Controversy has spread over the reveal of PayPal's User Agreement form that people must accept in order to use a PayPal account. With this controversy came the re-opening of a highly pressing issue regarding discourse among individuals on the internet. The term “misinformation” has become a recent buzzword among people of various political backgrounds, especially with the many claims of specific information being of conspiratorial nature being thrown around on both sides of the (mainly American) political spectrum. Along with this, this controversy reignited a significant concern that many have with large digital media corporations having full control over what speech is allowed on their platform.

To explain the story at its fullest at this point in time, we will begin with the reveal of a new End User License Agreement released by the PayPal website. The issue in question arises when the new agreement’s Acceptable Use Policy included an expansion of “Prohibited Activities– which

involve the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials that, in PayPal’s sole discretion…depict, promote, or incite hatred or discrimination of protected groups or of individuals or groups based on protected characteristics (e.g. race, religion, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.) …are fraudulent, promote misinformation, or are unlawful”. In participating in any of these activities, PayPal would fine a user $2,500 from their account.

Two of the nine violations listed have spurred intense controversy surrounding the issue of speech on the internet. Along with this, hysteria over PayPal abusing this vague wording to deduct funds unfairly from people’s accounts caused many to terminate their accounts. Due to both this outrage and hysteria, the company retracted the policy, claiming that the policy “went out in error” and “included incorrect information”.

The term “misinformation” must be considered cautiously due to the fact that it is not defined thoroughly by the company itself, keeping it, and many other terms under their “sole-discretion”. The fact that the full policy statement is incredibly vague along with the lack of definitions for the important terms listed in the policy causes justified concern for free speech issues and political bias. However, the policy has since been retracted since the backlash. However, their current policy now prohibits activities that, “relate to transactions involving...the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory or the financial exploitation of a crime”. The main concern with this continued policy is similar to the previous one: the terms are not explicitly defined by PayPal and are kept vague which leaves room for bias or abuse.

Considering this entire situation, the conversation about the degree to which companies could regulate the sharing of information through common social media posts or commercialized publications is now more important than ever. Many corporations have a dangerous lack of competitors to balance the field that they dominate and now appear to be seeking to censor information from individual users that they may not find pleasant. This infringement on the people’s ability to speak and communicate without prosecution and punishment is setting a dangerous precedent to what the future may hold for online communication. Despite the backlash making PayPal retract the questionable parts of their new policy update, there are still details that may still be a cause of concern. Overall, people must be wary of the efforts being made by digital corporations to regulate speech that may promote healthy discourse in our current polarized society. As James Madison stated, “For the people to rule wisely, they must be free to think and speak without fear of reprisal”.