The announcement seems innocuous – until you dig into the details.
PayPal has more than 350 million active users, accounting for more than 20% of online transactions in the United States – their influence is ubiquitous in the world of e-comm. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has a history of promoting leftist talking points, while muting – or attempting to deplatform – those with dissenting points of view.
So, a powerful player in the world of finance partners with an organization that has a history of conflating dissenting points of view with extremism and hate? It’s concerning, to say the least.
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL had this to say about the partnership:
“All of us, including in the private sector, have a critical role to play in fighting the spread of extremism and hate. With this new initiative, we’re setting a new standard for companies to bring their expertise to critical social issues. We have a unique opportunity to further understand how hate spreads and develop key insights that will inform the efforts of the financial industry, law enforcement, and our communities in mitigating extremist threats.”
PayPal’s Aaron Karczmer echoed the sentiments:
“By identifying partners across sectors with common goals and complementary resources, we can make an even greater impact than any of us could do on our own. We are excited to partner with the ADL, other non-profits and law enforcement in our fight against hate in all its forms.”
Some alarming stuff there – specifically how both the ADL and PayPal seem to be very excited about partnering with law enforcement and “develop[ing] key insights to inform” them.
Here’s a quick example of how PayPal can promote certain voices while silencing others.
Earlier this year, PayPal banned the Trump campaign from processing transactions, suggesting that President Trump encouraged the January 6th riots. Meanwhile, no action has ever been taken on BLM. According to Fox News, “an inquiry about whether Black Lives Matter would be among the organizations impacted by the [PayPal] restrictions went unanswered. Black Lives Matter held protests across America, a number of which turned violent, following the death of George Floyd.”
And that’s just PayPal. The ADL isn’t an organization you want wielding this kind of power and influence either – just ask Tucker Carlson. Back in April, Greenblatt insisted advertisers pull their ads from Fox News, claiming Carlson was peddling “racist conspiracy theories.”
So PayPal and ADL join forces to watch over us, going after anyone they believe is “spreading hate.” One question…who’s watching them?