Max Blumenthal, the editor of The Grayzone, reports:

“This October, Paypal suspended The Grayzone’s account, blocking our audience from donating to us without explaining anything to them, and preventing us from accessing several thousand dollars already in the account. In order to regain access, Paypal has demanded we go through an invasive process requiring us to provide photo ID, tax forms, and to explain two donations totaling $40 from a private citizen in Australia.” 

By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News

Blumenthal investigated the suspicious ban by interviewing the small donor flagged by Paypal. What he learned “confirms that our account was blocked on political grounds, and raises some truly disturbing questions about the role of the Five Eyes global surveillance network in undermining independent media.” WATCH the 8 min 37 sec video above. 

Consortium News’ PayPal account was permanently suspended in May 2022. PayPal refused to give any reason. It told CN: “You can’t use PayPal anymore. … We noticed activity in your account that’s inconsistent with our User Agreement and we no longer offer you PayPal services. … Because of potential risk exposure, we’ve permanently limited your account. You’ll no longer be able to use the account for any transactions.”

The ban led to an outpouring of public support for Consortium News.

The only reasonable conclusion for PayPal’s ban on CN is a supposed violation in PayPal’s user agreement of providing “false, inaccurate or misleading information.” CN does not engage in any other trade than information.  

If seen in the context of critics of U.S. policy in Ukraine having been kicked off platforms like Twitter at the time, including three Consortium News writers, the logical conclusion to be drawn was that CN‘s critical coverage of Washington’s Ukraine policy was the reason behind PayPal’s action.

PayPal may have been working on the advice of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). In July 2021, the ADL and PayPal announced a “partnership initiative to fight extremism and hate through the financial industry …” It would be an extraordinary stretch to conclude that Consortium News was engaging in “extremism” or “hate” because of its Ukraine coverage. 

However, CN has reported extensively, since its founder Robert Parry first did in 2014, about the influential role of neo-Nazism in Ukraine’s military. 

In a speech to the U.N. Security Council days before PayPal’s 2022 permanent ban was confirmed, British ambassador Barbara Woodward said, “We are deeply concerned that Russia’s war is accompanied by a propaganda campaign, including in this Council, designed to dehumanise and demonise Ukrainians by labelling them as neo-Nazis. This hate speech is extremely dangerous.” 

Reuters reported that PayPal transactions would be researched by the ADL’s Center on Extremism to also combat “anti-government organizations.” Reuters said: “The information collected through the initiatives will be shared with other firms in the financial industry, law enforcement and policymakers, PayPal said.”   

That raises the specter that government and law enforcement may have been involved in PayPal’s decision on Consortium News. 

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.

https://consortiumnews.com/2026/02/06/paypal-blocks-grayzone-over-iranians-40-donation/

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