PayPal has become an episode of Black Mirror: Elon Musk
PayPal's former leadership, also known as the "PayPal Mafia," have slammed the payments giant for its debanking policies of late, with one co-founder calling the freezing of funds “totalitarian,” while another compared it to an episode of Black Mirror.
Despite becoming crypto-friendly in recent years, the payments tech giant has caught a lot of headlines and pushback over its de-platforming practices, which reportedly involve a rather abrupt process of freezing funds, fines, and frosty negotiations to unlock the accounts of its users for varying reasons.
Peter Thiel, who co-founded PayPal in 1998 and served as its CEO until 2002 suggested to The Free Press (TFP) on Dec. 14 that the company’s vision has significantly shifted away from its initial goal of giving global citizens greater control over their money.
“If the online forms of your money are frozen, that’s like destroying people economically, limiting their ability to exercise their political voice,” Thiel noted, adding that:
Thiel is colloquially referred to as the “Don” of the famous “PayPal Mafia,” which is a group of founders and former employees — such as Elon Musk — that have since gone on to found or work at other major tech companies.
Fellow PayPal Mafia member and the firm’s first COO David Sacks has also spoken out against PayPal’s deplatorming practices over recent years as well.
In talking with TFP, Sacks argued that PayPal, under the leadership of current CEO Dan Schulman, is trying to cash in on the woke culture movement by banning people with opposing views.
“The CEO [Schulman] has got like every woke award you can win,” Sacks said, adding:
To list just some of PayPal’s notable deplatformings, it has shut down the accounts tied to the censorship-free
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