BUSINESS/RACISM: “Technology companies’ recent moves to crack down on white supremacists thrust them into unusual territory for corporations that often take a more hands-off approach to who uses their services and how.
In the wake of weekend violence at a white supremacists rally in Charlottesville, Va., Alphabet Inc.’s GOOGL +0.58% Google and GoDaddy Inc. GDDY +1.08% stopped providing hosting support for the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi site that the companies said violated their terms of service. Airbnb Inc. banned participants in the rally from staying in rentals booked through its site.
Uber Technologies Inc. blacklisted white supremacist James Allsup after Mr. Allsup and another passenger allegedly made racist remarks to their driver in Washington, D.C., on Friday [8-11-17] night. In a video Mr. Allsup posted on Twitter , Mr. Allsup is heard asking the driver what he said was racist. Crowdfunding site GoFundMe removed campaigns to raise money to bail out the driver charged with speeding into a crowd of counterprotesters on Saturday, which killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
On Tuesday, payments company PayPal Holdings Inc. reiterated that it works to ensure ‘that our services are not used to accept payments or donations for activities that promote hate, violence or racial intolerance,’ saying that includes white supremacists and Nazi groups. It is unclear if PayPal has recently removed or suspended any accounts that violated its terms of service.”
-Yoree Koh and Jacob Gershman, “Tech Firms Break From Hands-Off Approach With Bans on White Supremacists,” The Wall Street Journal onlilne, Aug. 16, 2017 07:00am