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Jacob Rees-Mogg warns PayPal against use of ‘cancel culture’ in UK

Jacob Rees-Mogg - UNPIXS
Jacob Rees-Mogg - UNPIXS

Jacob Rees-Mogg has warned US tech giant PayPal to stop “pushing political opinions” on the British public.

Mr Rees-Mogg, the Business Secretary, has waded into a growing row over cancel culture following PayPal’s decision to shut down the account of the Free Speech Union (FSU).

PayPal, the digital payments firm, closed down all accounts linked to Toby Young, the FSU’s founder. The group defends gender-critical academics and people who have lost work for expressing opinions.

In an intervention that will be welcomed by free-speech campaigners, Mr Rees-Mogg said: “Corporations such as PayPal should not take part in cancel culture and push political opinions on the British public.

“It is particularly concerning that it appears to have censored the Free Speech Union. They need to justify their behaviour.”

Toby Young - Andrew Crowley
Toby Young - Andrew Crowley

PayPal has declined to tell Mr Young why his accounts are being blocked. In an email to Mr Young last week, the company said: “PayPal’s policy is not to allow our services to be used for activities that promote hate, violence or racial intolerance.” But it did not give any specific examples of how Mr Young had violated PayPal’s acceptable use policy.

Dozens of MPs – including former Conservative party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith and ex-cabinet ministers Michael Gove and David Davis – have written to Mr Rees-Mogg accusing PayPal of a “politically motivated move to silence critical or dissenting views”.

Mr Rees-Mogg’s backing will give impetus to backbench MPs to force through legal safeguards to prevent tech and financial services firms from blacklisting voices they don’t agree with. The MPs could seek an amendment to either the Online Safety Bill or Digital Markets Bill to prevent accounts being blocked for political or free-speech reasons.

PayPal’s chief executive Dan Schulman said as recently as last week that “major consumer brands” could no longer “avoid the cultural wars”, insisting that “the fight against any kind of discrimination” was a core value of the $100 billion tech company.

Mr Schulman first rose to prominence in political circles when he announced that PayPal was withdrawing plans to build a global headquarters in North Carolina after the state passed a law that required people to use toilets or changing rooms that matched the gender on their birth certificate rather than the gender they identified with.

Mr Young believes he is a victim of Mr Schulman’s new edict. Mr Young said: “We did recently publish an article on the Free Speech Union website about the rights of individuals if an employer requests they declare their preferred gender pronouns and that might have attracted the attention of Dan Schulman or one of his trans-rights activist advisers.”

PayPal CEO Dan Schulman - Evan Agostini/Invision
PayPal CEO Dan Schulman - Evan Agostini/Invision

PayPal was unavailable for comment. Last week, a spokesman said it could not comment on individual customers, but said that PayPal “regularly assesses activity against our long-standing acceptable use policy and will discontinue our relationship with account holders who are found to violate our policies”.

The spokesman added: “Achieving the balance between protecting the ideals of tolerance, diversity and respect for people of all backgrounds and upholding the values of free expression and open dialogue can be difficult, but we do our best to achieve it.”

FSU, founded by Mr Young two years ago, has recently called on the Government to ensure children aren’t politically indoctrinated at school, citing the teaching of “radical gender theory” through drag-queen story hours in schools.

The organisation has helped to defend people who claim they have lost work for expressing opinions, for example, Gillian Philip, the author who said her contract was terminated because she stood up for JK Rowling on Twitter amid a row over transgender rights. It has also challenged universities that have “no-platformed” gender-critical academics.

Earlier this year, PayPal shut down the account of Colin Wright, an American evolutionary biologist, for unclear reasons, after he received a backlash from activists over his arguments that biological sex is real and there are only two sexes.

PayPal also reportedly suspended the accounts of two anti-war US media organisations, Consortium News and Mint Press, without a clear explanation.

The move by PayPal to shut down the FSU’s account has caused a significant challenge for the organisation because about a third of its 9,500 members have their recurring membership fees processed by PayPal. The union charges members £2.49 a month and accepts donations.