I should have stuck to my rule about stopping reading at 'woke' but I wanted to give it a chance.
Why? Are you advocating for ISIS to be able to do a gofundme?
It's up to individuals whether they want to donate to any particular cause.
if ISIS isn't under US financial sanctions, then yes. GFM is not, and should not, be in the business of gatekeeping people's desire to fund causes they believe in, as long as those causes are legal.
It does not matter whether the reason for initial distrust is religion, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation or political beliefs. You should not start such "economic war" unless your goal is complete elimination of the other group, which, i think, is a rather stupid goal to have.
The only reason abortion is a political issue, for example, is because of the outsized influence that tax exempt organizations have.
Selling to both sides can be a profitable venture, which encourages neutrality, but so is locking in customers by something other than the quality or price of your product
Then state that they're not neutral on the TOS and don't accept funds.
They accepted funds and then tried to straight up steal them.
You're talking past each other. OP said should, you're talking about "needs".
When all speech, commerce, and art became transmitted by the permission of a small number of private firms whose combined powers exceed that of any nation-state.
Apart from that, we also regulate a lot of private companies to be neutral. Your power utility may be private but can’t deplatform you. Telecom carriers are similar. Social media companies are just common carriers and public utilities that have avoided regulation so far with careful political donations. Payment companies (Visa, MasterCard, Stripe, PayPal, and yes, GoFundMe) are all just basic payment utilities and should also be treated as public utilities in many ways even if they remain private otherwise.
> They're basically indifferent on social issues, and so from the right they appear "left" because they echo the broadest appeal as a marketing technique.
The notion that this stuff has the "broadest appeal as a marketing technique" doesn't hold water. Why are Hispanics suddenly "Latinx" now, when virtually no Hispanics identify with that term? https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in.... Last year, they had "Black Trans" posters at our local mall. My county is half Republicans, and a lot of the Democrats are middle class Black people who definitely do not have socially progressive views on gender identity.
I'd say the larger difference is left activism is pro-social, or hyper-social in the extreme. "Black Trans" is promoting one specific identity, but not at the expense of others (apart from dilution). Whereas what is perceived as right activism has to rise to the level of being anti-social - a simple picture a happy heteronormative traditional family does not suffice (since it is taken for granted as the norm). Rather it defines itself by explicitly opposing left activism, and such overt conflict is a commercial non-starter.
> They're basically indifferent on social issues, and so from the right they appear "left" because they echo the broadest appeal as a marketing technique.
The notion that this stuff has the "broadest appeal as a marketing technique" doesn't hold water. Why are Hispanics suddenly "Latinx" now, when virtually no Hispanics identify with that term? https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in...
Last year, they had "Black Trans" posters at our local mall. My county is half Republicans, and a lot of the Democrats are middle class Black people who definitely do not have socially progressive views on gender identity.
Now explain to me what is wrong with political factions publicly criticizing corporations under the guise of wanting political and moral change at the corporation, when in reality, they are attacking the corporation's financial interests, and their goal is to render their own brand of politics the one that commercial interests bend the knee to.
You have made the empiricist's error: conflating what he discovers to be, with what ought to be.
i dont understand why there is such little knowledge on the history of political theory.
If a GoFundMe to harrass and harangue Ron DeSantis -- to effectively sponsor people to park outside his home and blast horns, among other things -- would he be okay with that? How about if Canadians paid millions for people to park on US interstates? Is that okay?
This is entirely outside of the mission of GoFundMe. And it's interesting how exactly the same group of people lamenting the paying of bail for BLM protesters are falling in line with rights for this trucker group to harass and occupy Canadian cities.
It is not if they agree with what is happening. They are fine with occupying if they back the cause.
[1] https://lop.parl.ca/sites/PublicWebsite/default/en_CA/Resear...
* though, it's worth pointing out that Trudeau was against it until he got elected, and it passed under his reign
That seems to be a gross over-generalization.
Peaceful protest involves physically assembling and making noise. That is no doubt unpleasant both for those who disagree with the protestors and those who live in the neighborhood, but the right to do this in public is fundamental and vital in democratic society. I thought we were all raised to understand that? For the life of me I can't understand people who are so ready to trash those rights just because they don't happen to agree with a cause. Either these are democratic rights or they aren't, and if they are then they apply to everybody.
* Edit: I shouldn't have said obviously. I should have said: from what I've seen. Some people are posting that there have been violent things going on, but those claims have come without evidence. In the few cases where I have seen objective information, such claims have turned out to be exaggerated. If I see objective information showing that the protestors have turned violent, I will change my mind. (As long as it is clear that it really was the protestors and not someone trying to make them look bad, since that kind of thing also happens at protests.)
People came in and brought homes with them (sleeper cabs, RVs, etc). Now they have set up permanent structures such as kitchens and other facilities (today they brought in a sauna), and have been stating repeatedly that they are in for the long haul.
There is a reason that's called an occupation. A protest is normally a discomfort for the protester. Enduring the elements. Going without. But waving a flag and chanting slogans that convey a message. Here we have a bunch of people in transport trucks blasting their horn 24/7.
The inverse is also true, and at least in the more recent case people can point to the earlier BLM precedent. I.e., “if the platform can be used to fund BLM protests, then it can be used to fund trucker protests”. If GoFundMe didn’t want their platform to be used for this kind of thing, they should be mindful of the precedents they set.
But GFM at the very least comes across as partisan, if not hypocritical. If they're going to be a partisan funder, then I'm sure there are other laws they need to comply with which they currently don't.
Like, consider a non-profit that you want to support its vision. Most of the money goes to its mission, the rest pays its execs. They decide to use 100% of it for the execs. According to your argument, that's just fine.
That's true, and its also interesting how exactly the same people who support the paying of bail for BLM looters and rioters (lawful protesters aren't arrested and don't need bail) are cheering the decision of GoFundMe to block the funds to the Canadian protesters. The issue as I see it is the failure of GoFundMe to have a consistent standard that is neutrally applied without regard to the underlying politics of those raising funds. If they say that its prohibited to raise funds for those involved in breaking the law, then that standard should be applied to both BLM and the truckers.
Another important issue in this case was the initial decision of GoFundMe to keep all donated funds absent a proactive request for a refund by those who had donated. Its bad enough if GoFundMe decided to act in a nakedly partisan manner when deciding who is allowed to raise funds on their platform, but its entirely another matter for them to make people jump through hoops to get their money back. I'm glad to see GoFundMe reversed this decision and decided to offer automatic refunds, but it shouldn't have taken a huge outcry for them to reach this decision.
That's only true if the police are perfect, which is very much not the case.
When trying to grasp the Canadian point of view on GoFundMe, understanding the primal fear this quote invokes in us is vital.
Not to mention, all the things you listed at the start of your comment have been done by the Ottawa occupiers. I don’t like to call them truckers because most are not, and most truckers are against this occupation.
It's not the same; it's not even close.
And now we know from the emails and discussions of the police and the mayor that they kind of left the police precinct with an expectation of the chaz that the precinct was going to be burned down after thet left by the crowd and they were almost disappointed . In Seattle we're currently in this weird situation where the police are basically in an almost complete work stoppage, and there's endless court battles about the cops who went to Jan 6, cops don't enforce Laws around property crimes. I don't see any future for the existing police force in Seattle. They just need to be fired and replaced en mass. But it will take years to eject them.
This is probably too much about Seattle but when trying to understand what's happening in Canada one has to be careful of the American press that lies about what's happening. My own dad believes that Seattle is burning basically.
I do, and GoFundMe is a bunch of partisan hypocrites. Let me quote Elon: Professional Thieves.
Canadian news and politicians are desperately trying to denounce the protesters while ignoring the fact that Canada has some of the harshest Covid restrictions in the world at the moment, while the US has hardly any and European nations are mostly moving to remove all restrictions.
Also, how does protesting COVID mandates make someone "racist and misogynist?" Is he just saying that because they're truckers?
Uhh, I think calling for the overthrowing of the federal government[0] is a little more than just protesting a covid mandate lol. To be clear, I'm not saying overthrowing the federal gov't is racist or misogynist. I'm just saying that clearly there is a lot more going on than that
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/28/canada-trucker...
Not all violations of free speech are literally police sending someone to jail for saying something. If the politicians pressure private organizations to censor speech, resulting in the speech being censored, then its absolutely a violation of free speech
Take away their toys and let them hold a protest with their boots and parkas.
It feels really bad to have comments removed for keywords like PoC when it's coming from your own tax dollars.
To which I say:
A. I bet more than 15% are unvaccinated because why answer honestly with Canada’s level of restrictions and penalties?
B. If it is actually 15%, that’s not fringe, and also that’s low enough that dropping the mandate should be reasonable (see all the countries who dropped restrictions at 75%-80% vaccination).
From a numbers perspective, 91.54% of Canadians 18+ have received at least one dose. 88.91% of 18+ have received two.
It's /possible/ that truckers are widely unvaccinated (perhaps they all subscribe to the same train of thought), but it's unlikely.
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." — Thomas Paine, Dissertation on First Principles of Government (1791)
It makes no sense, but the amount of people who conflate the two is shockingly high. I guess strawmans are easier to argue against than someone who holds nuanced views.
edit: one such example of someone who conflates the two https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30225017
Surely you jest. Polls are anonymous. And even if the security is bad, nobody is scrutinizing IP logs of poll respondents. Maybe in Kazakhstan or something, but freedom in the West has not fallen that far.
People do lie on polls, of course, but it's usually about self-expression, not self-protection. I'd imagine that vaccinated truckers are more likely to report antagonism to vaccine mandates by lying about being unvaccinated vs. the reverse.
The state sponsored ones?
At this point I don't think it's only about the vaccines.
The GFM action is also quite dehumanizing. It's a statement from a large donation platform (with all the associated feelings of righteousness) about the value of the protest.
I'm not really sure GFM is the problem though. I think the fear of the media might be forcing their hand. The consequences for keeping this fundraiser open would have hurt them somehow. Same with the consequences for shutting down a BLM fundraiser. Same consequence from the same source.
That's probably because of the Nazi and Confederate flags people are waving.
In my opinion, they should cry it out or quit given Canada's 1 dose vaccination rate is in the 80% range.
Screams of an orchestrated heuristic.
If you’re aware of such a fringe factoid as flags appearing in the crowd but simultaneously unaware of the footage demonstrating these to be literally false flags you may want to diversify your information sources.
If you think this is “just a protest”, you don’t live in Ottawa and have no clue what’s going on
If you think vaccines are being forced on anyone, you have no clue what’s going on in Canada.
If you think GFM planned to “steal” the money, you clearly have no clue that the organizer’s plan called for excess funds to be given to charities.
The comments in this thread read like a typical unhinged Fox News comment section. To see this crap on HN is so disappointing.
Mandatory school vaccinations, mandatory military vaccinations, mandatory drug testing in many jobs, etc. Why did no one lose their minds over those things?
Yes, the powers that be chose to force an unnecessary vaccine on working class people, and this is the consequence.
Can we quit using this sinister thought-terminating cliche?
As such extra skepticism is permissible.
Trudeau and the Liberals are loving the damage "The Honkening" causes to the Conservative brand. Erin O'Toole spent the last election trying to convince Canadians that the Conservative Party of Canada is civilized and not a tribe from Trumpistan.
That has all gone down the drain, the CPC kicked O'Toole out and the party is about to swallow the Trump bait, hook and line. Even populist conservatives like Doug Ford (Ontario's premier) can see this.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Party of Canada is just giggling and partying as quietly as they can contain themselves.
So Gofundme gets to turn all the funds into "excess" funds?
The charities were being selected by the organizers.
Yes vaccines are being forced - how else a threat to loose your job can be called. And yes I live in Canada.
>"you don’t live in Ottawa and have no clue what’s going on"
Do we have a clue about what's really going on in the rest of the world? We do not but it never stops people including HN crowd from judging. I bet you are guilty of that too.
I call that a choice. Parent's have a choice to vaccinate or homeschool. Military members have a choice to non-covid vaccine or not be a service member. No one was losing their minds over that.
There are many jobs available that don't require a vaccine.
> Do we have a clue about what's really going on in the rest of the world?
We can just listen to people who live in Ottawa. Among others, the mayor has been pretty clear what's going on.
“That is not being forced. That is called choice. Choices have consequences.”
That’s literally forced but in an nonviolent matter. Kind of like how people can be correctly be called “forced” to file tax returns in the US.
They are forced, stop playing word games.
The wordhas truly lost all meaning. Though according to Orwell, it already had even before the end of WW2
If I set up a monetary relationship between 2 entities and then I interfere with that relationship, this is called tortuous interference with contracts.
If you want to mail a check to these truckers, have at it, but GoFundMe is not obligated to collect money on their behalf. Here's another example, but not one Ron Desantis would ever care about - https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200131-gofundme-shuts-us...
A telephone company can't decide to give me a phone number then tell me who I can or cannot call. My ISP cannot tell me which websites I can or cannot access (without a court order). If GoFundMe allowed the convoy to open a charity drive, they cannot unilaterally close it and confiscate the money.
Also, please keep personal attacks off this site. Not ok here.
Edit: you've been posting so many personal attacks and breaking the site guidelines so repeatedly that I've banned the account. That is seriously not cool here.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Canada is experiencing a severe housing bubble at the backdrop of Chinese snow washing, wage stagnation is real and middle class is slowly getting wiped out. The only thing keeping the GDP at the level it is is high level of immigration which favours the wealthy in the name of a “point based immigration system”. The ruling liberal party is genuinely out of touch and the PM knows nothing but virtue signaling. The conservatives are also facing a leadership crisis since they lack largely a coordination and single thread holding the party. NDP is a joke and virtually does nothing and the electoral system is almost broken thanks to this three party system (oh and then there is Bloc which I don’t even want to get started on). Trudeau was elected prime minister with less than 33% votes. The whole COVID crisis was used by Trudeau to call a snap election and then they don’t seem to have a plan to embrace the endemic outlook. This whole vax mandates for truckers was such a distraction at the backdrop of inflation and struggling service sector. I keep thinking what are these people thinking? Any decent policy advisors would say now is not the time to do things out of spite against the people who are critical to supply chain.
In the last decade I've seen most of my family leave for the US due to the higher incomes. I always kept hope that maybe Canada would get better. It hasn't, it's gotten very bad. The insane level of immigration has eroded away any leverage the working class has. Now you see all that frustration coming out, on both sides of the political spectrum, with each side blaming the other.
Housing and necessities are un-affordable for everyone, the divisive rhetoric has turned society against each other. Simply being in Canada is depressing now. I just got back from 2 months in Europe, the difference is shocking.
If you have the opportunity to move the US and have your employer pay for your healthcare, your quality of life and income will be much, much higher than you could ever expect in Canada. The main thing is that incomes in the US, especially for tech, are much, much higher while cost of living is lower.
The US can be accused of many things, but having a poor public pension isn't one of them.
We've also literally created millions of crazy people with all the covid fear propaganda, and I don't know how we reintegrate them into society.
I could go on, we're in a lot of trouble.
If you think it is bad now, imagine how bad would it be if the majority of the population was in retirement. Sustaining a pension scheme (or a healthy economy for pension funds) becomes very hard, plus all of the services required to keep the society running would be greatly reduced.
Canada's immigration system seems one of the better I've looked into, skills, language, education and job offer all have to be accounted to get in.
Is that supposed to be bad? The main factors that contribute to your points are language skills, education, work experience, age, and job offer. It's true that those requirements favor the wealthy, but would canada be better served by immigrants that don't speak english, are inexperienced, old, and don't have a job lined up?
Of course, this all needs to be substantiated with facts to actually show the cause of the issue. I honestly don't know if Canada's immigration levels are too high and causing problems for the middle class or if the OP is just angry that an Indian family now operates their local Husky.
If we got more cheap unskilled labour, we could expand our whole economy to be rich enough to pay for the expensive skilled Canadians. Making a ton of poor people richer ads a lot more total value than adding a couple of rich people
He also called out their double standard for claiming to not support protests that aren’t peaceful after they funded so many violent riots and illegal actions like CHAZ back in 2020.
Redirecting donations intended for one cause to causes of their choosing is fraudulent.
If they have an issue with a cause, which should be stipulated in their ToCs up front and not subject to inflight changes, then refund all donors to the best of their ability.
This is just a rightwing talking point
Per the article you linked, donors have two weeks to request a refund, and any remaining funds will be redirected to causes chosen by the Freedom Convoy organizers:
> Donors have until Feb. 19 to ask for a refund, and the rest of the money the group raised would be allocated to “credible and established charities” chosen by Freedom Convoy organizers, the site said.
* They already reversed that policy and plan to do direct refunds.
* This policy itself was new and a departure from past practices, likely due to the legal troubles it would create for them.
When he sees something getting attention he can't seem to help inserting himself into it.
The only reason gofundme (or any org with similar practices) do this is because they know that some people will miss the deadline, and the it becomes pure profit.
If this was a matter of politics, I think their politics would actually push them to make this decision more because the alternative was to make the organization that organized it choose another charity to give it to. That charity would likely be something that does not align with the politics of the average GFM employee
I will say that I find GoFundMe's tactics around fees to be distasteful. It's been a while, but I recall having selected a donation amount and then being asked to pay an extra fee "so the charity doesn't have to bear this burden" or some such thing. Basically they just wanted to increase the donation amount (which increases their fee), and they were using guilt as a tactic.
DeSantis probably just picked up on the rightwing twitter chatter and is trying to ride the wave
However it's also a little complicated since some of the money has been dispersed to the organizers (most of which went to Tamara Lich, according to the GFM page.) I guess they'll prorate the refunds or absorb the loss?
It’s the absolute arrogance of the community, pretending that they’re above this at just about any other time.
Alternatively, make the 15,000 tiny letters illegal, and require products to specify in clear, easily understandable language what the user is agreeing to; with the ability to return whatever it is if they do not agree with it.
But this idea of donating to other charities unless a refund is requested appears to be something novel. As far as I can tell, it's something they came up with, then backed away from, just for this incident specifically.
It's bizarre that they even though they could get away with that in such a high-profile situation; I suppose they thought that they could rely on the hostility of people like me to passively take the side of the woke corporation against normal people.
I agree that it's fucked up, but the "legal framework" is just the fact that people agreed to the terms and conditions. It's not really shocking, though that doesn't make it right
Also, to be clear, the donations that weren't refunded were to go to charities of the choosing of the organizers. It's not just being pocketed
It seems like the fraction of truckers who engaged in cross-border trucking with the US were subject to a Canadian federal vaccination mandate, which applied to some workers in the transportation sector as well as many federal workers, but this requirement was dropped a couple of weeks ago for cross border trucking.[1]
Are the truckers still protesting even though the requirement for cross border truckers to be vaccinated was dropped? Do they have some further demand?
Is anyone here able to kindly cite a (non-editorial) journalistic source which summarizes these events?
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canadian-truckers-sta...
https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/in-for-a-rough-winter...
https://www.bing.com/search?q=canada+trucker+vaccine+require...
The first link says "On Wednesday evening, a Canadian Border Services Agency spokesperson said truckers would remain exempt from vaccination, testing and quarantine rules — a reversal from what the government had said publicly just hours before."
My top hit on the search is a primary government source stating that: "A Canadian truck driver who is not fully vaccinated can't be denied entry into Canada—Canadian citizens, persons registered as Indians under the Indian Act and permanent residents may enter Canada by right. [...] Any individual who is symptomatic upon arrival to Canada will be directed to a Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) official and will be directed to isolate for 10 days from the time they enter Canada. As of January 15, 2022, unvaccinated or partially vaccinated foreign national truck drivers, coming to Canada from the US by land, will be directed back to the United States."
“Kitchen sink” finance, inflationary issues are also a big part of the protests imo
It’s also quite frankly a massive dance party, which people have been missing out on
ie protest is (right now) seemingly a bit of a conservative mishmash, not just trucking dispute
I believe in vaccines but I don't understand why GoFundMe can't accept trucker donations.
[0] https://globalnews.ca/news/8543281/covid-trucker-convoy-orga...
Also, this protest is not about being pro or anti vax. It is about mandates.
In Alberta, where the organizer[1] of this GoFundMe is based, campaign spending limits for a provincial election are capped at $2,121,368 for a political party[2].
This GoFundMe just raised five times what an entire political party is allowed to spend during an election in Alberta.
Ostensibly, this cash was to be used to pay for gas and motel stays for those involved in the protest, but those truckers were never going to see a tenth of what Lich was given. Lich is a founding member of several Western separatist parties. Those parties, although they do have legitimate grievances that find some sympathy with moderates, take an approach that is wildly unpopular. Namely, separatism. They don't raise much money as a result. It's likely that Lich would have funnelled the remainder of this GoFundMe into support for one or more of the political parties she's affiliated with.
What could have happened is that, during the next few elections in Western provinces, we'd have seen a bevy of implausibly well funded PAC's shilling for Wildrose, Maverick, etc.. Their ads would have been similar in quality and quantity to those of the major parties. That could have significantly shifted the polls.
What about Lich's goals for the protest itself? As someone who wants to see Canada break up into several smaller nations, it's in her interest to demonstrate how weak and ineffectual the federal government is. What better way to do that than by blockading the capital and several key trade routes at the U.S. border while the federal government dithers and provincial governments do nothing?
Keeping money out of politics is a sisyphean task, but it's one most Canadians embrace. When GoFundMe's can raise this much cash in the blink of an eye, we have to recognize that the game has been fundamentally transformed yet again. In this instance, all that stopped a politically transformative amount of cash from flowing into a fringe party's hands was the hesitation of a foreign corporation. I fully expect regulations for political fund-raising through services like GoFundMe are going to be in the works shortly.
[1]https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/who-is-tamara-lich... [2]https://www.elections.ab.ca/finance/expense-limits/
This is pretty much how a lot of people view gofundme now:
https://babylonbee.com/news/gofundme-freezes-funds-for-child...
They are a joke.
They followed their standard protocol to offer refunds and then donate any unrefunded money to charities of the choosing of the main organizers. And they've even changed their policy to issue direct refunds instead. I think they're clearly still in the business of trying to maintain their trust
A reasonable person would think a Gofundme for a group who derive their income from the methamphetamine trade would be higher risk than a bunch of truckies, but then again it didn't raise near $10m usd.
This is the kind of thing the gang does during funerals, for reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A30VPyeXVv4
(Didn't see this mentioned elsewhere in the thread)
Finance regulation is a wench like that.
(1) post thoughtfully and substantively, with respect for the people you disagree with,
or
(2) don't post.
We want curious conversation here.
> SCGGC will effective as of midnight on this ___, day of ___________, 2021, instruct all levels of the Federal, Provincial, Territorial, and Municipal governments to re-instate all employees in all branches of governments and, not limited to promote the same to the private industry and institutional sectors employees with full lawful employment rights prior to the wrongful and unlawful dismissals that stem from the SARS-CoV-2 (and not limited to SARS-CoV-2 subsequent variations) vaccine passport mandates
[1] https://twitter.com/GiveSendGo/status/1489983077912924160
https://maybury.ca/the-reformed-physicist/2022/02/03/a-night...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEXy8yrjYqw
Rubin is Jewish/gay, Dichter is Jewish. But according to Trudeau they are homophobes, racists and white supremacists. The recording is from shortly before the deplatforming, so it not up to date.
