After threatening to block payments, PayPal has drawn criticism once more, this time over the sale of “extreme” erotic eBooks.
Despite the fact that the books in question “may not appear to be in the same league,” the activism director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Rainey Reitman, wrote in a blog post, “as scholars and booksellers can attest, these are themes prevalent in many forms of literature, from Grecian myths to the Bible.”
What authority has a financial institution to censor material that is legal? Authors are caught in the middle of this.
According to Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords, who spoke to Reuters, “Paypal, banks, and credit card companies have enormous power because electronic payments have become the lifeblood of e-commerce and ebooks. What authority has a financial institution to censor material that is legal? The authors are snared in the middle.
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PayPal response
PayPal stated that while it was attempting to resolve the issue, “extreme or potentially illegal” content was prohibited by PayPal’s terms and conditions.
A spokesperson told PC Pro, “We can confirm that we are working directly with Mr. Coker to resolve this issue, though we can’t comment on the specifics of the Smashwords account.” The ability of Mr. Coker to use his account normally has not resulted in the suspension of payments to the Smashwords account.
The PayPal spokesperson said, adding that it is made clear in its acceptable use policy, “In general, PayPal does allow our service to be used for the sale of erotic books, but we have to draw the line on certain adult content that is extreme or potentially illegal.”
According to PayPal, “Our decisions regarding adult content are based solely on business factors. We consider what’s standard across the industry, our contracts with the card associations and banks that enable us to provide service to our customers, and of course, the laws governing the sale of adult-oriented content.
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Latest controversy
It’s not the first time PayPal has taken money out of accounts. In addition to temporarily cutting off social network Diaspora and freezing donations made by the Regretsy website, the company blocked funds from going to WikiLeaks.
Reitman said, “Unfortunately, this is not the first instance we’ve seen a payment services provider obstruct access to lawful speech.” Financial service providers are a crucial link in the chain of intermediaries that underpins online communication, as was demonstrated when MasterCard, Visa, and PayPal put a financial choke point against the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.
PayPal was urged by the EFF to cease acting as “the morality police.”
According to Reitman, “the internet has evolved into an international public commons, similar to a sizable town square, where ideas can be freely expressed, traded, and criticized.” That will change if private companies, which are not required by law to respect the rights to free speech, are allowed to use their financial clout to tell people what to read, write, and believe.
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