Leftist Activists FORCE Mastercard To Vote On Banning The Far Right
Leftist Activists FORCE Mastercard To Vote On Banning The Far Right. Activist group "The Sum Of Us" has successfully forced Mastercard to hold a vote that would see the creation of a "human rights committee" to oversee who uses the mastercard service.The goal of the leftist activist group is to shut down access for 'far right' groups as well as politicians and activists. They stress that stopping to flow of income will stop people they do not agree with.This may be the most dramatic escalation in the Culture War we have seen yet, the targeting of major financial institutions to shut down opposition. While it sounds noble to ban certain groups we do not like it won't end there. Massive multi national corporations should not have the right to sever access to basic services based on bad opinions.Far left social justice activists have pushed for restrictions and censorship and this news marks the most dramatic escalation we have seen yet.
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A far-left activist organization called The Some of Us has successfully forced MasterCard to announce a vote that would allow them to ban the far-right and even politicians from using their service.
MasterCard is set to hold a shareholder meeting where they will vote on whether or not they should appoint a human rights committee that will evaluate those who use its service.
The intention?
Ban the far-right, white supremacists, and even politicians from being able to receive money.
This may be the most dramatic escalation in the culture where we've seen yet.
Far-left activists have targeted social media networks to get you banned.
They've targeted Patreon, PayPal, even Chase Bank has banned conservatives from holding bank accounts.
But now they want to take away your ability to even use a debit card, and this could have a global impact.
All the while, we are seeing a dramatic escalation in rhetoric and violence from the far left.
These activist groups are escalating their efforts across all fronts today.
Let's take a look at how Mastercard is responding and what these activists are trying to accomplish with this vote.
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From BuzzFeed News, activists are trying to force Mastercard to cut off payments to the far right.
The payment giant's shareholders will vote on a proposal to set up a human rights committee at the company to monitor money flowing to hate groups.
BuzzFeed reports activists have successfully forced MasterCard to hold a vote by shareholders on a proposal which, if passed, could see the company monitoring payments to global far-right political leaders and white supremacist groups.
The proposal aims to see MasterCard establish an internal human rights committee, which would stop designated white supremacist groups and anti-Islamic activists, such as Tommy Robinson, from getting access to money sent from donors using the company's card payment services.
It's been conceived by US political activists, some of us.
who want to escalate the battle against white supremacists and far-right groups from tech platforms like Facebook, Google, Twitter, Patreon, and PayPal to one of the biggest companies in world finance in an attempt to choke off donations.
Robinson and several other leading figures in the global far-right have been forced in recent months to solicit donations directly on their website via Mastercard, Visa, and American Express after PayPal banned payments to them.
Facebook also disabled the donation function on Robinson's fan page before deleting it completely.
Spreading hate involves spending money.
Eowyn Dubski from SomeOfUs told BuzzFeed News.
Whether it's paying for online advertising or organizing violent rallies, white supremacist groups need financial services from companies like MasterCard.
Over several months, SomeOfUs has been locked in a battle with MasterCard executives behind the scenes in order to get the new committee proposal put to shareholders ahead of the company's June annual general meeting.
Documents seen by BuzzFeed News reveal the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission has given the green light for shareholders to get the chance to vote on the formation of the committee, despite staunch opposition from the MasterCard board and executives.
In a posting to the SEC.gov website, we can see Proposal 5, Consideration of Stockholder Proposal of Creation of Human Rights Committee.
The argument, essentially, is that MasterCard could be negatively impacted if it's found out they're providing services to extremist groups.
Thus, they want a Human Rights Committee to evaluate this to avoid any of these pitfalls.
But MasterCard is opposing this.
The board's statement in response, the board unanimously recommends that stockholders vote against this proposal.
MasterCard is committed to treating all people fairly and with dignity, and our interest in human rights extends to all areas, In which our business is involved and where we have particular expertise.
The board does not believe that establishing a separate human rights committee is necessary to properly exercise its oversight of this important area.
And MasterCard has already taken action to cut off access to certain personalities.
This story from the Daily Beast last August.
Far-right fuming after big finance chokes off money flow.
Some right-wing figures say they are planning legal action after PayPal and credit card companies cut off their fundraising.
The story highlights how far-right blogger Robert Spencer logged into fundraising site Patreon last week, expecting to see how much money he had raised in a new bid to build a studio for his YouTube videos.
Instead, Spencer found out his nascent funding campaign was over about as soon as it had started, at Mastercard's request.
Patreon was kicking him off the platform.
Mastercard has a stricter set of rules and regulations than Patreon, and they reserve the right to not offer their services to accounts of their choosing.
Patreon wrote in an email to Spencer, a leader in the counter-jihad movement.
This is in line with their terms of service, which means it's something we have to comply by.
Back at the BuzzFeed News story, they say, Some of us has pointed out the activity of Robinson,
the former English Defense League founder, is running as an independent in May's European election.
In November last year, PayPal banned donations to the anti-Islam activist,
with the online payment company saying its services wouldn't be used to promote hate, violence,
or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory.
Dubski of Some of Us said, Having a Mastercard logo on their website also gives these
groups a veneer of legitimacy, and allows those who want to donate to do so quickly and
quietly.
Mastercard also benefits pocketing a transaction fee for each purchase or donation.
The story notes that Mastercard is the biggest company targeted so far and that PayPal has already banned people.
They say PayPal has banned payments to Robinson, U.S.
far-right group Proud Boys, and Canadian anti-Islam activist Laura Loomer.
It also acted against several U.S.
anti-fascist groups because the company had no tolerance for groups that promoted hate and violence.
And this brings me to the most important point.
If MasterCard appoints this committee, it will not stop with the far right.
It will extend to everybody.
First Tommy Robinson, then Count Dankula, then Dave Rubin, Jordan Peterson, people like me.
The cliff will keep eroding.
Keep in mind that Donald Trump's proposals about border security were held by Democrats ten years ago, which means today you may hold a view, in five years that view may be considered far right, but more importantly, PayPal banned anti-fascist activists.
It will not stop with the right.
It will impact everyone.
Most importantly, it will impact everyone who opposes the establishment.
The left-wing groups that tend to get censored and smeared in the media are anti-war activists, people who oppose American intervention.
And further, this proposal could actually damage MasterCard to an extreme degree.
This story from yesterday, Alphabet had more than $70 billion in market cap wiped out, and it says YouTube is one of the problems.
The story basically talks about how YouTube is trying to police its content more and more to cater to an angry media, and that's resulting in lower engagement, less views, and ultimately, less ad revenue.
If MasterCard decides to prioritize politics and subjective morality over providing a functioning service, it's likely they're going to cut off service to controversial groups that aren't actually that extreme.
It may be a mainstream conservative like Ben Shapiro, who's repeatedly called alt-right or far-right, who sees his access to MasterCard severed because of outrage.
Well, that's access to a lot of money.
And over time, it's going to cut off a ton of money that MasterCard should be receiving by providing a normal service.
Who will be the arbiter of what is moral and what isn't?
Like I said, we've seen the left and the right band in response to these actions.
Who is going to be the person that you would decide is smart enough and just enough to determine who should be censored and who should be restricted?
I do believe there needs to be a line for many corporations, but who gets to draw that line?
It's very difficult.
It shouldn't be in the hands of a few activists to force Mastercard to hold this vote.
If the shareholders aren't properly informed about what's going on, they might just say, yes, it's a good thing to ban these extremist groups, not realizing they're handing over the power of a massive multinational corporation to delete people from public life.
Many businesses in New York don't even accept cash anymore.
It's a growing trend.
It's very frustrating to many people because not everyone has a credit or debit card.
But this will be a serious problem.
If people can't have a credit card, you are forcing them in some jurisdictions to either
leave or go without.
Another story that I want to make sure is highlighted as we talk about escalation is
an anarchist group that flooded the offices of a lawyer in Portland.
They put a hose through his mailbox and damaged all of the property, causing thousands of
dollars in damage.
Now, the lawyer says he feels like he's not a victim.
The reason these anarchists did this was to terrorize anyone who, quote, collaborated
The reason I highlight this story is because we can see how things are starting to escalate.
Mark Pitkovich of the Anti-Defamation League tweeted, They claimed their goal was to cause maximum economic damage, to intimidate individuals and businesses from having any relationship with government agency ICE.
But what was the response?
Violence?
For sure this is vandalism, but violence is a big stretch.
Pitkovich says, damaging property is a violent act.
Ask any manager of a Planned Parenthood clinic.
Just the other day we saw this story from Fox News.
or any religious leader of a mosque, synagogue, or church that has experienced arson.
You can't commit violence against inanimate objects.
And Pitkovich tries to no avail to explain, yes you can.
Just the other day we saw this story from Fox News, that the FBI is probing an Antifa
plot to buy guns from the cartel in Mexico and stage an armed rebellion at the border.
And today, a communist group ambushed police, killing 50.
I highlight these other stories to show you the dramatic escalation we're seeing across the board.
Attacking financial institutions is just one step to shut people out from the conversation.
They will ban you from social media, but they will also take away your money.
They want you to be scared.
They want you to fall in line and stop speaking up.
They can't argue against your ideas, so they'll seek to get you banned.
They'll seek to take away your source of income.
They will seek to remove your ability to even transact with other people.
If that doesn't work, they will destroy the building you work in, and in the most extreme, they'll plot an armed rebellion, or they'll ambush police officers and kill them.
This escalation is serious, and we have to make sure we don't allow companies to be subjected to moral policing by fringe activist groups that don't really know what they're talking about, or do, and are lying and cheating to try and win in the culture war.
People in this country have a right to express themselves freely.
Yes, companies have a social responsibility.
But who will be the arbiter of what is moral and just?
This is why we have the government we have.
Activists that can't get the government to change these rules target corporations.
And as more of our speech takes place on private platforms, and even financial transactions take place on private platforms, we're becoming extremely vulnerable.
A long time ago, you had the right to speak openly and freely in public discourse.
But because public discourse is taking place on privately owned platforms, we have lost that right.
And the government can't really do anything about it.
Perhaps they can if they pass a law, but for the time being, You have no right to be on these platforms.
In fact, they argue forcing Twitter to keep up speech would force Twitter to be speaking.
That effectively you're violating Twitter's right to speech itself by stopping them from censoring others.
But now they're targeting these financial transaction companies.
Because we used to trade money hand-to-hand.
It was physical.
But now it's digital, and a company handles that work.
It's not governmental, and you have no right to a private platform.
This may be one of the most dangerous escalations we have seen yet.
But let me know what you think in the comments below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
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