PayPal has, for the first time, admitted that a prominent UK-based children’s rights campaigner was ‘debanked’ during the pandemic for speaking out against school closures and mandatory vaccines – a shocking confession of politically motivated financial censorship that wouldn’t look out of place in China’s social credit system.
The US online payments giant told Molly Kingsley, founder of the parent campaign group UsForThem, that her account was terminated in September 2022 due to “the nature of its activities”. This marks the first time PayPal has explicitly acknowledged that accounts were frozen owing to views expressed about the government’s pandemic policies.
Ms Kingsley set up UsForThem during the pandemic to campaign against school closures, mandatory masks for pupils, and the rollout of mass vaccinations for children.
Documents disclosed during pre-action correspondence reveal that PayPal compiled a dossier on Ms Kingsley from May to September 2022, including excerpts from a book she co-authored, The Children’s Inquiry. The firm highlighted passages critical of lockdown measures, including one stating: “Some may maintain that restrictions applied to children were a necessary evil. We say that a public health paradigm which strives to protect adults without weighing up the costs to children is the very antithesis of ‘public health.’”
Another cited passage criticized the stigmatization of children with mask exemptions: “In our new world, children with mask exemptions were often forced to wear a lanyard or other symbol, signalling their disability to the rest of their cohort.”
PayPal admitted that Ms Kingsley’s account was frozen due to “content published by UsForThem relating to mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations and school closures”. The group had been receiving donations through PayPal, which the firm claimed contravened its “acceptable use” policy.
Her account was reinstated 22 days later after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) intervened, demanding an “urgent explanation” from PayPal. The FCA’s involvement came amid broader concerns about financial censorship during the pandemic. Toby Young, founder of the Daily Sceptic, and Law or Fiction, a group of lockdown-critical lawyers, also had their PayPal accounts frozen during the same period. Law or Fiction described the debanking as “a blatant assault on free speech, as practised in China”.
Toby said: “I’ve long suspected that the reason PayPal closed the accounts of UsForThem as well as the account of my lockdown sceptics website is because it wanted to shut down criticism of our government’s pandemic response.”
The debanking moves drew widespread backlash, with thousands of users boycotting PayPal and closing their accounts in solidarity. Critics accused the company of failing to explain its actions or specify how individuals or groups had violated its policies.
Ms Kingsley also revealed that her social media activity had been monitored during the pandemic by the government’s Counter Disinformation Unit, which worked with tech companies to curtail discussion of controversial lockdown measures.
She said: “PayPal appears to have admitted what we had suspected all along: that it was engaged in politically motivated debankings of those of us who criticised the government’s response to Covid, and the lockdown narrative in particular. For more than two years, PayPal has resisted my efforts to uncover what happened.”
A PayPal spokesman said: “We are not able to comment on individual customer accounts; however, we base all reviews of our customers’ use of PayPal services on their compliance with our policies. We apply an objective approach to these reviews, one that is not driven by politics.”
The targeting of ‘lockdown sceptics’ like Molly Kingsley by PayPal is part of a broader, disturbing trend of financial institutions wielding their power to suppress dissenting voices across the ideological spectrum.
A notable case involves our own organisation, the Free Speech Union (FSU), which defends people’s right to free expression without taking sides on the issues they discuss. In September 2022, our accounts were abruptly closed by PayPal without prior warning or a clear explanation. The act of defending individuals and groups who express lawful views that dissent from prevailing orthodoxy was evidently enough to prompt this sinister form of financial censorship.
Other cases illustrate the growing reach of financial censorship, and how financial tools can be weaponised to suppress viewpoints deemed politically inconvenient.
The UK Medical Freedom Alliance, a group critical of certain public health policies, reported being demonetised by PayPal. Independent left-wing media outlets have also been affected: Mint Press News and Consortium News, both known for publishing stories questioning Western narratives on contentious issues like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, were deplatformed by PayPal.
In Canada, the government froze bank accounts of protesters and their financial supporters during the 2022 truckers’ protests against vaccine mandates. This unprecedented use of emergency powers revealed how financial institutions can become tools of state control, even in democratic societies.
In the United States, Representative Jim Jordan’s House Judiciary Committee investigation into federal law enforcement’s “receipt of information about American citizens without legal process” recently discovered that federal investigators asked banks to search and filter customer transactions by using terms like “MAGA” and “Trump”. Purchases at stores like Dick’s Sporting Goods or those involving religious texts, such as the Bible, were also flagged. A source familiar with the Committee’s investigation has since confirmed that the information received by the federal government was used for investigations beyond the January 6 Capitol protests.
Meanwhile, in India, critics of Narendra Modi’s government accused the ruling BJP party of using law enforcement agencies to freeze opposition bank accounts ahead of national elections.
Closer to home, Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform Party, had his accounts closed by Coutts, a private bank owned by NatWest Group. Initially justified on commercial grounds, subsequent disclosures revealed that the decision was politically motivated, based on the bank’s assessment of Farage’s views as being at odds with its values.
Access to banking and financial services is essential in modern society, enabling individuals and organisations to operate effectively. Denying these services based on political or ideological views disrupts financial stability and silences dissenting voices, undermining free speech and democratic participation.
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