PayPal is currently in the process of ending its services with far-right YouTube personality Stefan Molyneux. A PayPal spokesperson provided Right Wing Watch with a statement on Tuesday saying that after an extensive review, “PayPal has made the decision to discontinue our business relationship with Stefan Molyneux.”
An email inquiry sent to Molyneux’s “Freedomain Radio” was not returned, but this article will be updated if Molyneux comments. PayPal donations were a key source of Molyneux’s revenue; videos uploaded to his YouTube channel include links to a donation page with numerous buttons that route users to a PayPal portal where they can make reoccurring and one-time donations to Molyneux’s operation.
Molyneux is a far-right political entertainer on YouTube who stars in what his website describes as the “number one philosophy show” in the world. Molyneux has incorporated white nationalist talking points about immigration into his programming, and in a documentary Molyneux released last year, he expressed his sympathies with white nationalism after visiting Poland.
“I’ve always been skeptical of the ideas of white nationalism, of identitarianism and white identity. However, I am an empiricist, and I could not help but notice that I could have peaceful, free, easy, civilized, and safe discussions in what is essentially an all-white country,” Molyneux said in the film released last year.
In recent months, Molyneux’s rhetoric has grown more blatantly extreme and anti-Semitic. On July 18, Molyneux said he was fighting against anti-Semitism for years until it “dawned” on him that “Jews weren’t really fighting against anti-white racism.”
Nandini Jammi, co-founder of the nonprofit activist group Sleeping Giants, first flagged Molyneux’s extreme content to PayPal in April of this year and was told the information she provided would be passed along to PayPal’s investigative team. PayPal has grappled with fringe groups that use its services in recent years; the company has suspended its business relationships with figures and groups including Alex Jones, Gab, the Ku Klux Klan, Richard Spencer, the Proud Boys, and other right-wing extremist groups.
“Suspending Stefan Molyneux should have been an open-and-shut case, so I find it troubling that PayPal required 7 months to complete an investigation of an obvious white nationalist,” Jammi told Right Wing Watch via Twitter direct message. “What kind of evidence do they need to move forward with an account suspension? Pictures of men in hoods? People carrying signs that say ‘We are the KKK’? I suspect that Molyneux evaded suspension for so long because he operates within a ‘gray area’ that tech platforms are generally unwilling to broach. I hate to think that Molyneux was able to buy himself more time on PayPal simply [by] labeling himself a ‘philosopher’ instead of ‘white nationalist,’ but I think it’s very likely.”
“Now that he’s been booted from PayPal, I think he’s going to find himself bouncing around between payment processors,” Jammi added. “No one’s going to want to touch him.”
