published
2500 Dollar BusseUproar at Tiktok – does PayPal take money from customers for fake news?
The payment service provider is rowing back with fines for spreading fake news. However, many no longer believe the company and call for the PayPal account to be deleted.
That was the plan of the US payment service provider Paypal.
20min / Taddeo Cerletti
After a shit storm, however, the company around CEO Dan Schulman rowed back and assured that it would not touch its customers’ accounts.
REUTERS
-
Paypal wanted to fine customers if they spread fake news.
-
After a shit storm, the company no longer wants to hear regarding it.
-
But now many no longer trust the payment service provider.
-
Paypal stock plummets.
The online payment service PayPal is causing a stir on social media. The US company apparently wanted to punish those who spread fake news. Noisy «Fortune» the company would have deducted up to $2500 directly from the PayPal account. After a shit storm, PayPal backtracked.
Paypal spokesman Rob Skinner apologizes for the confusion and says to 20 minutes: “Paypal does not impose fines for misinformation.” A reference to the terms of use was erroneously sent, which contained incorrect information. PayPal never intended to include this in their policies. The notice was not sent to Swiss customers either.
User calls for deleting PayPal account
But the damage was already done. There are now videos on Tiktok in which people warn once morest PayPal. User “drmatthewloop” says in a video that Paypal is not sorry, the company is just angry that their attempt was blown. He warns: “I wouldn’t trust them, it’s better to close your PayPal account.”
Apparently he wasn’t the only one who dropped out of Paypal and the markets were getting nervous too. After the first reports a few days ago, the stock lost in value in the double-digit percentage range.
It would probably not be legal if Paypal were to penalize their customers. “In Switzerland, a bank cannot simply withdraw money from customers’ accounts unless there is a legal or contractual basis for this,” says Robert Reinecke, spokesman for the Bankers Association, to 20 minutes.
Social media expert Mike Schwede also didn’t think PayPal’s approach was okay. “That would be vigilantism by the company, the state issues penalties,” says Swede at 20 minutes. With this strange approach, it is understandable that investors are losing confidence and letting the share plummet.
According to the Swede, companies in the USA and England are paying more and more attention to how serious their customers are. This is possibly a reason why Paypal wants to atone customers for fake news. “They want to screen out dubious customers in a similar way to credit scores, which banks and insurance companies also use,” says Schwede.
The social media expert would generally find it good to fine those who spread fake news, especially if they make money from it. Like US radio presenter Alex Jones, who was fined billions by a court (see box). “Certain campaigns have a major impact on society and the economy. It’s been a long time since senders were held accountable.”
But this requires independent fact checkers who determine what fake news is. The well-known ones, such as Correctiv, which posts false information on Facebook, are mostly privately financed.
Billions in fines for denying school massacres
US radio host Alex Jones has been ordered to pay survivors $965 million over false claims regarding a Sandy Hook elementary school massacre. That was decided by a court in the US state of Connecticut on Wednesday, as US media reported unanimously from the courtroom in Waterbury. The founder of the right-wing website Infowars had claimed for years that actors staged the killing spree in December 2012. A 20-year-old man shot and killed 20 school children and six teachers in Newtown, Connecticut, on the East Coast.
