GoFundMe, Go To Hell
After they froze a successful GrayZone fundraiser over unnamed "external concerns," GoFundMe became the official poster child for the politicization of economic services
The online crowdfunding site GoFundMe just shut down a fundraising initiative for The Grayzone, a left-leaning, antiwar site led by Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté. Citing what they euphemistically termed “external concerns,” the site froze $90,000 Grayzone raised from 1100 contributors to pay for the reporting of Kit Klarenberg, Wyatt Reed, and Alex Rubenstein.
The fundraiser has since moved to a new destination, SpotFund, and already surpassed the amount frozen by GoFundMe. The damage however has been done. GoFundMe is now officially the poster child for politicization of economic services. They prevented a parents group from renting a billboard to publicize Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage, froze nearly $8 million in donations to the “Freedom Convoy” Canadian Trucker movement, even wiped out two fundraisers for MintPress. This Grayzone incident is perhaps most loathsome, lacking even a patina of necessity or justification, while serving as a depressingly obvious preview of things to come.
I spoke to Max yesterday and he’s appropriately furious, as his site’s gof**kyourself logo shows. Even those who don’t share Grayzone’s politics should be outraged and alarmed. The “anti-disinformation” complex we spent so much time on after the Twitter Files is close to perfecting the application of financial pressure, finishing a job begun thirteen years ago, when PayPal froze donations to Wikileaks after the leak site received a letter from the U.S. State Department. This system is nimble enough now to financially disable actors as different from one another as an American porn star and the London-based Free Speech Union.
There’s an article I’ve written but not published, about an American who suffered severe financial penalties due to his politics. The “anti-disinformation” crowd thought it appropriate to cut access to payment services while he was trying to raise money for a criminal defense. Because what’s more American than deploying unaccountable bureaucrats to prevent someone from having their day in court? What good is life in democracy, if we’re not free to deny people services based on how they live or what they think?
I’ve been remiss in not publishing that piece, but it’ll be coming out now. In the meantime, to colleagues quiet over the Grayzone affair: what are you thinking? This won’t happen to you? Litmus tests are good? Being craven and spineless is a legitimate lifestyle choice? You’re all amazing, and not in a good way. What quantity of nonsense won’t you swallow?
The Canadian trucker convoy was what pushed me to givesendgo, and haven't donated a red penny through gofundme since. They are so busy licking the hands of those that feed and control them to ever be part of the 'answer'.
This is why we've been screaming about this issue for so long -- it never ever ever stops at the 'bad' people. Once you allow government -- via law or censorship -- to determined what is and isn't 'allowable' speech, dissent is QUICKLY determined to be unallowed. That's why the First Amendment is first -- without it, none of the other rights matter because you'll never be allowed to speak up.
Edit: The writing was on the wall after what happened in Canada.
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/for-a-glimpse-of-the-future-look
But before we get there, we must first revisit Canada’s recent protests. Truckers and other supporters moved into Ottawa, made things extremely uncomfortable for Justin Trudeau, then got their assets frozen after the Canadian government declared use of the Emergency Powers Act — despite not even being charged with a crime in most cases.
Although the freezing of protestors’ bank accounts in Canada was horrifying, at least there was a tiny bit of logic behind it. These specific people are doing things that we (just) declared illegal, so we’re going to punish them. It was bullshit that the government used emergency powers to basically unperson the protestors and their supporters, but you can sell this to the Canadian people. Almost.
That brings us to Russia. Biden has ordered the seizure of Russian yachts and other assets of people who have little connection to the Russian government. Numerous companies have pulled out of the Russian market (so much for “greedy businesses do anything for a buck”) in an attempt to show support for Ukraine or pressure the Russian government into submission, to be honest I’m not exactly clear. But stealing from and cutting off services to regular Russians doesn’t hurt the government. If anything, it makes Russians angry at us instead of Putin! How would you like to be ‘canceled’ over the actions of Joe Biden?