This doesn’t work when it’s something basic like payment processing. It’s the same reason we decided as a society that people can’t “trust their gut” and deny housing to people based on the color of their skin.
Running a profitable online business is not even a basic human right. No one owes you payment processing. Forcing someone to be a supplier to a hate group violates their basic human rights. If payment processors were discriminating against a protected class such as race or age then you might have a point.
Banks right now are denying transactions because they ‘know’ it’s fraud, based on ML models and probability and no other evidence.
If you require someone to not ‘know’ something until they have enough evidence they could prove it in court, they won’t be able to function. Even investigators don’t have to meet that bar.
But "people" cannot use that knowledge to deny access to money to other people if they don't have evidence that can stand up in court. Yet banks can. That is wrong. That is giving banks too much power without accountability. Yes, some of the entities they cut off will "deserve it", at least in your eyes; but many others won't. We already know how this plays out: it's the same every time a centralized entity wants more power. They claim it's to "protect" us against something, but it's really just to enrich them at our expense. Don't take the bait.
Banks are doing this at the behest of the gov’t.
Oh, and those sanctions and the like - what do you think they actually look like paperwork wise?
I don't know. You used the word "people", not me. If you just meant "banks", it would have been clearer to say so.
> Banks are doing this at the behest of the gov’t.
Yes. That doesn't make it right. The government should not be allowed to deny people access to money without due process either.
> You seem to be arguing that what is, isn’t?
No, I'm arguing that what is is not what should be.
> If you want to say that what is, is bad, then hey I’m not arguing against that!
Good! That wasn't clear to me from your previous post. If you agree that what is going on now is bad, then we're in agreement.
KYC and AML laws require private corporations to deny people access to essential services for arbitrary reasons, without due process. These laws are garbage.
I don't think anyone is arguing that what is, isn't. They're arguing that it shouldn't be.
Would you be okay with the police being allowed to randomly enter your home and seize whatever stuff they want, just because they have a hunch? Or would you rather they have to get a search warrant first, which requires at least some form of evidence?
You might also want to look up ‘exigent circumstances’ and ‘parallel construction’.
Similarly, a payment processor shouldn't be allowed to deny a transaction because they "know" it's human trafficking. Evidence of such a thing should be given to law enforcement, and due process should determine what, if anything, is done.
And frankly, you can’t run a business meeting the judicial bar required to really he sure, not that the courts are usefully right here either. Did OJ Simpson murder Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman? That depends on which court you ask, and how many asterisks you’re willing to allow on the answers. And that took 10’s to 100’s of millions to get there.
The banks get the ‘privilege’ of being fined for transactions that occurred and were later judged ‘bad’ based on the results of a in-depth, very expensive investigation after the fact that determined they didn’t try to ‘know’ well enough who they were dealing with.
Pretty cozy for regulators. Pretty impossible position for banks.
Such work is paramount in order to maintain the foundations of an accountable society. The alternative being suggested here is no better than witch hunting in the worst case, wherein certain groups/classes of people are barred from doing their business online just because of the sensitive nature of a given topic. (drugs/medicine, pornography, gambling, political donations, etc.)