Rebel News Podcast - PayPal is trying to shut down Rebel News — here's how we're fighting back!

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. A bit of a change of pace today. I have some personal news. PayPal has

00:00:06.640 deplatformed us. And we've been trying for a few days to get them on the phone, to get them to

00:00:12.460 answer emails. They've ghosted us. We've been a customer of theirs for six years, done eight

00:00:18.460 million bucks with them, 150,000 transactions. We were a preferred customer. And then on a Friday

00:00:25.480 night at 6pm, they just cut us off. What's going on there? And what can we do about it? I'll tell

00:00:32.920 you the whole story next and my two-point plan to fight back. I really need your help. If you want

00:00:40.240 to see the video version of this, go to rebelnews.com and click subscribe. And if you want to see the

00:00:46.060 documents that I refer to in the podcast, go to saverebelnews.com. All right, here's today's show.

00:00:55.480 Tonight, PayPal has deplatformed us. They're our credit card processor. I have to tell you,

00:01:11.420 I'm actually really worried about the company. It's May 6th and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:17.980 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:21.420 There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer. The only thing I have to say to the

00:01:27.260 government about why I'm publishing it is because it's my bloody right to do so.

00:01:36.500 PayPal, the online credit card processor, just cut off Rebel News. I really need your help. I hate to

00:01:43.140 say it, but this could actually destroy us. We use PayPal to process a million dollars a year.

00:01:48.260 That covers half our staff payroll. This could force us to lay off staff, which obviously we must

00:01:54.380 not do. We just hired some great new reporters. We're doing our most important work ever, both our

00:02:00.620 journalism and our civil liberties work. I'm not just worried about Rebel News. We currently fundraise

00:02:06.840 for civil liberties lawyers to help more than a thousand low-income people who've received lockdown

00:02:11.920 tickets. PayPal banning us would harm our ability to keep our promise to these people.

00:02:17.080 Why is PayPal doing that? PayPal has been very strange lately. We've had a six-year

00:02:22.320 business relationship with them, processing more than 150,000 transactions, totaling more than

00:02:28.700 $8 million. We're a big client, but with no notice at all. They just breached the contract. They ambushed us.

00:02:35.540 They sent us a form letter by email after business hours on a Friday night before the weekend.

00:02:40.520 It wasn't even signed by anyone. It had no contact info. There was no way to appeal it,

00:02:46.960 no explanation. It just said we were canceled. You can see that email for yourself at

00:02:51.660 SaveRebelNews.com. It's quite something. Go there to see it. They say we violated their terms of service,

00:02:58.800 but they didn't say how or when or what section. They didn't suggest how to fix whatever the problem

00:03:05.820 might be. I've read their terms of service carefully. That's our contract with them. It

00:03:11.080 says we can't use PayPal to sell things like drugs or weapons or stolen property, things like that.

00:03:16.120 We don't do anything even close to that. We're a news site, and we work with a civil liberties charity.

00:03:21.060 We simply never broke PayPal's rules ever, and they've never before said we have.

00:03:28.000 And then on a Friday night, they simply cut off our business immediately. No explanation,

00:03:31.300 nothing. That's cancel culture. And it's also an attack on thousands of our customers who are PayPal

00:03:39.020 users and their rights too. On Monday, we had our lawyer write a friendly letter to PayPal,

00:03:44.680 assuming this was just a mistake, giving them the benefit of the doubt. And I kept quiet about it

00:03:49.260 publicly. Look, mistakes do happen, but it seemed odd. We're a preferred customer because we do so many

00:03:54.420 transactions with them, they give us favorable rates. We've never had a problem in six years. Our lawyers

00:03:59.900 emailed PayPal's head office in the U.S. and also their Canadian branch several times.

00:04:06.940 I posted one of our lawyers' letters at SaveRebelNews.com. You can read it for yourself

00:04:10.740 there. I encourage you to do so. But it's been nearly a week, and they haven't even acknowledged

00:04:15.420 receipt of our letters. Our lawyers have phoned and left messages, and they haven't got a call back.

00:04:20.740 Our accountant actually got through to a PayPal call center, and they just said we'd be receiving an

00:04:26.220 explanation by email within 24 hours. It's been days, and it hasn't come. Look, we're bleeding

00:04:31.220 thousands of dollars a day because of this. This is not a mistake. It's a cancel culture attack on the

00:04:38.660 largest independent news agency in Canada. It's censorship. A credit card processing company

00:04:45.160 has decided to illegally and unethically breach its contract with us, leaving us high and dry on a Friday

00:04:51.600 night because we're conservative. And although PayPal was actually created by freedom-loving

00:04:56.880 entrepreneurs like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, they don't run it anymore. Its corporate culture has

00:05:03.140 been colonized by woke political activists who believe in censorship and deplatforming.

00:05:08.080 I think it's part of a coordinated attack on our news company. Remember, YouTube just demonetized us

00:05:14.520 and suspended us for a week. Now this, just days later, in both cases, we had a perfect track record,

00:05:21.320 never a violation. Is that a coincidence? And it just happens to coincide with Justin Trudeau

00:05:27.260 introducing censorship legislation in Parliament targeting big tech companies that give platforms

00:05:33.980 to Trudeau's political critics. And remember just last month, we showed you access to information

00:05:40.820 documents proving that Trudeau's censorship minister, Stephen Gilbeau, just gave $268,000 to a left-wing

00:05:48.440 activist group specifically for them to lodge malicious complaints against Trudeau's enemies.

00:05:54.140 Were they behind this? Who was? PayPal won't even answer our calls. The YouTube demonetization cost us

00:06:03.060 $400,000. But this is much more dangerous. PayPal isn't in the content business. They're the leading

00:06:11.040 online credit card processor. We have built so much of our business around them. And we've encouraged

00:06:16.620 thousands of people to sign up for PayPal just to do business with us. We have many people who automatically

00:06:22.800 give a monthly contribution to us through PayPal. That's just been shut down. It gets worse. If you can

00:06:29.500 believe it, at the same time, PayPal canceled my personal account. I haven't really used it in

00:06:34.340 years. So it's impossible that it could have violated any terms of service. This is political

00:06:39.060 targeting. It's political punishment from a credit card processing company. That's like China's social 0.72

00:06:46.240 credit system, you know, where you can be banned from renting an apartment or buying a plane ticket if

00:06:52.020 you criticize the Chinese Communist Party. But this is Canada. And if a credit card processor can do this to

00:06:58.680 you, why couldn't your bank shut down your family savings account or your phone company just turn

00:07:05.880 off your cell phone or anything like that? I should tell you, PayPal also canceled a third account,

00:07:12.720 the one for our non-profit called For Canada. That's the organization we use for charity projects,

00:07:18.860 like when we raised money for the Red Cross after the Fort McMurray wildfires, or when we raised money for

00:07:25.040 the son of Nathan Cirillo, the Canadian soldier murdered at the National War Memorial in 2014 by a

00:07:30.980 terrorist. What possible reason would PayPal have to shut down that non-profit other than it's

00:07:38.360 associated with conservatives? That's why I don't think this is a mistake. They're trying to destroy us

00:07:44.140 and they don't have the courage to even tell us to our face. We're bleeding heavily now, a million

00:07:50.120 dollar loss. They want us to lay down and die. Well, we're not going to. We're going to fight back

00:07:59.880 because they're wrong legally and morally. And this just isn't fair. I can think of two things to do

00:08:07.320 if you want to help us live. First, please share this video far and wide. Forward it to your friends.

00:08:13.880 Let them know what's happening. They might not even believe you when you tell them a credit card

00:08:18.200 processor can do this to a person. Yeah, it's happening. And if they can do it to us, they can

00:08:23.400 do it to you. Please help ring the alarm. Second, PayPal won't even give us the courtesy of a return

00:08:30.700 phone call. They're ghosting us. All right, fine. They'll find it harder to ghost a judge. I have

00:08:37.100 instructed a legal dream team to file a lawsuit against PayPal as soon as next week for breach of

00:08:43.700 contract and for unlawful interference with economic relations. I expect we'll see the people

00:08:49.460 who induced PayPal to breach their contract with us too. But PayPal is one of the largest companies in

00:08:56.480 the world. They've gotten rich off the lockdowns just like Amazon has. They're now worth $300 billion.

00:09:03.100 They probably have a hundred lawyers working for them. Fine. I like David and Goliath battles.

00:09:08.140 And my guys aren't too shabby either. We're using the same dream team that beat Justin Trudeau's

00:09:14.540 lawyers at the Federal Court of Canada when he banned our reporters from attending the leaders' debates.

00:09:20.320 We won that cancel culture battle. These lawyers of ours are becoming experts at fighting against

00:09:27.460 cancel culture. They're on the case. PayPal didn't just harm us. They violated consumer protection laws,

00:09:36.160 not just for us as a merchant, but like I say, for the thousands of PayPal users who just had

00:09:41.380 their relationship with us destroyed for no good reason. That's the kind of thing that financial

00:09:46.140 regulators look at in the public interest. Our lawyers are reporting PayPal's misconduct to

00:09:52.600 financial services regulators. Again, they might think they can ignore us, but I don't think PayPal could

00:09:59.160 ignore banking regulators. Do you? So the second thing I'd like, if you can help us, boy, I need your

00:10:06.320 help. That lawsuit against PayPal is going to cost us $150,000. I'm sorry, it just will. They're going

00:10:13.540 to try to do everything they can to beat us because if we were to win, it wouldn't just be a win for us.

00:10:19.660 It would set a precedent that could stop PayPal and other credit card companies and other tech companies

00:10:26.540 from canceling anyone. And for some reason, they really want to cancel people. So this is more than

00:10:33.040 them just crushing Rebel News. They want to make sure they can continue to do this at will. That's

00:10:40.780 why we've got to win, not just for us, but to set a precedent for everybody else. Can you please help

00:10:47.780 me cover the $150,000 in legal fees? I tell you, I've seen our dream team in court fighting twice now,

00:10:54.080 and they absolutely stunned the David and Goliath. They stunned Goliath both times.

00:10:59.360 If anyone can do what these guys can, please go to SaveRebelNews.com right now to chip in.

00:11:05.100 Fighting PayPal is going to take a long time, especially with the court slowed down because

00:11:09.280 of the pandemic. And in the meantime, we've got a hole of almost a million dollars in the side of

00:11:14.880 our boat. I know I often ask for help to fundraise, but it's not usually for something like this.

00:11:21.420 It's usually for a specific project, not today. Today, I'm asking you to help me save Rebel News,

00:11:28.440 truly, because we just can't continue to operate as we have with a million dollar shortfall. The

00:11:37.100 math just doesn't add up. PayPal wants to kill us. That's the assumption I have to make, especially

00:11:43.620 since they targeted me personally and our nonprofit group too, and they won't even pick up the phone.

00:11:48.260 We have to live. I promise I will fight with every ounce of strength I have, and so will our entire

00:11:56.680 team. We'll fight like our freedom depends on it, and we'll fight like our jobs and our company

00:12:03.660 depends on it, because it does. If you have ever watched a Rebel News video, if you have ever felt

00:12:11.540 like we stood up for you, like we stood up for you against the bullies, well, this is the time to help

00:12:17.020 us in return. Will you please help us against PayPal? My friends, I ask you, if you want Rebel News

00:12:24.220 to survive this cancel culture attack, please go to SaveRebelNews.com. I need to plug a million dollar

00:12:29.660 hole in our company. Just as important, we need to set a legal precedent that no tech company can simply

00:12:37.180 decide to destroy your life one Friday night because they don't like your opinions. This is

00:12:42.220 a big one. Please go to SaveRebelNews.com to see the PayPal ambush letter, to see our lawyers reply,

00:12:51.280 and to help us fund our lawsuit against PayPal. And if you can, to help us make up the million dollar

00:12:56.960 shortfall so we can keep our full team of reporters. Thank you very much.

00:13:02.600 What do you think of that, eh? I did not expect it. I mean, we've been wrestling with YouTube

00:13:19.160 for a couple of months, and to my delight, we found that there could be life after YouTube. I don't want

00:13:25.700 to be canceled on YouTube. We have 1.45 million subscribers there. I don't want to say goodbye to

00:13:30.880 them. I don't want to be cut off from them. But there are other video players around. Rumble.com

00:13:37.000 is an interesting one. SuperU.net is a new one. Even more unusual sites like Odyssey.com. So I'm no

00:13:44.660 longer terrified that if YouTube kills us, we'll be dead. I mean, I don't want them to, but I don't

00:13:50.980 see it as an existential threat. But if we can't process credit cards, we can't make payroll. And we've

00:13:59.620 got about 30 staff. I mean, you only see the reporters on TV. But for every reporter, there's

00:14:04.900 two people behind the scenes, an editor, someone doing the web. There's other people here.

00:14:10.520 Right now, this PayPal loss is a million dollars. But worse than that, it's a precedent that some

00:14:18.800 foreign credit card processor can come in and punish a Canadian media company because we criticize

00:14:25.580 Trudeau. Or what is it? I don't know. They won't even tell us what we did. I think we can win on the

00:14:33.600 law. I think it can win in the court of public opinion. I think the real question is how stubborn

00:14:39.200 is PayPal? They really are one of the largest companies in the world. I was shocked to learn

00:14:43.820 they're worth $300 billion. So that's a Goliath if there ever was one. But if you want to help us,

00:14:50.800 in fact, one of our two lawyers is named David. So I think that's fitting. Please, if you can,

00:14:55.180 go to SaveRebelNews.com. That's the show for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here,

00:14:59.960 to you at home, good night. And keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - May 07, 2021

PayPal is trying to shut down Rebel News — here's how we're fighting back!

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript