Financial services company PayPal has announced a new partnership with not-for-profit-making organization – the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which is aimed at investigating how the eponymous platform is taken advantage of by extremists and hate movements in the United States and used to fund their criminal activities. According to PayPal and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the initiative will be led through the ADL’s Centre on Extremism. The partnership is, therefore, focused on demystifying and abating the financial flows that support white supremacists and organizations that are against the government.
The research will also look into movements and extremists that are using the platform for spreading and advancing movements such as antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, anti-immigrant, anti-Black, anti-Hispanic, and anti-Asian bigotry.
In a recent interview, PayPal’s Chief Risk Officer and Executive Vice President for Risk and Platforms said that “we’re hoping to have an impact on fighting hatred and extremism, which sadly seems to be surging in society across the globe. As the son of a Holocaust survivor, I know all too well the real-world impact that comes from hatred and extremist groups.”
PayPal revealed that the information collected at the end of the research inquiry will be shared across other financial institutions in the industry as well as policymakers and law enforcement agencies.
This is not the company’s first attempt at ensuring that its platform isn’t fuelling any notorious and illegal activity. Last year, it teamed up with a handful of academics and criminologists to research how payments systems are used to promote the trafficking of illegal firearms. PayPal also formed a partnership with Polaris, another non-profit group to combat the trafficking of humans through a joint Financial Intelligence Unit. PayPal has also taken several actions against businesses peddling extremism that were attempting to use its platforms over the years.
The company, with all the partnerships and initiatives, hopes to make a positive social impact, and according to Chief Risk Officer Aaron Karczmer, the company has developed quite a handful of systems to tackle and even bar illegal activity and flows through its platform.
CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) – Jonathan Greenblatt, talking about the partnership said that “we have a unique opportunity to further understand how hate spreads and develop key insights that will inform the efforts of the financial industry, law enforcement, and our communities in mitigating extremist threats.”
The initiative also entails PayPal and ADL working with other civil rights organizations such as the League of United Latin American Citizens.
Ibhadojemu Lucky Emmanuel is a graduate of Education and Economics from the University of Benin. He has a passion for tech and business and has been writing professionally for over a period of five years. He's written across various topics and segments and knew tech-business was it when he first stumbled on it. He has a great passion for music and arts, and wants to visit as many countries as he can someday.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
