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Coinbase bans the accounts of Gab and its founder

benj111 8y ago
I'm not a fan of gab by any stretch, but I find it deeply disturbing that payment processors can unilaterally withdraw service like this.
- wakeywakeywakey 8y ago
  I keep seeing this sentiment in similar threads (i.e. Cloudflare, Twitter, etc...). Gab has a right to free speech and association. Does Coinbase not enjoy the same right? Until a service becomes so widespread and essential as to be declared a public good/utility, this looks like 'business is business' IMO.
  - benj111 8y ago
    Well you can't accept hard currency on the internet, so payment processors are kind of essential. Also business is business only gets you so far. What happens if service was withdrawn because the user was black?
    - Barrin92 8y ago
      >What happens if service was withdrawn because the user was black? in the analog world countries provide civil rights protections for day to day commerce for this type of situation, in the digital world it's unlikely to ever matter that you are black, unless you state so in the first place. The question itself shines light on the important difference here. Gab is not discriminated because of some natural feature about them, they are discriminated against because they act like unsavoury people that nobody wants to be associated with. Nope, being black is not the same as being a troll or a fascist on the internet. People have the right to not be associated with you if you present yourself in a manner that alienates other customers or is simply incompatible with our values at large.
      - benj111 8y ago
        But there should be no discrimination at all. If there is a court case and gab is found guilty of something, or a court orders something, fair enough. That isn't the case here.
        kordlessagain 8y ago
        Discrimination is a broad term, typically used to indicate an individual person is being discriminated against based on their membership of a group of similar persons which usually fall around race, age, sexual orientation, etc. Discrimination, outside this context, means "recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another". A company cannot be discriminated against while applying an individual person context because they are not people. There's exactly one person being discriminated against here and that is based on the business they run and the relationship they had with Coinbase. Coinbase, and Brian, have every right to limit their business dealings with Gab, and can do so without it being "discriminatory" in nature. Arguing otherwise may be considered an attempt to control the conversation in a direction that leads away from logic.
      - deogeo 8y ago
        What if it was socialists, union organizers, or environmentalists getting discriminated against? Will we also tell them to stop acting in a way that makes businesses not want to be associated with them? You said 'incompatible with our values', but it's not 'us' that make these decisions by voting or something, it's a handful of corporations.
        Barrin92 8y ago
        Well personal disclosure I'm pretty staunchly left so I'm not going to lie, I think It'd be pretty bad of a business to discriminate against those groups but I think at least the case can be made that those groups have the potential to disrupt the platform and everybody else on it through their political activity, so I think the owner has some legitimate discretion. I do agree that there should be basic protections on private platforms for speech, especially if people are threatened to be excluded based on ethnic or religious or apolitical identity. But I think it would be absurd to say, if a company could not shut down a threatening or violent, or otherwise outside of the norm organisation.
    - dinkudunk 8y ago
      Race is a protected class. Religion is, national origin is. Age, sex, pregnancy, citizenship, familial status, disability, veteran, and genetic status is. Businesses aren't protected from discrimination under US federal law. They're not protected BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT PEOPLE.
    - kordlessagain 8y ago
      Andrew Torba is not black.
    - beatgammit 8y ago
      And that's precisely why I'm so interested in projects like GNU Taler[1]. We need a privacy-focused payment system for the internet, and something like GNU Taler tries to imitate cash, which I think is a good fit. - [1] http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/taler/ http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/taler/
      - np_tedious 8y ago
        Is Taler in active development? Do you know anything about the status? Looks to me that it's 4 years old, has 3 members, and is still "pre alpha".
  - deogeo 8y ago
    Even with multiple services, they can have similar terms. E.g. sex workers have great difficulties finding payment processors, and nazis have a hard time finding web-hosts.
  - flyingfences 8y ago
    Yes, they have the same right. Whether they ought to exercise that right is another question entirely.
- Aqua 8y ago
  Would you mind elaborating? Hearing about this service for the first time, why are Coinbase and appstores fighting it?
  - benj111 8y ago
    The Pittsburgh shooter posted there, that's what brought it to a head, plenty of other things though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network)
    - burfog 8y ago
      Yes, and he also posted on Facebook. I don't see Facebook getting cut off from payment processing, data center space, internet connections, or anything else. This is purely a planned political attack. Gab refused to censor politically incorrect thinking. Facebook is happy to censor, even going after Diamond and Silk until congress started asking uncomfortable questions.
      - gamblor956 8y ago
        Exactly. When Facebook was informed of the content of posts, they removed them. Gab did not. And that makes all the difference in why payment processors will continue to do business with Facebook but not Gab.
  - egypturnash 8y ago
    Gab is basically "Twitter for neo-nazis". In theory they go on about being defenders of free speech but their original logo was a reference to Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character the Internet far-right racist crowd appropriated as their mascot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network)
bitxbitxbitcoin 8y ago
Operation Choke Point still lives. It isn’t Coinbase’s fault though, arguably.
Traster 8y ago
I find it interesting the process that seems to have taken place here. There is quite clearly no monopoly on payment systems on the internet. There's bank transfer, visa, western union, paypal, a million different bitcoin exchanges. So for Gab to not have access to funds either one of two things can be true. 1: There is a large conspiracy of banking organisations to stifle Gab for reasons we can speculate about. 2: Each of these organisations have seen Gab and made individual decisions about whether they want to associate themselves with Gab. What boggles my mind is how many people think that it must be 1.
- benj111 8y ago
  I havent seen anyone claiming it was 1. Although I don't visit gab, where most of those people probably are. Having said that, who are all those companies regulated by? I don't have a fully formed accusation here. All I know is that finance is heavily regulated. I suspect even the fear of regulators asking questions, and all the paperwork that would entail would be enough reason for some companies to cut their links.
  - javagram 8y ago
    Another commenter has already mentioned https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point which was a recent government attempt to block banking services to various legal activities such as gun dealers. I suspect Gab isn’t related to something like that though. It’s more that media focus on Gab means each company they do business with will want to drop them as a PR hot potato, to avoid news articles saying “why is X still willing to work with Gab?”
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      You're deliberately misrepresenting what that Operation was about. The target was money laundering, and they investigated the 50 or so businesses most associated with laundering. The point was to prevent money laundering without significantly interfering with those industries' access to financial services. Meanwhile, Gab is just reaping what it has sowed. They claim that they represent the silent majority, and if that's not another one of their lies they shouldn't have any problems setting up their own financial services.

I'm not a fan of gab by any stretch, but I find it deeply disturbing that payment processors can unilaterally withdraw service like this.

wakeywakeywakey 8y ago
I keep seeing this sentiment in similar threads (i.e. Cloudflare, Twitter, etc...). Gab has a right to free speech and association. Does Coinbase not enjoy the same right? Until a service becomes so widespread and essential as to be declared a public good/utility, this looks like 'business is business' IMO.
- benj111 8y ago
  Well you can't accept hard currency on the internet, so payment processors are kind of essential. Also business is business only gets you so far. What happens if service was withdrawn because the user was black?
  - Barrin92 8y ago
    >What happens if service was withdrawn because the user was black? in the analog world countries provide civil rights protections for day to day commerce for this type of situation, in the digital world it's unlikely to ever matter that you are black, unless you state so in the first place. The question itself shines light on the important difference here. Gab is not discriminated because of some natural feature about them, they are discriminated against because they act like unsavoury people that nobody wants to be associated with. Nope, being black is not the same as being a troll or a fascist on the internet. People have the right to not be associated with you if you present yourself in a manner that alienates other customers or is simply incompatible with our values at large.
    - benj111 8y ago
      But there should be no discrimination at all. If there is a court case and gab is found guilty of something, or a court orders something, fair enough. That isn't the case here.
      - kordlessagain 8y ago
        Discrimination is a broad term, typically used to indicate an individual person is being discriminated against based on their membership of a group of similar persons which usually fall around race, age, sexual orientation, etc. Discrimination, outside this context, means "recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another". A company cannot be discriminated against while applying an individual person context because they are not people. There's exactly one person being discriminated against here and that is based on the business they run and the relationship they had with Coinbase. Coinbase, and Brian, have every right to limit their business dealings with Gab, and can do so without it being "discriminatory" in nature. Arguing otherwise may be considered an attempt to control the conversation in a direction that leads away from logic.
    - deogeo 8y ago
      What if it was socialists, union organizers, or environmentalists getting discriminated against? Will we also tell them to stop acting in a way that makes businesses not want to be associated with them? You said 'incompatible with our values', but it's not 'us' that make these decisions by voting or something, it's a handful of corporations.
      - Barrin92 8y ago
        Well personal disclosure I'm pretty staunchly left so I'm not going to lie, I think It'd be pretty bad of a business to discriminate against those groups but I think at least the case can be made that those groups have the potential to disrupt the platform and everybody else on it through their political activity, so I think the owner has some legitimate discretion. I do agree that there should be basic protections on private platforms for speech, especially if people are threatened to be excluded based on ethnic or religious or apolitical identity. But I think it would be absurd to say, if a company could not shut down a threatening or violent, or otherwise outside of the norm organisation.
  - dinkudunk 8y ago
    Race is a protected class. Religion is, national origin is. Age, sex, pregnancy, citizenship, familial status, disability, veteran, and genetic status is. Businesses aren't protected from discrimination under US federal law. They're not protected BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT PEOPLE.
  - kordlessagain 8y ago
    Andrew Torba is not black.
  - beatgammit 8y ago
    And that's precisely why I'm so interested in projects like GNU Taler[1]. We need a privacy-focused payment system for the internet, and something like GNU Taler tries to imitate cash, which I think is a good fit. - [1] http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/taler/ http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/taler/
    - np_tedious 8y ago
      Is Taler in active development? Do you know anything about the status? Looks to me that it's 4 years old, has 3 members, and is still "pre alpha".
- deogeo 8y ago
  Even with multiple services, they can have similar terms. E.g. sex workers have great difficulties finding payment processors, and nazis have a hard time finding web-hosts.
- flyingfences 8y ago
  Yes, they have the same right. Whether they ought to exercise that right is another question entirely.
Aqua 8y ago
Would you mind elaborating? Hearing about this service for the first time, why are Coinbase and appstores fighting it?
- benj111 8y ago
  The Pittsburgh shooter posted there, that's what brought it to a head, plenty of other things though. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network)
  - burfog 8y ago
    Yes, and he also posted on Facebook. I don't see Facebook getting cut off from payment processing, data center space, internet connections, or anything else. This is purely a planned political attack. Gab refused to censor politically incorrect thinking. Facebook is happy to censor, even going after Diamond and Silk until congress started asking uncomfortable questions.
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      Exactly. When Facebook was informed of the content of posts, they removed them. Gab did not. And that makes all the difference in why payment processors will continue to do business with Facebook but not Gab.
- egypturnash 8y ago
  Gab is basically "Twitter for neo-nazis". In theory they go on about being defenders of free speech but their original logo was a reference to Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character the Internet far-right racist crowd appropriated as their mascot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network)

bitxbitxbitcoin 8y ago

Operation Choke Point still lives. It isn’t Coinbase’s fault though, arguably.

Traster 8y ago

I find it interesting the process that seems to have taken place here. There is quite clearly no monopoly on payment systems on the internet. There's bank transfer, visa, western union, paypal, a million different bitcoin exchanges. So for Gab to not have access to funds either one of two things can be true. 1: There is a large conspiracy of banking organisations to stifle Gab for reasons we can speculate about. 2: Each of these organisations have seen Gab and made individual decisions about whether they want to associate themselves with Gab. What boggles my mind is how many people think that it must be 1.

benj111 8y ago
I havent seen anyone claiming it was 1. Although I don't visit gab, where most of those people probably are. Having said that, who are all those companies regulated by? I don't have a fully formed accusation here. All I know is that finance is heavily regulated. I suspect even the fear of regulators asking questions, and all the paperwork that would entail would be enough reason for some companies to cut their links.
- javagram 8y ago
  Another commenter has already mentioned https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point which was a recent government attempt to block banking services to various legal activities such as gun dealers. I suspect Gab isn’t related to something like that though. It’s more that media focus on Gab means each company they do business with will want to drop them as a PR hot potato, to avoid news articles saying “why is X still willing to work with Gab?”
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    You're deliberately misrepresenting what that Operation was about. The target was money laundering, and they investigated the 50 or so businesses most associated with laundering. The point was to prevent money laundering without significantly interfering with those industries' access to financial services. Meanwhile, Gab is just reaping what it has sowed. They claim that they represent the silent majority, and if that's not another one of their lies they shouldn't have any problems setting up their own financial services.