Money-transfer service PayPal last week suspended the account of one of the largest U.S. white supremacist groups for requesting donations via their services.
The Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan had their account shut down Friday after six days of asking for donations “for the cause” — including member newsletters and invitations to public rallies.
PayPal, which released a statement after the 2017 Charlottesville race riot promising to prevent their service from being used by bigoted organizations, suspended the account after backlash online.
“Due to our legal and data protection obligations, we cannot comment on any specific PayPal customer’s account. We carefully review accounts to ensure our services are used in line with our acceptable use policy and take action as appropriate,” a PayPal spokesperson told BBC News.
“We do not allow PayPal services to be used to promote hate, violence, or other forms of intolerance that are discriminatory,” the company added.
The account now says it’s “unable to receive money.”
Nandini Jammi, a member of the social media activism group Sleeping Giants, said she found the account while searching on Google for examples of PayPal’s “alarmingly common” support of white supremacist groups.
“I’ve been tracking hate groups on PayPal for several months now,” she told the BBC. “I was just Googling for a new example and I kind of knew all I had to do was type in KKK.”
“There are some examples of them acting in a fairly timely manner, but they’re not applying [their anti-hate policy] in a consistent enough manner,” she added.
• Bailey Vogt can be reached at bvogt@washingtontimes.com.
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