PayPal no longer handles donations to the right-wing extremist organization Pro Chemnitz, which is monitored by the Saxon constitutional protection agency. Anyone attempting to use the Pro Chemnitz website ends up on a PayPal page that says, "The recipient is currently unable to receive any money."
Paypal's Usage Policy does not allow the service to be used for activities that are related to "promoting hate, violence, racial or otherwise-motivated intolerance that discriminates against others." That Pro Chemnitz falls into this category, already reveals a look at the assessment of the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in January 2019. "Members of Pro Chemnitz have since the murder in Chemnitz at the end of August recognizable spread right-wing extremist content," it says there with reference to the 26 August 2018, on which a German had been stabbed on the edge of the Chemnitz City Festival. And further: "In doing so, they justified right-wing extremist propaganda and violence offenses and have since tried to portray them as legitimate."
A request from SPIEGEL to PayPal, why the decision was made right now, the company with reference to the banking secrecy, which it was subject to, not answered. However, a written statement from the company said that a team of professionals was "regularly reviewing questionable activities under the terms of the PayPal Usage Policy" and "tracking down clues that are reported to the company." We attach great importance to the review Thoroughly and conscientiously, this can take a long time, depending on the individual case ".
"Nobody here will talk to you"
This was preceded by a month-long campaign by SumOfUs, accusing the payment service provider of supporting neo-Nazis. PayPal had initially filtered the campaign with standard e-mails and recently even reported to the police.
Last Wednesday, activists of SumOfUs wanted to hand over more than 100,000 signatures to PayPal, raising a billboard in front of the PayPal site in southern Berlin. It read: "donations for neo-Nazis - quite simply - with PayPal". The company then filed criminal charges for "libel" and the unauthorized use of the PayPal logo, as "Netzpolitik.org" reported.
Christian Bock of SumOfUs tells the MIRROR that at the entrance of the building he was told: "Nobody here will talk to you". The handover of the signatures failed. Nevertheless, PayPal has then pulled the plug at Pro Chemnitz. For Bock it is "a direct result of the campaign" and thus a success.
SumOfUs had put pressure on PayPal twice before the company changed anything: in 2017 it was about stopping an Identity Movement action that had raised money through PayPal. In 2018, PayPal suspended British right-wing extremist Tommy Robinson from his services.
Incomprehension for Paypal's communication strategy
Nevertheless, Bock wishes "that it no longer needs such a campaign in the future". But for this PayPal would have to enforce its own terms of use more consistently.
Paypal's statement states: "It's not always easy to strike the right balance between protecting tolerance, diversity and respect for people of diverse backgrounds and values, such as freedom of expression."
Internally PayPal's dealings with public pressure sometimes come up against incomprehension. A PayPal employee at the Berlin location, who wants to remain anonymous, told the SPIEGEL: "The communication of PayPal is just as terrible as the fact that donations to Pro Chemnitz were even possible."
