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PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

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Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#71

Post by Fnoord »

henearkr wrote: post #66
_Microft wrote: post #7

Per [0], a possible answer to this seems to be that an arms dealer had connections to a company called Tardigrade Ltd. and all transactions with firms like these are prohibited which is why the word "Tardigrade" made it into PayPal's filter. As long as companies like PayPal have issues like that, or with moderation in case of Youtube, Twitter or Facebook, I'd claim neither of these companies have actually solved scal…

Next time somebody here creates a shell company for very bad things, please try naming it YPal!

The first name and deity name Isis [1] got tarnished by ISIS (which later got renamed to IS).

PayPal is also just two words blended together. I'm not sure they're anyone's friend though.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#72

Post by eru »

the8472 wrote: post #40
saddlerustle wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PayPal compliance is a very different problem to social media moderation. Financial regulations require any transaction that is "suspicious" in any way of having links to terrorism financing or money laundering be reviewed, and there are large and personal penalties for not doing so. And a review is expected to be more like auditing your customers entire financial history than just asking what they meant by a word, s…

But for regular banks service to private citizens is also compulsory, so they can't just choose the easy path by blocking a transaction based on keyword filters, they must do the intended auditing. So for them there is a balance, for paypal there isn't.

> But for regular banks service to private citizens is also compulsory, [...]

Depends very much on jurisdiction. PayPal is active in many jurisdictions, too.

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#73

Post by eru »

bleepblorp wrote: post #18
_Microft wrote: post #7

Per [0], a possible answer to this seems to be that an arms dealer had connections to a company called Tardigrade Ltd. and all transactions with firms like these are prohibited which is why the word "Tardigrade" made it into PayPal's filter. As long as companies like PayPal have issues like that, or with moderation in case of Youtube, Twitter or Facebook, I'd claim neither of these companies have actually solved scal…

These kinds of problems are a product of scale. For companies the size of Paypal, Google, or Twitter, the revenue from their operations is so great that leaving a few crumbs on the table by not handling corner cases is of no concern. Smaller companies can't afford to lose (for example) 10% of their business to corner cases. For large monopolies, a 90% solution is more than good enough.

Google does care about 10%.

But problems that are absolutely pretty big, might still only be 0.01% for Google.

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#74

Post by eru »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #62
Mistri wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps part of the reason was the ease of access for minors. I'm now over 18, but when PayPal got popular, my friends and I were under 18 so we weren't allowed to purchase stuff (like video games) online since we didn't have our own credit/debit cards. PayPal used to not verify your age so it was perfect for this type of stuff.

PayPal was the first free electronic way to send and receive money to people in the US, to my knowledge. Which is a sad indictment of the US’s infrastructure. Even today, so many people use Venmo, which is still PayPal. Apple Cash seems to work well, but still involves an unnecessary middleman like PayPal. Zelle is the only half decent solution, that doesn’t involves third parties.

> PayPal was the first free electronic way [...]

What do you mean by 'free'? Didn't they always charge fees?

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#75

Post by nelaboras »

ghego1 wrote: post #49

Based on my experience as a developer and user I can't understand how PayPal got so big and ubiquitous. I had the worst experience ever in trying to set up our recurring billing system with them, wasting several days of work, to the point that I simply gave up, switched to Stripe, and got everything up and running, in production, in hours. Even as a consumer I had a terrible experience when trying to send money abroa…

PayPal used to be great in its time. Leadership and ownership changed and now its just there and because everyone knows and trusts it it still lives on.

Scale/brand effects.

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#76

Post by eru »

DarthGhandi wrote: post #6
Lagogarda wrote: post #3

Thanks to PayPal I just learned a lot about Tardigrades. Interesting creatures.

Unpopular opinion but I think we have a civic responsibility to put them on probes and crash them into every planet in the solar system. Those cute little water bears are nature's survivors.

Why specifically a civic responsibility?

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#77

Post by eru »

Lagogarda wrote: post #4
OnWriting wrote: post #2

Anyone care to guess as to why? At face value it seems like a very odd word to censor, I have absolutely no clue what the motivation might be.

cause it contains (starts with) "tard"

What would be wrong with 'tard'?

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#78

Post by EE84M3i »

hrafn wrote: post #8

Here's some context: https://www.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/n7wg3w/paypal-tardigr... Likely not due to the Scunthorpe problem like one might expect, but due to an arms dealer having sold weapons through a shell company named Tardigrade.

what's the problematic substring of "Tardigrade"?

Re: PayPal is currently blocking all transactions containing the word “tardigrade”

#79

Post by stevewodil »

eru wrote: post #74
lotsofpulp wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PayPal was the first free electronic way to send and receive money to people in the US, to my knowledge. Which is a sad indictment of the US’s infrastructure. Even today, so many people use Venmo, which is still PayPal. Apple Cash seems to work well, but still involves an unnecessary middleman like PayPal. Zelle is the only half decent solution, that doesn’t involves third parties.

> PayPal was the first free electronic way [...] What do you mean by 'free'? Didn't they always charge fees?

Not for sending money to friends - fees are charged when paying for goods & services
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