PayPal is Being Sued For Blocking Alex Jones’ Infowars

The online payment processing company PayPal is being sued after it announced a few weeks ago that it would be blocking Alex Jones’ company from earning money through the platform.

Jones’ website and radio show InfoWars has also been banned from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, and others. 

In September, PayPal followed suit and stop processing payments from the far-right news website and media platform after claiming it promoted “hate and discriminatory intolerance against certain communities and religions.”

Jones has said that PayPal’s ban is an example of “viewpoint discrimination.”

“PayPal banning Plaintiff is a bridge too far and, if allowed, sets a dangerous precedent for any person or entity with controversial views,” said Jones’ attorney Marc Randazza in the written complaint. “PayPal is the most recent company to join this campaign of censorship. It banned Plaintiff from its payment-processing platform for no reason other than disagreement with the messages Plaintiff conveys.”

In the lawsuit filed in San Jose federal court, Jones’ attorneys claim that PayPal is violating California’s civil rights and business laws by refusing to process transactions for his websites. 

“It is at this point well known that large tech companies, located primarily in Silicon Valley, are discriminating against politically conservative entities and individuals, including banning them from social media platforms such as Twitter, based solely on their political and ideological viewpoints,” said Free Speech Systems, the company owned by Jones in the 15-page complaint filed in California. “Having effectively cornered the market, [PayPal] is now using that market power to restrain conservative trade and commerce.” 

PayPal gave InfoWars and any accounts associated with the company 10 business days to close all PayPal accounts. 

“We do not take these actions lightly and we work hard to be rigorous and fair-minded,” said the online payments giant defending its decision to bar the far-right organization. 

PayPal spokesman Justin Higgs also said that the “claims in the complaint are without merit” and that the company “looks forward to vigorously defending itself.” 

Jones is seeking damages and an injunction to stop PayPal from banning his business from using the payment platform. 

Author’s note: We are not fans of Alex Jones. Some of his conspiracy theories are ridiculous but this type of targeted censorship has got to stop. Jones’ should have his rights infringed by liberal led corporations.

Editor’s note: This is exceedingly dangerous in a democracy, where major damage can be done to a group for just expressing an opinion.  Punching Bag Post has already been denied the opportunity to advertise its messages on Facebook. It is not a major factor in our business model, but for some its critical.