PayPal Demonetises the Daily Sceptic
… PayPal just doesn’t like free speech, which is why it has shut down the FSU [Free Speech Union] account … There are five issues in particular where it’s completely verboten to express sceptical views and if you do you can expect to be cancelled, not just by PayPal but by YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.: the wisdom of the lockdown policy and associated Covid restrictions, the efficacy and safety of the mRNA vaccines, Net Zero and the ‘climate emergency’, the need to teach five year-olds that sex is a social construct and the war in Ukraine. Dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy in any of those areas is no longer permitted.
This is the new front in the ongoing war against free speech: the withdrawal of financial services from people and organisations that express dissenting opinions on those topics. And not just those who express them, but those who defend them, too, like the FSU. That‘s what makes this an escalation in the war on free speech. Until now, companies like PayPal, GoFundMe, Patreon and CrowdJustice have only demonetised individuals and groups whose views they disapprove of. Now, PayPal has closed the account of an organisation that defends people’s right to free speech, without taking sides on the issues they’re speaking about. Even that is no longer allowed, according to this Silicon Valley behemoth.
I don’t know anything about the above website, though the author’s framing of the “five issues” leads me to suspect that I might not agree with him on some of these. But I think the action taken against him should bother us. Not because our own opinions stray from the orthodox, but because we need to reserve the right to think differently and to express opinions that differ from those of the mainstream. It’s been pointed out elsewhere that there are gaps between European and US interpretations of the meaning of free speech. (For example some European states outlaw the expression of Nazi sympathies.) But here the US corporations seem to be closer in their approach to the Europeans.
In so far as Western countries differ from authoritarian regimes, it means that whereas adopting a wrong opinion on Ukraine can get you incarcerated in Russia, it can get you demonitized or demonized in the West.
Orthodoxies and the rules for enforcing them change and vary from place to place. The boundaries and the buffer zones between the acceptable and the forbidden shift, or expand and contract. It’s always more or less painful to be situated outside of the mainstream, whenever and wherever we live. But without pushing up against those boundaries, social change and reform would be impossible and societies would remain static and rigid in their orthodoxies.
The main problem with opinion is its association with identity. Defending our opinions is confused with a defence of the self, and, in the same way, people are loved or demonized for their opinions. Politicians who change their opinions are accused of expediency, though Gandhi was famous for reserving the right to inconsistancy. An anarchist friend of mine said that being able to change opinions was a sign of sanity, while holding rigidly to the same views was insane. Most of us would admit to modifying our opinions over time, often to accord with the prevailing wisdom of the times. When I was growing up, I unconsciously absorbed so many of the orthodox English working-class views of my parents and grandparents, from which I was only gradually able to liberate myself over the years. The problem is that we continue to be influenced by the false arguments of journalists and influencers, while staunchly believing in our intellectual autonomy. That’s why it’s necessary to listen to, if not learn to tolerate, divergent opinions and arguments. If our press, our financial services or our regime don’t allow them, we’re in trouble.