It is with heavy hearts that we reflect upon the recent events that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia. Lives lost due to hatred and intolerance are a tragedy for every person in our nation. The PayPal community was appalled by the events that transpired - and our hearts go out to the people of Charlottesville and all who have been touched by this unacceptable hatred and violence.
The events in Charlottesville are yet another disturbing example of the many forms that racism and hatred manifest. Prejudice, however, does not always march in the street. Intolerance can take on a range of on-line and off-line forms, across a wide array of content and language. It is with this backdrop that PayPal strives to navigate the balance between freedom of expression and open dialogue -- and the limiting and closing of sites that accept payments or raise funds to promote hate, violence and intolerance.
PayPal has a longstanding, well-defined and consistently enforced
Acceptable Use Policy that governs our approach to this issue. Regardless of the individual or organization in question, we work to ensure that our services are not used to accept payments or donations for activities that promote hate, violence or racial intolerance. This includes organizations that advocate racist views, such as the KKK, white supremacist groups or Nazi groups. If we become aware of a website or organization using our services that may violate our policies, our highly trained team of experts addresses each case individually and carefully evaluates the website itself, any associated organizations, and their adherence to our policy. Ultimately, this team of professionals makes a recommendation that leads to the final determination on our ability to maintain our relationship with the website’s owner.
There are times when people may find an account that is using PayPal’s services to be offensive, but because the website and organization does not violate our
Acceptable Use Policy, we will continue to process payments for the account as we respect and seek to uphold the values of freedom of expression and open dialogue. We recognize and work to navigate the fine lines that exist in these situations, and our teams do their best to distinguish between opinion-based, offensive websites and those that go beyond opinion and discourse and violate our policies. However, PayPal will – as we consistently have in the past – limit or end customer relationships and prohibit the use of our services by those that meet the thresholds of violating our policy.
In addition to our own proactive monitoring, screening and scrutiny, PayPal’s team of professionals will evaluate all sites brought to our attention by our customers. Listening to customer and community feedback makes PayPal a better company and is essential to our ability to fulfill our mission. Anyone who has concerns about questionable or offensive content can and should alert us by emailing
AUPviolations@paypal.com. We welcome your feedback and appreciate the role of our customers in helping to keep our community a safe and inclusive place for all.
Maintaining the necessary balance between protecting the principles of tolerance, diversity and respect for people of all backgrounds with upholding legitimate free expression and open dialogue can be difficult, but we do our very best to achieve it. We are dedicated to providing financial services to people with a diversity of views and from all walks of life. While the challenges and the landscape are continually changing, we will continue to work hard to limit the efforts of those who try to use our services inappropriately. PayPal will always remain vigilant and committed to ensuring that our platforms are not used to perpetuate hate and violence or racial intolerance.