Tuesday, March 13, 2012

PayPal Censorship Update: Breakthrough! Maybe.


Wow, people. There was a new message from Smashwords on the 12th of March saying:

"PayPal update:  I met with PayPal this afternoon at their office in San Jose.  They will soon announce revised content policies that I expect will please the Smashwords community.  Effective immediately, we are returning our Terms of Service to back to its pre-February 24 state.  Beyond that, our friends at PayPal have asked me to hold off sharing additional details until they've had a chance to finalize their new policies. Thank you for your patience and support during this crazy last few weeks."

I'm sitting here with a huge grin on my face. Technically this wasn't my battle, since I don't write what was being banned (well, that free read, but that was free so I wasn't losing any money), but I felt it was necessary to join the uproar because censorship of literature is wrong if it interferes with freedom of speech/press (which basically says that you can publish what you want, as long as it doesn't directly encourage illegal activities (racism, child abuse, murder etc.) - or that's what Milton said). 

I'm trying to be calm, though, because I want to see an official statement from PayPal. Are they taking it all back? Or just parts? Which parts? It'll be interesting to see...

For those curious, I posted about Visa's denial of having pressured PayPal and now there's been a denial from MasterCard as well.

4 comments:

  1. Let us hope this is the first step..I am glad Smashwords took a step and did something..

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    1. I don't think this would have happened if Smashwords hadn't been involved. PayPal's ignored the people before, but Mark Coker is a smart man and can speak his ass of to get his way (and make it feel like a win-win).

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  2. Does this mean that "We the People" have won a battle? I feel empowered and all I did was sign a petition and comment on some blogs.

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