my account it isn’t funny. I will henceforth not use it so much any more. I will also contact them and protest.
They did the same thing to me last year: froze my positive balance, with no possiblity of appeal, and the reason was “proprietary”. They’re still holding, despite their lies to release it. I suspect it’s because I was a regular supporter of Craig Murray. Stay away from PayPal!
PayPal is a nasty outfit. Transfer wise (now just called Wise) might be worth a try though it seems like they too may be in the same direction.
This is an absolute disgrace. Where can I make a donation and ensure it gets to you. Won’t be big but I will give what I can afford.
I just made a large (for me) donation to Consortium News via my credit card. I did this, because I feel that it is essential for CN’s readers to support it and keep it alive during this time of war and repression.
Thank you Rob!
I shall do likewise. This just emphasizes the importance of Consortium News.
This is an outrage! I am thoroughly disgusted with PayPal. You should definitely join the aforementioned lawsuit as an aggrieved party.
Just dumped PP
Bravo! Big Tech is clearly an extension of the Deep State. Now if only everyone would dump PayPal, Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc, etc…
I had a website back in 2010 and was super careful with my words but for the time the site was super succesful with large readership supporting the BNP. Paypal without warning stopped donations and froze the account although I was able to transfer the balance later. Just look into who owns it and then you will understand why they did this to you. Good Luck.
Fascism is as fascism does
Thanks for the background. Note that Dan Schulman is a member of the globalist Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), along with most of the key players on the “Biden team”, including the secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Commerce and Homeland Security. Also the secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force. Also the CIA director, Fed chairman, UN ambassador, Press secretary and dozens more.
I tried to set up a Face Book account about two years ago. I went through the motions and got it on line. I never posted anything to it but I began to receive “associations” immediately. “You may know this person”. Most I did not know and just deleted them. That’s all I did the first day on line with FB. The next day my account was “suspended” for “suspicious activity”. I never Liked anyone or posted anything. Just went to bed and the next day I was suspended. I couldn’t reach anyone at FB to ask what the hell they were talking about. Never did get a reply so just gave up. I did notice however that the associations they sent that I did recognize were all people in one or more email boxes I use for personal and business use. Some, years since any correspondence. So, my guess is that FB mines your email boxes and compares the accounts with their data base. Also, I have subscribed to CN for years and have a lot of the newsletters in my email. I don’t delete them and I think it is a good guess that CN is the “suspicious activity” that got me banned.
The Washington Post has suspended me from commenting 3 times since the Ukraine War started, the 1st time suspending me from commenting on their proscribed War Narrative with so many SINS of Historical OMISSION left out of the Propaganda I pointed out for 1 week. They also deleted the comments and all my replies to the detractors and their inane replies.
The 2nd suspension was for a Day. Many times they just deleted the comment without suspending me.
I just got this message Friday after making some 10 comments pointing out the many SINS of Historical OMISSION in the War Propaganda article, distorting any possibilities of having an accurate and balanced understanding of what’s actually going on.
Your account has been temporarily suspended from commenting
In accordance with The Washington Post’s community guidelines your account has been temporarily suspended. While suspended you will not be able to comment, use reactions or report comments.
Please rejoin the conversation on May 6, 2022, 10:55 AM
I ceased using Paypal many years ago after they refused to continue to take payments for Wikileaks.
CN, you should have “seen the writing on the wall” from that behavior by Paypal.
Led by the Deep State, theft is now an acceptable form of communication, (Venezuela’s gold and assets, Russian assets, etc.) and it is filtering down. The Democratic Party executes immoral tactics that are destroying the premises on which society is based, all in a quest for perpetual power.
Guillermo, it is good cop, bad cop. Whichever party is in power in Washington, D.C. will do bad stuff. Insided the Beltway is completely out of touch with the people and with reality, and only in touch with money and power.
So true – Republicans are corporate wolves in wolf’s clothing. Democrats are corporate wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Hope CN can join the class action suit filed in January and make them pay.
I will look to donate to CN on Patreon.com and cancel my Paypal account immediately.
Patreon is just another PayPal/Google/Apple/Amazon/DuckDuckGo/YouTube/Twitter etc. etc. Same business model, run by the same Ministry of Truth.
Will donate right away. Must be doing something right if the fascists are being this petty.
Precisely. Dissent which has no impact does not pose a threat to the ruling powers. Dissent which brings down censure is dissent that threatens the status quo. Congratulations, CN! You ARE making a difference.
Have let Paypal know I will be closing my account if they continue with their unamerican activities of closing the accounts of journalists and news organizations and stealing their funds.
Will be sending a check to Consortium News as well.
Thank you.
This is the last straw. I’m going to get rid of Paypal in my life. I’m still using Paypal for small donations and to pay for goods from small websites, but now if the website doesn’t have an alternative to Paypal to send money to them, tough luck. I’m not going to help Paypal with their monopoly, even if insignificant at the end of the day.
I’m sincerely sorry to hear this. I sent my own donation March 29 — NOT via PayPal — and you received it, confirmed via email. And I would still appreciate some resolution of my own as-yet unaddressed issue here.
Verily, PayPal looks to be a back-stabbing, racketeering organization in the clutches of our imperial Big Brother. I have never used them and now never will!
I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised by this latest outrage. The crackdown on any independence from the imperial project has been ramping up for decades and is now in overdrive. It’s do or die for the empire so it’s down to brass knuckles time. We are in a sense, facing the same existential crisis as Russia. It’s the same war. Washington and it’s sycophants are out to crush all remaining opposition.
From now on I will mail a check for donations. Let us hope they don’t succeed in killing off the US Post Office.
I’ve been passing on contributions to anyone that only accepts donations thru the creepy company ever since they booted Wikileaks. Why in the world has CN kept the option? I suppose my credit card company will be next but they sure as hell won’t be keeping any of my money if they start playing these games. BOYCOTT PAYPAL YOU HOSERS!
Pay-Pal stopped your account. So I stopped my Pay-Pal account.
Not much,I know, but all that was in my power to do.
On top of the irony with Musk is the suspicious timing with Nina Ws annointment. Perhaps one of her first salvos across the bow. She has arrived. Moyen de parvenir. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is an operation that has a name.
Thanks CN
I’m done with PayPal – disgusting behaviour
Can’t remember f I used Paypal last time. Won’t happen again.
I am going to cancel my PayPal account
This is terrible, everyone can see the growing authoritarianism around the world, but they dont tend to see it in their own back yard, its one of the reasons i used to follow CN closely.
I say, ‘used to’ because i have disconnected from many sources and friends since the Russia-Crimea war started, the reason being that i perceive that many has been focused on being anti-hate rather than anti-war, which might lead some lazy people to misinterpret the message and intent.
I expect most people reading this here will strongly disagree with my assessment, and i might be wrong, but i offer it anyway, because its probably more than you get from the new censorship czars.
Cn should move their bank accoubts outside western totslitarian system.
Where is that? SWIFT is virtually global.
Disinformation Governance at work.
PayPal is under pressure from the PTB to enforce unseen rules. I collect Middle Eastern stamps, and bought an item from a dealer about a year ago; in the message box, I referenced the item, mentioning words like “Syria” and “Latakia”. PayPal blocked the transaction, and it took me weeks to sort it out and get them to unblock it. Their algorithm-back-office green eyeshades must have thought I was bankrolling terrorism or something like that. The amount was less than $30.
Don’t kid yourself, gwb. I say this respectfully, but you must know, you need to know, that PayPal is part and parcel of the corporate/state international capitalism-run-wild nexus point of all that seeks to put each and every one of us in a corral or pigeonhole to be ‘milked’ for our information and potential work output in service to the ‘Borg.’
It is us who are under pressure from outfits like PayPal, they are willing and profit-making appurtenances to the Machine.
Anyone who made a recent donation via PayPal should initiate a credit card chargeback if a card was used.
PayPal holding the donation funds for up to 180 days is a term you did not agree to when you made the donation.
(h/t Yves S)
Important to stop using services like PayPal — for anything, ever. Mr. Lauria: Please advertise more prominently how to send you checks, or if there are other ways to support your work.
Take them to court and force them to tell you exactly what you’ve been cancelled for.
What are the alternatives? Are there other ways to send money to CN?
For the moment please use the red Donate button to contribute by credit card or by mailing us a check. Thanks!
hxxps://www.patreon.com/ A lot of people use Patreon now.
Indeed. Our Patreon button is just below the red Donate button on the upper right side of our home page.
I have found I cannot donate to sites I support on Patreon as they do not let the card payments go through without paypal. I have tried for several weeks to divest myself of paypal but it seems to have embedded itself in such a way to make avoiding it difficult.
So the collective West now knows that stealing 3OObillion dollars of Russian money and the yachts of Russian oligarchs are just the start of removal of our rights to “democracy” in our reading and writing.
Done.
Siempre adelante.
Roger that.
What can we, CN readers, do to help and support you?
Now is a good time to look into GNU Taler.
If the US government can steal 4 billion from Venezuela and around 8 billion (!) from Afghanistan, then PayPal probably has no qualms about stealing 10 grand from Consortium News. I’ll send you a check next week. The bastards!
Thanks!
4B and 8B is chicken feed compared to 300B reserves US is stealing from Russia. Not to mention the numerous cases of ‘grand theft nation’ with US invasions. The US has become ruled by gangsters long ago, so of course various US businesses have gone right along with that.
This, lying, cheating, stealing, is what the mainstream US culture is become, and is the prime criteria — maximum profits, expansion, and control — of imperialism as the final stage of capitalism (making money by having money and power instead of ethical business and earning money by producing value and goods). This will become more blatant and obvious as the empire collapses.
They must be in deep trouble, why else would they be so lawless, blocking any kind of criticism, winning in any way possible. They act like Mafia types.
Never under-estimate stupidity. Stupidity explains more than conspiracy, most of the time.
This is expected behavior from them. This is and has been a mafia state from the local levels to the national level on the verge of becoming a failed state. Practically every pebble one turns over in this country reveals a web of corruption.
Just following the lead of the US government. The $300 billion from Russia…
In fact they are acting the same way as Zelensky.
No question, we’ve seen a surge of political censorship since Biden took office, and don’t seem to know what to do about it.
PayPal may be a private company but they hold monopoly power and are censoring on behalf of the government. This is a form of economic warfare and a complete violation of the First Amendment. I will never use PayPal again. Having made an online donation in the past week I will nevertheless follow irina’s excellent example and send a second donation in the form of a check by mail this week.
It is scoundrel time once again and we are all called upon to resist and dissent. Thank you, CN and Joe Lauria for keeping truth and hope alive.
Join the lawsuits. hxxps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-13/paypal-sued-for-freezing-customer-accounts-without-explanation
They did the same thing to Wikileaks, CN dares to tell the truth!
I wonder what government agencies contacted PayPal?
Facebook kicked me off their site after I said their algorithm had no rhythm and sounded like a 2-year-old banging on pots & pans.
I am not consistent with their values, Boohoo!
“I wonder what government agencies contacted PayPal?”
No contact from government agencies are necessary. This is the essence of self-censorship: people know what is expected of them, and are eager to participate in the daily Two Minutes Hate, in order to be accepted by Our Dear Leaders.
Dumped piss-pal years ago. (As did ebay, finally! After multi-episodes of ‘the customer is always right,’ even when blatantly stealing, piss- ‘held’ my funds for a year, making ebay TAs impossible; $100s never returned.) Will get right on the ‘cc’ option, again! – and remember you in my will! Cheers; you have more rebate clout than did I.
As all CN readers have noted, this situation is absolutely outrageous. I’m seeing PayPal block contributions to multiple sites now, and it is obviously only due to the “risk” of doing honest reporting, criticism and dissent. If the people of the U.S. (and “the West”, in general) haven’t given any thought to what “circling the drain” looks like, they have no excuses now — indeed, they have a front row seat to the performance, looking straight down into that abyss. I am cancelling my contributions via PayPal to multiple sites, including CN, today, and “re-upping” using direct transactions to each site. To Joe and the CN Crew: Please, PLEASE keep it going – your work and your web site are outstanding! I’m with you today, and I’m with you tomorrow.
It’s shocking this could happen to Consortium News.! How quickly it happened after you published your excellent article, Joe Lauria, about the curfew in Odessa. preventing people commemorating the horrifying burning to death of peaceful protesters in the Trade Union Building. I sent it out to several people, and 2 main stream journalists,. Thank you very much for writing that article!
How can anyone trust the banking system with this type of action, confiscating your money? It appears that stifling info about the violent US-orchestrated coup in Kiev and the neo-nazi, nationalist violence that erupted in Ukraine from 2014, could be the reason. But the speed of the confiscation is amazing. Hope you find a way around this. Very best wishes – Kay
I joined Paypal as the only way to pay for something I wanted to buy online. The bill did not identify what charges were for and appeared for more money than I had spent. I don’t remember if I ever got a proper bill. I abandoned Pay pal.
Whatever you do, Joe, stay strong. Your site is one of the very best when it comes to political and global content.
Art
Welcome to the new world of no dissent allowed.
The criminal ruling class cabal cannot speak the truth and cannot afford to let others do so, either. So, censorship, lies, and gas-lighting are the order of the day, and they will stop at nothing to eliminate everyone who does not conform to their self-serving non-reality. They are making that very clear now. And, as Caitlin Johnstone said recently, it’s about to get so much worse. Pretty soon, we’ll have just 2-3 ‘news’ sources to choose from. And, like our politics, none will offer anything but dishonest and disingenuous discourse.
Pick a flavor: grape or cherry. Not drinking the Kool-Aid is not an option.
191 days to election day…
This is completely outrageous. For Paypal to refuse to do business is one thing, but to keep any money is just theft. CN is a perfectly respectable news website run by professional journalists and for Paypal to start censoring is just not acceptable. Other organisations, including the banks will soon follow Paypals example. And who was one of the original founders of the company that became Paypal? Oh yes, that most recent famous promoter of free speech: Elon Musk.
PayPal started out with the bs promise “we make our $ off the float,” saying they would never charge fees. Of course this was just a garden-variety Silicon Valley lie and this policy ended about a year after co-founder and Palantir nabob Peter Thiel replaced Musk on the board in 2000. Pierre Omidyar/eBay bought PayPal in 2002. So, the original thieving/nickel-and-diming behavior, typical of eBay, was really Omidyar’s doing. People who have been following things since Maidan 2014 will know Omidyar was an enthusiastic coup supporter and financier. EBay then spun off PayPal in 2015 into a separate company and no longer owns it. Perhaps you should be ragging on proud Dan Schulman, current PayPal President and CEO, as he is ultimately the one responsible for CN’s current woes.
Musk may be a d-bag, but he’s pretty clean on this one.
hxxps://jewishinsider.com/2018/07/daily-kickoff-whos-attending-google-camp-paypal-ceo-dan-schulman-practicing-krav-maga-russian-elite-dine-tel-aviv/
“NYT CORNER OFFICE INTERVIEW — PayPal CEO Dan Schulman on practicing martial arts: “I practice Krav Maga. I spent some time in Israel when I was young, and they have what’s called Youth Military Training there, so I started then. That was when I was in my teens, and I’ve been doing Krav since then.”
— Have you ever gotten hurt? Schulman: “Oh my gosh. I mean, look at my knuckles. These are all from punches. I’m always black or blue or I have some scar on my face. I’ve dislocated my shoulder. I’ve had stitches. If you look carefully on my face, stitches here, stitches here. Smacked into a mat here, here. That’s how you learn how to be cool, calm and collected in very stressful situations. But the overrunning philosophy of Krav is that the best way to win a fight is to not get into a fight. It’s very Zen in that way. How do you de-escalate situations? We spend a lot of time thinking about that. It’s translated into the way that I think about business as well.” [NYTimes]”
Never too late to take up Krav Maga, Joe!
…it would be nice to see Musk speak up for Consortium News though.
Could you set up a crypto wallet to receive donations (preferably Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). Would love to direct donations that way.
This is the way.
Outrageous abuse of corporate power. Part of a much larger strategy of repression and censorship. Dark days ahead.
BTW, PayPal blocked my account several years ago, and refused to return money to donors. They advised that they would hold the balance for 3 years, and then send a check to my home municipality’s “abandoned” funds account, where I could claim it. I never did, and lost $300.
Out-bloody-rageous!
Cancelling accounts is one thing, stealing money is another. I don’t have much faith in the legal system, but if they seize CN’s account balance, there should be legal recourse. I hope so. We can still donate with check or credit card. I have a feeling that this will only consolidate and strengthen support for CN. Long Live Consortium News!
Hello Jonny. While Julian Assange remains imprisoned in Belmarsh there is no “legal system”. Certainly none that I can believe in. It occurs to me that we live in a lawless world and the “legal system” is a lie. Certainly, in 2022 private property ceased to exist and theft became normalised. I hope Joe and the CN team create alterative funding pathways asap. I do not trust the credit card companies or the banks.
The warmongers in the Washington federal government have their tentacles everywhere, just like any dedicated totalitarian dictatorship would. You don’t have to be an extremist on the left or right to feel the wrath of Lord Biden who is every bit as oppressive as President Cheney ever was. Now Paypal smears its fecal matter all over the constitution. Dubya would be proud.
Maybe it’s all part of the Disinformation Governance Board’s plan for curating Disinformation as their title implies. They want all disinformation in America administered according to their chosen scheme. That undoubtedly leaves out independent on-line journalism. Pretty soon the internet service providers will be blocking our forum posts as disallowed disinformation.
I am sorry to say you may be correct about blocking forum posts.
Which is why I’ve been archiving as much information (either saved
to computer as PDF and / or printed out, as well as emailed to myself)
as possible. The sudden appearance of ukrayinska news and one ukraine
news on Yahoo News feeds yesterday shows how fast things are ratcheting up.
First thing tomorrow, I’m mailing a check to Consortium News. Stay Strong !
Thank you!
At least one major network television station in South Florida is supporting a fund-raising drive by Ukrainian/American organisations for Zelensky and his merry band of war criminals. Maybe all the stations are clearly taking up sides and doing so, but I cannot bear to watch most network news–network lies is more the delivered product. They think all the human shields used by the Azov Nazis were loyal Ukrainian citizens that the Russians would not allow to escape from Mariupol via the evacuation corridors that Putin arranged. Rather than serving as human shields for Azov, the American media claims they were deliberately targeted non-combatants by Russia. Talk about turning the facts on their head. Basically, every American news reader is now just another Rachel Maddow. We know this conflict is existential for Russia, but the fanatical Americans will absolutely not allow any off ramps from this escalation which implies that, at some point, the nukes will be used.