Because otherwise they would have virtually no money at all, and thus shut down
ACLU, EFF, & Tor all pre-date Paypal’s existence. No, they don’t “need” Paypal for survival.
(see what happened when WikiLeaks when major payment providers blocked them), because, unfortunately, almost everyone uses those payment methods at the moment.
This proves my point. Wikileaks was not just blocked by Paypal, it was blocked by credit cards as well. Despite the massive blockade, Wikileaks survived.
Paypal is the biggest offender of payment blockades (particularly political in nature and biased in favor of Peter Thiel’s right-wing agenda), which only advances the point that we have an ethical duty to shrink Paypal.
And if you think about the word ethical, what would you qualify as so?
By my own standard it’s unethical for any org or person to accept Paypal, but I’m not applying my own standards here in the context you’re replying to. I’m applying the standards of the orgs themselves. Paypal works against ACLU’s own mission. Paypal works against EFF’s own mission. Notice that I did not name countless vendors of electronics, bicycle parts, etc that accept Paypal, because Paypal doesn’t contradict their mission.
It’s one thing to hold everyone to your own standard, but if you can’t hold an organization to their own ethical principles something is wrong.
I mean, their main sponsor by far is CIA, what else is here to say?
First of all, the Navy invented Tor, so if you have a problem with a nation having an intelligence agency or military then you’re advocating against Tor’s creator.
There are countless free software projects that operate without a dime because people who need that software have an interest in contributing maintenance code. If Tor Project were to hypothetically get zero funding, you might see little or no outreach programs, Tor stickers, and marketing frills, but the software would live on.
I don’t have a bank account, nor do I have PayPal, so I’m not really sure about that, but from what I know it’s a lot more convenient to pay with PayPal than it is to pay from a traditional bank account. But again, not sure about this…
Convenience is the top rationalization for unethical conduct and transactions. It also has the least merit.
lol what? How? I mean, you really only need to leave your Bitcoin address… that’s weird…
Things have changed, so my comment is no longer relevant. In the past, Tor Project did not publish a BTC address. Donors were forced to go to a CloudFlare site and do the transaction through a 3rd party (bitpay.com). It was an absolute embarrassment for Tor Project and there was a long bug report about it. The bug report lingered for years but it seems to have been deleted– likely due to the embarrassment. They claimed that they could not simply let BTC enter because they need to make a tax declaration on what they receive, and the tax declaration must be in a national currency. So they used a 3rd party who instantly converted all their bitcoin donations into national currency for accounting purposes. They foolishly chose a CloudFlare site to do that. Seems to be history now. They are using btcpayserver.org and superficially i see no issues there.
It’s worth noting that Tor Project has a record of not eating their own dog food. Apart from subjecting ppl to CloudFlare sites, their bug tracker has a history of mistreating Tor users, and if you try to subscribe to their newsletter using an onion email address they can’t handle it.
ACLU, EFF, & Tor all pre-date Paypal’s existence. No, they don’t “need” Paypal for survival.
This proves my point. Wikileaks was not just blocked by Paypal, it was blocked by credit cards as well. Despite the massive blockade, Wikileaks survived.
Paypal is the biggest offender of payment blockades (particularly political in nature and biased in favor of Peter Thiel’s right-wing agenda), which only advances the point that we have an ethical duty to shrink Paypal.
By my own standard it’s unethical for any org or person to accept Paypal, but I’m not applying my own standards here in the context you’re replying to. I’m applying the standards of the orgs themselves. Paypal works against ACLU’s own mission. Paypal works against EFF’s own mission. Notice that I did not name countless vendors of electronics, bicycle parts, etc that accept Paypal, because Paypal doesn’t contradict their mission.
It’s one thing to hold everyone to your own standard, but if you can’t hold an organization to their own ethical principles something is wrong.
First of all, the Navy invented Tor, so if you have a problem with a nation having an intelligence agency or military then you’re advocating against Tor’s creator.
There are countless free software projects that operate without a dime because people who need that software have an interest in contributing maintenance code. If Tor Project were to hypothetically get zero funding, you might see little or no outreach programs, Tor stickers, and marketing frills, but the software would live on.
Convenience is the top rationalization for unethical conduct and transactions. It also has the least merit.
Things have changed, so my comment is no longer relevant. In the past, Tor Project did not publish a BTC address. Donors were forced to go to a CloudFlare site and do the transaction through a 3rd party (bitpay.com). It was an absolute embarrassment for Tor Project and there was a long bug report about it. The bug report lingered for years but it seems to have been deleted– likely due to the embarrassment. They claimed that they could not simply let BTC enter because they need to make a tax declaration on what they receive, and the tax declaration must be in a national currency. So they used a 3rd party who instantly converted all their bitcoin donations into national currency for accounting purposes. They foolishly chose a CloudFlare site to do that. Seems to be history now. They are using btcpayserver.org and superficially i see no issues there.
It’s worth noting that Tor Project has a record of not eating their own dog food. Apart from subjecting ppl to CloudFlare sites, their bug tracker has a history of mistreating Tor users, and if you try to subscribe to their newsletter using an onion email address they can’t handle it.