Your ethical thought experiment is fair. What would you do if you knew that it would be used for illegal activity. The point you are missing is the payment processors should not even try to detect what the payment is made for. It should not be their job.
Does postal system open every envelope to see if there is cash inside sent as an illegitimate payment to someone? Because it's easier to do it online should not be the base for justifying it.
Would you be happy if your email provider scanned all your emails using ML systems to detect illegal activity? For some reason we value the privacy of our communication more than other types of transactions.
> The point you are missing is the payment processors should not even try to detect what the payment is made for. It should not be their job.
You're thinking about this as if the question is simply about whether or not payment processors should have the job of examining every individual payment. There's a potential discussion to be had there, but that's the only dimension of the topic, and one of the things we're talking about entire classes of activity.
If prospective clients like "Assassination Central" or "Doordash Blowjobs Inc" approach you as a payment processor, you might have some idea of what's going to happen. And in general payment processors have both an incentive and regulatory obligations to understand what kind of business they're facilitating, not to mention whatever individual inclinations they might have.
When it comes to something like Venmo, I'm not really sure how to handle that. I suspect invasivity isn't the only issue, it's also probably practically difficult to police effectively, but at the same time, if there were means by which reasonable correlations could be made, it's not clear to me that there's no activity whatsoever for which there's a case for flagging, however controversial which cases meet that criteria might be.
I didn't say that the payment processor doesn't have the right to question if the client can prove its legality with paperwork. Doesn't "Doordash Blowjobs Inc" mean that they have been legally allowed to form a company? In that case who is the payment processor to decide that they are "not good"?
> In that case who is the payment processor to decide that they are "not good"?
Should it be illegal to start a vegan payment processing company that won't allow butchers to be paid through them? If so, then why should it be illegal?
That's not practical. You wouldn't be able to refute charges. Payment processors couldn't price in risk for sprcific industries. You've created more problems than you've solved.
Forcing processors to be neutral and to not know their customers has both business and moral implications that both need to be included in the argument.
If you have evidence that a murder is about to occur, you report it to the fucking police. You don’t just remove yourself from the pipeline and hope it doesn’t happen.
But you don't -- and can't -- know that the payment is illegal. You merely suspect it, and since you are not a court of law, a judge, or a jury, you should have no business arbitrarily cutting off someone's ability to transact.
It's a thought experiment. The question is about a case in which you know for sure. It's a big world and this is likely to happen at least sometimes. If you don't want to play along with the thought experiment, no problem. But it's a useful and interesting question if you can.
And there are also cases in which you can clearly know something is illegal. Someone purchasing guns in a country where guns are not legal doesn't need a judge, jury, and court process for a payment processor to decide they don't want to be involved. It's not arbitrary. And your right to make purchases using a credit card is not a basic human right.
That was my comment. I intended it to mean the government shouldn’t be deputizing payment processors to do its dirty work. There were some good points in the responses and a few ridiculous scenarios. Even the ridiculous scenarios point out real issues.
In reality I don’t think there is any chance of a law requiring payment processors to process all legal transactions and definitely nothing about illegal transactions. If that were a possibility, I would back off my statement that they should be forced to process illegal transactions.
What I asked is specific: if you know the money is for a hit job will you still accept the business and take your fee or is there a moral line you personally won't cross? Yes, it's the job of the police to investigate but do you want the freedom to not engage in business that you consider evil?
And I think what many of us in this thread object to is that your specific question is irrelevant, because it's hypothetical and unrealistic. You do not know the money is for a hit job. You just don't. You may think that's what it's for, but you don't actually know, and you -- as a random employee (or worse, algorithm) of Payments R Us, Inc. -- should have no business playing judge and jury.
As for moral lines you are curious as to what people will and won't cross, those lines will be different for different people, and that's exactly why we shouldn't be putting these sorts of decisions in the hands of random unaccountable corporate employees (or, again, worse, algorithms).
You clearly want someone to say "no, of course I wouldn't allow a transaction to go through if it was for a hitman contract". But what if someone said "I see no problem with contract killings; I'd let it through"? That person could be working at Payments R Us, and clearly we don't want someone making that decision! So take it out of their hands.
The contract killer is of course an extreme example, but we already have real-world examples discussed here that illustrate the problem with this. Pornography is legal, and yet payment processors boot online porn companies from their networks. Someone who thinks pornography is immoral might have made that determination (I don't buy the "high risk of fraud" argument; you can always control for that with higher fees). Regardless of how you personally feel about pornography, do you think it's ok for a company to deny another company access to a big chunk of the financial system for entirely legal activities, just because they don't like them? I would sincerely hope that we can agree that sort of thing is bad.
> do you think it's ok for a company to deny another company access to a big chunk of the financial system for entirely legal activities
A vegan credit card that only works at vegan companies should not be illegal.
> to a big chunk of the financial system
Here's the actual problem! We have a handful of giant payment processors that make up a near monopoly. That's the problem you want to fix. More competition and more choices (e.g. vegan credit card) means you'll for sure find a way to pay for your vegan porn.
> That person could be working at Payments R Us
I'm not talking about employees making a decision. I'm talking about the owners of a payment processing company being able to decide on a policy that is applied to all customers.
Last time I checked both Visa and Mastercard have no problems being used to buy cigarettes or alcohol.
I'd bet that orders of magnitude more people die because of cancer caused by cigarettes and in episodes of domestic violence or traffic accidents caused by alcohol abuse than the number of people assassinated by hit killers hired online and paid with credit cards.
In many jurisdictions, the electric utility is a private corporation. Is it ok for the power company to turn off power for a business they think is immoral, like, say, a strip club? Obviously it's not; laws prevent that sort of thing.
So at this point we agree (as a society at least) that some businesses should not be allowed to conduct business according to their ethics, but instead must do business with anyone who shows up at their door. At this point it's just a matter of deciding which businesses that rule should apply to. I would argue that payment processors are approaching utility-like levels of essential use in our society, if they aren't there already.
> In many jurisdictions, the electric utility is a private corporation. Is it ok for the power company to turn off power for a business they think is immoral, like, say, a strip club? Obviously it's not; laws prevent that sort of thing
This is due to a physical limitation. Payment processors have no such physical limitation.
> I would argue that payment processors are approaching utility-like levels of essential use in our society,
Correct. And the problem is not that they are utility-like essential. But that they are a near monopoly. There is zero reason for payment processors to be a near monopoly and that's the actual problem that needs fixing.
at best you suspect it, you don't know it unless you're on the sending or receiving side of the transaction.
it shouldn't be my decision whether i want to allow the transaction, even if i wouldn't want to allow it.
i'm not in a position to perform due legal process to determine whether you're indeed being paid for a hit job.
I asked a specific question and you refuse to answer it because your entire premise is based on not being able to know if someone is engaging in unethical behavior. That's premise is seriously flawed.
The problem you're trying solve is caused by lack of competition and near monopoly players. The fix isn't to force those businesses to ignore ethics. The fix is hugely increasing the competition.
> your entire premise is based on not being able to know if someone is engaging in unethical behavior. That's premise is seriously flawed.
No, it's not. It's literally the facts on the ground.
Additionally, it's telling that you used the term "unethical" rather than "unlawful". Whether or not a credit card works should have nothing to do with someone's arbitrary ethics.
It's literally not. Your claim is that I suspect the local butcher sells meat rather than knowing that they sell meat. If my vegan friend doesn't want to do their accounting, that should be within his basic human freedoms. He's not the only accountant in town and the butcher will surely find an accountant who enjoys eating meat.
> Whether or not a credit card works should have nothing to do with someone's arbitrary ethics.
It shouldn't be illegal for someone to start a vegan credit card that only allows purchases at businesses that don't kill animals. More choice is better and you want to make all payment processors follow a one-size-fits-all rule. That's the opposite of the direction we should be pursuing.
The real problem is the near monopoly control of the handful of payment processing giants that currently exist. Fix that problem and increase the competition and offer more choice and you no longer needs to force payment processors to be neutral. Forced neutrality in the end means the government decides. Which makes sense in a handful of cases, but not when markets can do a better job.
even though not explicitly, i have already answered your question.
you should pass the transaction, as you should be in a neutral position.
edit: to clarify, payment providers/processors nowadays are a core utility function in our society. imo this is not something you can consider a regular private business.
My basic human freedoms should include the right to not do business with a hate group for example. You want folks to give up that freedom because you got the problem wrong and you're applying the wrong fix.
you're free to decide who to do business with if you're not providing a core utility service.
would you like to no longer receive water or electricity at your home because your utility companies don't like you, despite (being willing to) paying the bills like any other citizen?
Due to limited infrastructure resourcess, water and utility companies are a near monopoly which is why they need these types of regulations. There is no physical limitations to the number of possible payment processors so the actual fix is more competition and more companies. No need for neutrality regulations when you have thousands of companies competing.
Ok got it, so this means that your previously statement, where you said "My basic human freedoms should include the right to not do business with a hate group for example", is not true, or not your full opinion.
You actually think that there are certain situations where it is OK to force basic utilities to transact with everyone.
You just disagree where exactly the line is. But at the end of the day, yes you also agree that some companies should be forced to engage in certain transactions.
Interested in the topic but not interested in your aggressive style and putting words in my mouth and telling me what I believe. You can have the last word if you'd like.
Yes, people usually don't want to engage when the contradiction of your new statement is put so clearly in contrast with your past statement.
I wasn't really expecting you to engage with the point in any way. It is so rare that people do.
The fact remains that you now admit that yes you want to force certain businesses, specifically utilities, to sell to people, and this contradicts your previous statement.
You even did one of the most effective forms of non engagement, where you say "you can have the last word" thereby making it so either your statement remains unchallenged, or making it seem like you "win" because I responded, which is what you told me to do.
No not for the reasons you claim, I don't want to continue because you're aggressive. I've happily engaged with people who point out what they think is a contradiction in my thinking. But not with people like you.
> non engagement
I didn't say I'd never speak to you again lol. Just that this topic is over because you can't seem to discuss it in a way that doesn't include personal attacks. Not interested in that style of debate in the least.
That’s a bit of bullshit because these payment providers accept transactions for the government which consistently kills people at the local, state, and federal level every day.
If you “know” the money is for a hit job, you contact the FBI or local police and they can mobilize protective services and arrest forces.
I'm not claiming payment processors are moral. I'm asking if the freedom to refuse unethical business should be your right. I was responding to the position of a parent comment that processors should accept even illegal transactions.
Of course you contact the police in the situation I described. Do you accept the payment though or do you refuse the transaction? You keep avoiding a specific yes or no question.
There is a massive difference between "unethical business" and "illegal business". As banks provide critical infrastructure, they should absolutely not be allowed to refuse business they consider "unethical", just like a power company should not be allowed to cut someone off because they think they are behaving "unethically".
As to "illegal business", the simple fact is that the bank doesn't know enough to make a meaningful distinction. It is simply impossible for a bank to know for a fact what a payment is for. They only know the source account, the destination account, the payment value, and a user-provided description. That's just not enough data to make a decent judgement. Plenty of jokers out there who will label their rent transaction as "extortion payment", after all.
Sure, if they have reasonable suspicion they should forward the information to the police, but they should not be allowed to block it unless given a court order.
> There is a massive difference between "unethical business" and "illegal business"
Can you explain the massive difference? For example, easy access to guns is legal in a handful of countries and illegal in most countries. Where it's legal to easily obtain guns but also illegal to buy alcohol on a Sunday, what does that imply in terms of ethics?
> As banks provide critical infrastructure,
There is no physical limitation - like a local electricity generator - that requires this "infrastructure" to be dominated by a few huge companies.
> the simple fact is that the bank doesn't know enough to make a meaningful distinction. It is simply impossible for a bank to know for a fact what a payment is for.
That's wrong. The bank reasonably knows what I'm buying from Porn Hub or the local butcher. Even if they don't know exactly what I'm buying, they do know how the local butcher generates the bulk of its profits.
What you're suggesting is that it be illegal to start a vegan credit card - only works at businesses where they don't harm animals. What we need instead is more choice, not less choice. Break up the near monopoly and reintroduce competition and you fix the actual problem - which is that a handful of payment processors can collude against a business or industry.
Banks don't know what you're paying for at Porn Hub?
Banks do know enough to price in risk. And there is your problem. They must be allowed to price in risk and if they are allowed to do that they can effectively deny business by making the price too high.
PayPal isn't a bank but does payments. The real problem is there aren't enough alternatives like that. The solution to banks having so much power is to give them more competition.
What does "give them more competition" mean? The fact that the landscape looks like it does is a strong suggestion that more competition might not actually be viable.
Another possible solution to banks having so much power is to regulate them more. I know a lot of libertarian types don't like that answer, but it is a valid answer.
It means you have far more choices in who to give your business to. For example, in a big city you can eat at thousands of restaurants. Or cook at home. However, I cannot choose from thousands of payment processors. With more payment processors competing for my business, I would get a better product and more choice.
> Another possible solution to banks having so much power is to regulate them more. I know a lot of libertarian types don't like that answer, but it is a valid answer.
I'm firmly not libertarian. Not even close. But I don't like to pull out the regulation stick until we see that more competition and a functioning market can't solve the problem. Since these transactions are now all digital, the potential for highly functioning markets has barely been explored.
You accept the payment, absolutely. It should not be your responsibility to do the required due process to ensure that a decision to deny the transaction is actually fair and correct. And more than that, I don't want to have to trust an unaccountable private corporation with that responsibility.
So it should be illegal to start a vegan payment processor? Breaking up the current near-monopoly and giving you more choice would give the maximum possible freedom to everyone including you.
> unaccountable private corporation with that responsibility.
That's the beauty of a functioning market. With lots of choice the corporation must either be accountable or lose your business. The real problem is that you currently don't have much choice due to a non-existent market with almost no real competition for business.
In this hypothetical situation you've set up in which Visa somehow knows that one of their billion+ payments is for the contract killing of another human, then no, it's probably better to not let the payment go through.
However I find the argument you're posing apparently in favor of allowing a business like Visa to decline transactions on ethical grounds to be missing some important rigor. It's honestly kind of boring to argue about very clear-cut and extreme example like a credit card payment that is clearly for a contract killing. That's not where the meat of the issue lies.
If you'd like to make the argument that a business like Visa should decline transactions based on the ethics (as opposed to legal & financial risk, which appears to be how they do it now) of that transaction, then I think you need to come out of the gate with a bit more rigor. Here are the questions that immediately come to mind for me:
1. Can we agree that the rules applied to a multinational corporation with billions in income utilized by hundreds of millions of people on a daily basis to exchange legal currency for goods and services should be different than the rules governing the bakery down the street?
2. If yes, then within the context of multinational financial corporations, what is "ethical"?
3. Who decides what that definition is for a multinational financial corporation?
4. Is that definition industry-wide or specific to a corporation?
5. Is a corporation expected to hold to a consistent definition of "ethical"? If they are, how is that enforced?
6. If a corporation is not required to hold to a consistent definition of "ethical", how is this different from "for any reason or no reason at all"?
7. If an individual's small business is deemed "unethical" by a monopoly or near-monopoly, such that it is impossible _in practical terms_ for the business to exist based on an extralegal decision by a multinational financial institution, should there be any recourse for that individual? What would that be? Over what timeline could it be reasonably accomplished?
8. Remaining firmly in the context of applying your above answers to multinational financial corporations: how do your answers create a net boon for society? Who is likely to benefit from your policies? Is there any apparent harm from your policies? Is that harm a net boon for society? How and why?
Without some thought put towards these questions, or ones like them, your (apparent, there's not a lot to go on here) proposal of universal ethical freedom for all businesses looks a lot like "unlimited freedom without regard for how that unlimited freedom affects others." Which, if you are seriously putting that argument forward, I'd like to circle back to contract killing and ask what damn right does Visa have to limit one's freedom to run a contract killing business?
> 1. Can we agree that the rules applied to a multinational corporation with billions in income utilized by hundreds of millions of people on a daily basis to exchange legal currency for goods and services should be different than the rules governing the bakery down the street?
Yes. The core of the problem is the near monopoly that the small list of current payment processors have. As an aside, these companies have less global control than someone from the US or Europe might think.
2. If yes, then within the context of multinational financial corporations, what is "ethical"?
A vegan credit card is entirely reasonable. Any ethical stance you want to take is reasonable. As long as you fix the actual monopoly problem.
3. Who decides what that definition is for a multinational financial corporation?
It shouldn't matter if you fix the actual problem.
Etc.
Solving the actual problem instead of the perceived problem very often answers a bunch of doubts all at the same time.
> I'd like to circle back to contract killing and ask what damn right does Visa have to limit one's freedom to run a contract killing business?
The same right that I have to not be a contract killer. If your contract killing business can't find enough suppliers - be that the killers themselves or the payment processor - then that's a problem that no one should be compelled to solve. You don't have a basic human right to run any business you choose and force others to be suppliers to your business.
I think you hit the nail on the head with the assertion that the contract killing example is boring and doesn't really expose any of the grey areas or nuance that is necessary to really think about this issue.
But even ignoring ethics, I don't think multinational corporations should be unilaterally deciding on questions of law, either. I don't think they will ever make legal determinations based on any sufficient amount of rigor, either. Sufficient in this case, to me, is "would be the same decision reached by a court of law after engaging in due process". And even if they could theoretically apply that level of rigor, why should we trust an unaccountable multinational corporation with that power?
Forcing companies to neutrally process all transactions is in itself a decision around ethics. You're not ignoring ethics. You're pushing for your own ethics around payment processing.\
> I don't think multinational corporations should be unilaterally deciding on questions of law,
They aren't really. Deciding to refuse a payment is not jail time. The business can also accept cash.
Attacking a significant part of someone's ability to function in society instead of attacking the the perceived injustice itself on its merits, by informing law enforcement, who's job is to carry out due process, suggests lack of confidence in the merits, or lack of trust in the justice system. It doesn't seem to argue for fairness, unless the one arguing for it accepts being at the receiving end of the argument.
> Attacking a significant part of someone's ability to function in society
I never said to attack the ability of someone to function in society. That's a side effect of a near monopoly. The actual problem is that a handful of companies control payment processing so it's easy for them to act together. The fix is more freedom not less freedom: far more companies that process payments and more choice. This allows companies to choose who they do business with and customers to find a payment processor who allows the types of purchases they like to make.
I don't think it's unreasonable for a payment processor to refuse to allow gun purchases. Or that it should be illegal to start a vegan credit card. Likewise it's not unreasonable for a payment processor to accept even very high risk businesses and make that their claim to fame. The fix in this case is to break up the monopoly and reintroduce competition.
Do you truly believe that when you'd make the decision to categorize a transaction as such, that decision would hold up in court, beyond a reasonable doubt, every time?
If not, then you have no place making it. And I would argue that even if you do, you still have no place making it, as unaccountable private corporations should not be given the ability (or requirement) to enforce law.
Certainly we can legally require you to report suspicious transactions to law enforcement, but it should be up to people bound to follow due process to actually do something (or not do something) about it.
I think a reasonable compromise might be to allow payment processors to put a transaction on hold until it's reviewed by law enforcement, but even this has some significant downsides.
> Do you truly believe that when you'd make the decision to categorize a transaction as such, that decision would hold up in court, beyond a reasonable doubt, every time? If not, then you have no place making it
What if I want to start a vegan credit card that only allows payments to vegan businesses? You're saying that should be illegal?
The best compromise is to not have a compromise and fix the actual problem instead of trying to fix side effects: make it far easier for companies to enter the payment processing space. With thousands of payment processors you'll very likely be able to find a company that is willing to process your credit card payments for vegan porn.
The real problem is a few huge players with near monopoly control.
