PayPal backs down

By Robert Spencer, scholar of Islam

When a neo-Nazi psychopath plowed his car into a crowd of Leftist protesters in Charlottesville, the Left saw a golden opportunity to use the moment as its Reichstag Fire, and indulge its increasingly obvious authoritarian tendencies. But when they came after Jihad Watch, they overreached.

On Saturday afternoon, the Soros-funded hard-Left website ProPublica published a hit piece calling upon PayPal and other new media giants to block Jihad Watch and other groups that have been defamed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as “hate groups.”

ProPublica’s Lauren Kirchner complained that Jihad Watch’s “designation as a hate site hasn’t stopped tech companies — including PayPal, Amazon and Newsmax — from maintaining partnerships with Jihad Watch that help to sustain it financially. PayPal facilitates donations to the site.

The Left media said “Jump,” and PayPal immediately said “How high?” Just hours after the ProPublica piece appeared, PayPal blocked Jihad Watch. I received an email early Saturday evening from PayPal’s Ronita Murray, saying: “Due to the nature of your activities, we have chosen to discontinue service to you in accordance with PayPal’s User Agreement.  As a result, we have placed a permanent limitation on your account.”

What was unacceptable about the “nature of [my] activities”? PayPal didn’t say.

No discussion, no debate, no opposing view, no appeal was possible. The SPLC never contacts its targets to ask them to respond to the charges that they’re “hate groups”; it simply hands down its ruling, which the establishment media uncritically accepts, and that’s that.

But after banning Jihad Watch, PayPal encountered a crowd of free citizens. PayPal was inundated with emails and tweets denouncing its ready capitulation to Leftist attempts to delegitimize and silence all dissent. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people canceled their PayPal accounts.

And so PayPal quickly came to realize that the power of the people is not vested solely in the Leftist thugs who assert themselves ever more aggressively on America’s streets. PayPal discovered that America is still full of patriots who don’t wish to accept the Left’s lie that opposing jihad terror and Sharia oppression constitutes “Islamophobia,” which is worse than jihad terror itself.

On Monday evening, I received this from PayPal:

Effective 08/21/2017, the limitation applied to your account associated with https://www.jihadwatch.org pursuant to our User Agreement was removed.  Your services are being reinstated.

What made Jihad Watch no longer a “hate site”? The voices of free people.

Of course, the Left’s war on the freedom of speech isn’t over. There is no doubt that the Left will continue to try to cut the ground out from under those who dissent from its agenda. But this is a victory over the Left’s totalitarian steamroller.

I have no intention of restoring the PayPal buttons on Jihad Watch. I know where they stand now, and do not intend to place myself at their mercy again. But nonetheless, this is a victory. Free people still exist in the United States, and the fascists who call themselves anti-fascists will not prevail.

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