PayPal pioneered new-generation online payment services almost 25 years ago. You could send and receive money simply and easily via your email address. It was a cheap alternative to credit cards and banks. PayPal was founded by today’s tech giants Peter Thiel, David Sacks, Max Levchin, and Elon Musk. In recent years, PayPal has systematically earned a bad reputation. Musk refers to PayPal as a Black Mirror episode and indicates that Twitter might soon become an alternative.
Since its inception, PayPal has attracted 429 million active accounts. 58% percent of Americans use PayPal, and in 2021, it processed 19.3 billion PayPal transactions. It now has a market valuation of $84 billion. However, the company that was meant to liberate countless individuals has become a sort of internet police and a social credit watchdog. Based on its market clout, it decides what is right and wrong. It is locking out people or brands that have slipped outside their parameters. Civil liberties groups have complained about the lack of transparency.
This lack of due process has a disproportionate impact on marginalized communities, including people of color and religious minorities,
Electronic Frontier Foundation letter to PayPal CEO Dan Schulman and other PayPal executives
The British journalist Toby Young is the founder of the Free Speech Union, an advocacy group, and the editor-in-chief of the Daily Skeptic, which has questioned the efficacy of Covid vaccines. In September 2022, PayPal suspended Young’s private account, the Daily Skeptic’s account, and the Free Speech Union’s account was defunct. He was completely cut off from his income!
PayPal’s recently updated Acceptable Use Policy prohibits all “objectionable” activity, warning that violators face a $2,500 penalty. The former PayPal president David Marcus tweeted that the new policy “goes against everything I believe in. A private company now gets to decide to take your money if you say something they disagree with. Insanity.” Elon Musk replied, “Agreed.”
Rupa Subramanya, a journalist at The Free Press, emailed Elon Musk and asked him: “Are you worried that a company you helped found—PayPal—is now part of an emerging private social credit system? And is buying Twitter, in part, an effort to fulfill the mission that PayPal seems to have abandoned?” Musk answered, “Definitely!“
This, of course, fills the rumors that Musk also wants to go in the direction of payment services with Twitter and create an alternative to PayPal.
