Are PayPal legal agreements changing?
Business
PayPal’s updated acceptable use policy (AUP), which was scheduled to go into effect next month, threatened to seize $2,500, per infraction, from user accounts involved in “the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials” that “promote misinformation.” The new policy quickly came under fire from its former president David Marcus (screenshot below), as well as from PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, who replied “Agreed” to Marcus’ tweet, and tens of thousands of others online.
“An AUP notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information,” the company said in a statement following the backlash. “PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy. Our teams are working to correct our policy pages. We’re sorry for the confusion this has caused.”
Deep Learning God Yann LeCun – Facebook / Meta’s Director of Artificial Intelligence & Courant Prof.
Beyond the irony that PayPal likely spread “misinformation” in its backtracking of the policy and fishy explanation that it was published in error, this is yet another screaming advertisement for why one may want to have self-custody over at least a portion of their own money in 2022. What exactly is misinformation? Moreover, who gets to decide? PayPal? A private company can fine you for online behavior they find objectionable, if you have any sort of account open with them (PayPal also owns Venmo)?
Excuse my cynicism, but I don’t buy the explanation; and, at a minimum, it was clearly under serious consideration. One thing we can all agree on: the policy, even if published prematurely, didn’t write itself.
In conclusion, you know what else is funny. PayPal made aggressive moves into crypto this year. A lot of people in the industry cheered them on. This means adoption! Their CEO speaks at crypto conferences. I’ve been there, seen it. Front and center, on the main stage, talking about how PayPal’s values align with the values of the crypto industry. It would appear not. And lastly, it’s not just PayPal, my friends.
Written by Joe McKeating
CEO, ATRIA
ATRIA (atriapro.com) is a professional learning platform for organizations and individuals to gain the crypto/web3 foundational knowledge they need. The flagship “Foundations” program offers a thorough but accessible education in distributed computer networks, blockchain technology, consensus mechanisms, hash functions, mining, staking, cryptocurrency, smart contracts, non-fungible tokens and decentralized finance.
