News that PayPal planned to institute an Orwellian “misinformation” policy that would penalize users with fines of up to $2,500 for sharing information the platform’s administrators considered inappropriate sent the company’s stock prices crashing.
Reuters reported that shares were down “nearly 6%” after The Daily Wire broke the news that PayPal would begin enforcing a new “misinformation policy” as of Nov. 3.
PayPal published a policy update last week — noting that customers would be prohibited from “sending, posting, or [promoting the] publication of any messages, content, or materials” the platform deemed as “misinformation.”
Newsbusters reported:
“PayPal seems to have aligned itself with the leftist censorship tactics of its Big Tech counterparts.”
Their report added: “Over the past few months, individuals and users such as Gays Against Groomers, UsForThem and the Free Speech Union said PayPal shut down their accounts.”
PayPal received backlash from customers, lawmakers, its former president David Marcus and Elon Musk.
Former PayPal President David Marcus rebuked PayPal’s policy in a tweet over the weekend, writing that the new policy “goes against everything I believe in.”
The Daily Wire reported that within one day of its profile on PayPal’s planned policy change, PayPal claimed that the new guidelines were published “in error” and apologized “for the confusion this has caused.”
A spokesperson for the company said: “PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy. We’re sorry for the confusion this has caused.”
The Daily Wire noted that PayPal lost nearly $6 billion in value as backlash mounted and customers moved off the platform. Conservatives are noting the “Go woke, go broke” line rang true once again.
Aaron Terr, a senior program officer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told The Daily Wire last week:
“Under existing law, PayPal has the ability as a private company to implement this type of viewpoint-discriminatory policy. Whatever motivation PayPal has for establishing these vague new categories of prohibited expression, they will almost certainly have a severe chilling effect on users’ speech. As is often the case with ill-defined and viewpoint-discriminatory speech codes, those with unpopular or minority viewpoints will likely bear the brunt of these restrictions.”
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