Rebel News Canceled by PayPal Without Notice
Rebel news, the largest independent news agency in Canada, claimed via its co-founder Ezra Levant, that it had its account canceled without prior notice or warning by PayPal.
Levant has reached out to the public to appeal for funds to file a legal notice against PayPal. In a tweet, the news outlet claimed that PayPal is trying to shut it down.
“Look, this isn’t a mistake. It’s a cancel culture attack on the largest independent news agency in Canada. It’s censorship,” Levant announced on Thursday, in a fundraising appeal for legal fees to sue PayPal.
“They’re finally coming to kill us,” the Rebel News tweeted.”
While attempting to sue PayPal, Levant said that Rebel News’s account was canceled due to a ‘cancel culture’ and stated that their outlet is being ‘censored’ as it does not align with the beliefs of the Canadian state.
Rebel News’s unforeseen cancellation via Paypal is a problem due to the extent of the relationship.
The firm has been able to utilize Paypal to process over $7 million worth of Canadian currency over the course of over five years. Paypal quickly ended the relationship without warning due to another technology firm. See, YouTube went and handed the news outlet a week-long suspension a week or a few days earlier.
Again, the cancellation was done without prior warning, any further explanation, and without suggested ways to appeal. These are issues because the company is in fact a profit seeking entity that requires stability in operations. It so happens to be a conservative media site that earns in various ways.
There have been no comments on the fiasco by PayPal as of yet. Stay tuned for more updates on this important event.
Big Tech and Rebel News
If the payment processor (Paypal) and distributor of its content (Youtube), both freeze its account or suspend its account, that can create significant disruption for Rebel News. The issue is that the firm relies on these other platforms for a large portion of its business. If they stop providing their services, the firm cannot continue to operate as seamlessly as it would have been able to in the past.
In addition to the official account of Rebel News, PayPal also closed down the personal account of its co-founder, Ezra Levant, and a non-profit organization used to raise funds for charitable endeavors.
It is worth pointing out that while being identified as conservative, Rebel News has been critical of PM Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government and has also expressed criticism for the way Trudeau’s government has been dealing with the spread of Covid-19, that is, by enforcing nationwide lock down. It notes that or points to the fact that specific views, even founded on evidence by institutions such as MIT and others that push back on the present COVID-19 fear narrative does not fit in.
Further, there is a full on war against conservative sites by sites that are supposed to be unbiased. For instance, Wikipedia notes that a conservative site is a “website is known for publishing falsehoods, hoaxes, and conspiracy theories” when in reality it merely places centrist views with a rational take on what is going on within the world.
The point is that it is a matter of full compliance or elimination.
