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I fought the PayPal and I won

jessesingal.substack.com

231–240 of 349 posts

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#231
post #156

> While PayPal is technically a private company that can work with basically whoever it wants for whatever reason, its centralized role as an online payment processor makes this a weirdly potent free speech fight. > He did share correspondence with me where prominent free speech attorneys told him, in an apparent contradiction to my claims, that he had no viable legal recourse to getting his account reinstated. Thoug…

The first amendment is not the end-all and be-all of 'free speech'. Heck, the literal phrasing is "Congress shall not abridging the freedom of speech". The fact that congress is mentioned means that others can also abridge the freedom of speech. Note that 'abridge' means diminish in scope. If your boss says "If you say ducks are nice, you will be fired" that affects your freedom of speech. It isn't a first-amendment…

[deleted]

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#232
post #17

The author of this article is a public defender in the pacific northwest. He sometimes writes for Jesse Singal, but he also has his own substack.[1] Many of his posts provide a unique window into the criminal justice system. If that sounds interesting to you, I strongly recommend reading more of his writing. In my opinion, his greatest hits are Eleven Magic Words [2] and Death of a Client [3]. 1. https://ymeskhout.su…

I just read "Eleven Magic Words" and I'm entirely baffled. Also what a writer, wow.

I don't get it.

The lawyer asked "“Is there anything the court would like to review to reconsider?” and the judge said, oh, well "since you have asked if I want to, yeah I guess I do, so I'll just change my ruling for no reason?"

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#233
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you find this offensive? Wright's key points regarding 'sex realism', as I understand them, are that sex is not a spectrum (as many people are claiming these days) but a male-female binary, and that sex is still an important characteristic in many circumstances, such that it cannot realistically be supplanted by 'gender identity' or similar. Seems like a reasonable viewpoint to me, and not one that would gener…

Intersex people are living proof that it's not always a binary.

An “intersex” person (now usually described by doctors or biologists as a person with a disorder of sexual development, or DSD for short) is either male or female, just like any other human being. So to use the rather silly terminology under dispute, “binary”. The “disorder” is a non-typical development of sexual characteristics of the person’s sex: a disorder of male development in a male, or of female development in a female. We can’t even mention the disorder without implicitly affirming the sex categorization that it affects. The “binary” is part of the definition of homo sapiens.

Every “intersex” person is either male or female. Many in that community object to others describing them as some kind of other sex and, especially, using their medical condition as an ignorant cudgel to advance the “trans” rights agenda.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#234

This piece demonstrates excellent writing skills - bits of humor interspere information-dense sections on legalese, allowing the reader to easily absorb the information. As far as the byzantine arbitration process described here, signed off on by the US Supreme Court and adopted across most of the corporate world, with the obvious intent of making it hard for ordinary citizens to sue corporations for damages, see thi…

Thanks. I got turned off by "one weird trick", but on your recommendation I decided to read the whole thing anyway. It was worth it.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#235
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If private companies own every method of articulating your views, They aren't. We're nowhere even close. To the point where I can't even envision how that could happen. Perhaps in some sort of fantasy libertarian future where everything has been privatized, including the streets and sidewalks. But that's certainly not anything like now.

If you want to envisage such a future for a dystopian novel or something like that, just imagine this wild fantasy: 1. Imagine a world where all the major online spaces - twitter, reddit, facebook, tumblr, HN, tiktok, instagram, youtube, twitch, slack, and discord and so on are privately owned. As are skype, zoom and google meet. Imagine a world where you can't even send e-mails if private companies don't like your '…

This list doesn't come close to being a place where "private companies own every method of articulating your views".

I believe you want to force a large company to accept an advertisement on any topic whatsoever, at a "reasonable price", and that that there should be no First Amendment right of free association which allows them to deny that advertisement.

If not, do you want to force them to post that same information at no cost?

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#236
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just read "Eleven Magic Words" and I'm entirely baffled. Also what a writer, wow.

I don't get it. The lawyer asked "“Is there anything the court would like to review to reconsider?” and the judge said, oh, well "since you have asked if I want to, yeah I guess I do, so I'll just change my ruling for no reason?"

I don't think the author gets it, either. I think that's the point. A small miracle happened.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#237
post #156

> While PayPal is technically a private company that can work with basically whoever it wants for whatever reason, its centralized role as an online payment processor makes this a weirdly potent free speech fight. > He did share correspondence with me where prominent free speech attorneys told him, in an apparent contradiction to my claims, that he had no viable legal recourse to getting his account reinstated. Thoug…

The first amendment is not the end-all and be-all of 'free speech'. Heck, the literal phrasing is "Congress shall not abridging the freedom of speech". The fact that congress is mentioned means that others can also abridge the freedom of speech. Note that 'abridge' means diminish in scope. If your boss says "If you say ducks are nice, you will be fired" that affects your freedom of speech. It isn't a first-amendment…

Note also that government employees are subject to greater control of their speech than ordinary citizens.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#238
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If private companies own every method of articulating your views, They aren't. We're nowhere even close. To the point where I can't even envision how that could happen. Perhaps in some sort of fantasy libertarian future where everything has been privatized, including the streets and sidewalks. But that's certainly not anything like now.

>They aren't. We're nowhere even close. They are and have been for decades. One of the reasons of passing laws preventing businesses from engaging in certain forms of discrimination is because because businesses had enough power that to discriminate based on a protected factor could lock someone out from society. This is extremely noticeable in smaller communities where there might be only a single grocery store, but…

I don't see the connection between "private companies own every method of articulating your views" and the civil rights movement.

What you describe seems more true of the labor movement, and especially company towns.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to envisage such a future for a dystopian novel or something like that, just imagine this wild fantasy: 1. Imagine a world where all the major online spaces - twitter, reddit, facebook, tumblr, HN, tiktok, instagram, youtube, twitch, slack, and discord and so on are privately owned. As are skype, zoom and google meet. Imagine a world where you can't even send e-mails if private companies don't like your '…

This list doesn't come close to being a place where "private companies own every method of articulating your views". I believe you want to force a large company to accept an advertisement on any topic whatsoever, at a "reasonable price", and that that there should be no First Amendment right of free association which allows them to deny that advertisement. If not, do you want to force them to post that same informati…

Yes, you'd still be entirely free to articulate your views in the privacy of your own bathroom, so I suppose it's technically true private companies don't control every way of articulating your views.

Re: I fought the PayPal and I won

#240

PayPal is such a weird company. I was a loyal customer for 20 years until I wanted to convert my account from business to personal (I closed the business) and the site refused to do so. after months of calls with support, it became clear that no one was able to do this (something locked the flow and no one was able to see what; I guess my account was so ancient, it has some db flags no longer used but still checked b…

I could be wrong, but isn't it flat-out illegal for a company to refuse to remove/delete your account on your request? I'm pretty sure GDPR, at least, requires this explicitly.
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