These two are somewhat easily defined, fraudulent and unlawful, but "promote misinformation" not so much. Regardless, I am sure the moment they take any money under these terms, a lawsuit will follow.

Per the Daily Wire

are prohibitions on “the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials” that “promote misinformation” or “present a risk to user safety or wellbeing.” Users are also barred from “the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory.”

Story on Daily Wire [dailywire.com...]

“An AUP notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information. 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,” a spokesperson told National Review.

[nationalreview.com ]

...that didn't last long.

Nope, not long at all. Instant backlash was wild globally. Paypal has "pulled back" [news.yahoo.com...]

Controlling opinions or speech by seizing funds despite lack of a conviction is not popular anywhere, ask Canada. At least there is discussion now, accidental or not.

Paypal stock fell 4.5% and crypto was up on the day.

Somebody, somewhere, someplace, needs to be in charge of what is sent out!

Else the PR backlash can be immense!

Somebody, somewhere, someplace, needs to be in charge of what is sent out!
Else the PR backlash can be immense!

I think many tech sector leaks are either "trial balloons" or attempts to get (free) viral marketing (or both).

"They" may have thought use of the term "misinformation" would somehow score points with some people.

When you have celebrity level folks using Paypal MOVE their money OUT and URGE their friends to do the same, and do so publicly, these kind of trial balloons can affect the company's bottom line! :)

We live in interesting times.

ADDED: And once the cat is out of the bag whatever trust there had been is now gone.

Given their mea culpa, Paypal is ironicaly saying they put out misinformation on themselves.

Enough said.

What happened to common sense!
Clearly, anyone involved in this have no common sense, and it woukd have been more than one.

At least the delete account message is fine. It currently says that deletion is permanent and if you want to use Paypal again you'll need to create a new account.

Seems like a secure way to log out for occasional users.

I spoke too soon, apparently tens of thousands are having difficulty closing their accounts and the paypal assistant is offering an appology and a $15 voucher to NOT close your account. The message from the assistant mid-account closure is...

PayPal is NOT Fining people for Misinformation. We are sorry for the confusion this has caused leading you in closing your account. Allow me to sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and since we value you as a PayPal member, I would like to give you a one time courtesy of $15 worth of PayPal voucher because we want to keep you and I want you to stay with our PayPal Family,

The problem is few believe PayPal, or feel their funds are safe from arbitrary penalties (not court ordered, punishment not based on actual crime etc). Paypal's direction was clear when they partnered with the ADL to monitor people's speech online, despite being unrelated to paypal . Even saying you're frustrated with current gov policy was being called hate, misinformation or dissent in early bannings, now no reason is given. *poof* banned... which is tolerable when there are other options but taking money, that was too far for many, obviously.

PayPal joins ADL announcement - [adl.org...]

Many consider deplatforming for speaking your mind to be extremism as it makes clear nobody is protected, from Paypal. the spectre of a misinformation fine was too much, mistake or not judging by the backlash. Paypal stock is down 56% year to date.

My final update - I didn't expect Paypal's policy change notice to cause this many ripples all over the place in the week since, but it has.

Now, the current US administration's top watchdog agency is looking into Paypal, Fintech apps and other financial institutions to "see how major financial technology firms dictate how consumers engage with their platform" - [cnbc.com...]

It seems the discussion is happening, all the way to the top, and may impact more financial companies than just Paypal. With the Federal Reserve having already announced that they have begun looking into a possible "digital only" currency, the timing matters. ( [federalreserve.gov...] )

In the long run, policies like the one PayPal's rescinded would benefit those who tend to lie all the time.

Hear me out.

Those who spread misinformation all the time are motivated by money. But if you remove the incentive from outrageous lying then those people would stop lying because there's no money to be had from misinformation.

Typical conservatives like Alex Jones wouldn't owe a billion dollars because he would have been constrained by the lack of money in lying and would never have said all of those awful things.

Brexit would never have happened.

Climate change wouldn't happen because the climate deniers wouldn't have been able to spread their filth and influence those mostly conservative politicians who sided with big oil and brought us to the disasters the world is experiencing.

It's a fine mess of a world we find ourselves in when people's thinking is so Orwelled and fueled by dementia-triggered rage that they feel there's something wrong with putting a muzzle on misinformation.

have you ever thought about applying for a job at PayPal?
people are mixing up misinformation with other people's opinions. it's still all right to agree with brexit, and it's still all right to think that all that climate change rhetoric is overblown. if you disagree then that's fine. There’s no need to pay me £2,500

people are mixing up misinformation with other people's opinions

I'd agree there is an important distinction between misinformation:

Shergar found living on Mars with the crew of the Mary Celeste

which is what we used to refer to as *fake news*, and...

... an opinion or perspective on something that someone else simply disagrees with:

Donbas region ethno-historically Russian territory, inseparable from Russia, confirm academics *

which cannot qualify as fake news, because it's not news at all, it's a perspective.

On any given issue, multiple perspectives are possible. Some perspectives are less credible than others. Even when there are only two perspectives, they rarely hold exactly equal validity. A perspective based on ignorance, confused or conflated data, bad reasoning and faith is not fake - it's just not very robust and difficult to defend / prove / substantiate. In fact, we might consider that a questionable perspective is not only not news, but that it's not even fake. Arguably, fake is entirely the wrong adjective to adopt here. Poorly-reasoned or weakly-supported might be better descriptors.

In public conversation, absent semantic clarity, there is a slippery slope:

- "You know Elvis is still alive, don't you?"

- "No, that's not true. That's misinformation."

- "It's my opinion that Elvis is still alive."

Suddenly, actual misinformation appears to be validated as reasonable opinion. Doesn't it?

This is sophistry: if you make a claim which can be evidenced, you can't subsequently pretend that it's an opinion. Either you are claiming something or you aren't.

There is a claim that Elvis died when official records said he did. That claim can be substantiated by any number of pieces of evidence. There is another claim that he didn't (which isn't fake - it's a real perspective on what happened - but also is a long way short of being any sort of equally valid perspective, since it's based on hunch / conjecture / supposition / faith and not actually on evidence which can be tested and verified.

Anyone can hold a general opinion that Anubis actually exists or that Brexit is actually good for Britain - these are real, albeit vague, perspectives.

But it's misinformation to claim that Elizabeth II is currently being judged by Anubis in the Netherworld, her heart being weighed against a feather, or that the population of the UK is materially better off since 11pm on Jan 31st, 2020. These are not vague, general opinions, they are claims in need of evidential support.

In the absence of that evidential support, such claims may be dismissed without controversy.

* No, I don't buy this nonsense for a second. That's why I transliterated the name of the region from Ukrainian (ie. Donbas) and not from Russian (Donbass) even though the Ukrainian language (as we know it today - and bear in mind the Ukrainian spoken today isn't quite the same as the Ukrainian spoken in Galicia at the start of the 20th century) has never been spoken in that part of the world. Scottish Gaelic has never historically been spoken much on the east coast of Scotland - but we're not going to suddenly start claiming that Dundonians and Aberdonians aren't Scots, are we?

All the above is interesting and informative, but I think folks are missing the point that PayPal tried a bridge too far and the GOVERNMENT woke up and began investigating. After all, the govt wants THEIR brand of misinformation left alone (and no attention brought to it) by having a third party managing other information that could spoil the delicate balance of "information".

Last thing desired is a Heller-type SCOTUS case which defines "misinformation!"