John Hinds, CEO of News Media Canada (formerly Newspapers Canada) reads an email from PayPal at his office in Toronto on Friday, Feb. 10, 2017. Hinds called it "scary" after PayPal froze his organization's payments account over a weekly newspaper story about a Syrian refugee family in Manitoba.
Image Credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Colin Perkel
February 10, 2017 - 11:31 AM
TORONTO - A community newspaper's payment to enter a feel-good story about a family of Syrian refugees in an awards competition prompted PayPal to freeze the account of a national media organization as a suspicious transaction, The Canadian Press has learned.
The action by the U.S.-based Internet giant has sparked dismay, anxiety and raised questions about Canadian autonomy.
"It's quite scary about how insidious the security agenda has become," said John Hinds, CEO of News Media Canada. "The demonization and racial profiling, that's really scary, too."
The weekly Flin Flon Reminder entered the article as part of its submissions to the annual Canadian Community Newspaper Awards. The feature article from July, 2016 outlines the challenges and triumphs as the family settled in the Manitoban town of 5,100 and the community's willingness to make them feel welcome.
Flin Flon publisher, Valerie Durnin, said when she tried to pay the $242.95 for the paper's entries, PayPal flagged the payment as possibly not in compliance with its "acceptable use policy," which she said she hadn't been able to track down. In an email, PayPal promised to follow up within 72 hours of its investigation, which it never did. Instead it reversed the payment.
This week, Durnin called News Media Canada — formerly Newspaper Canada — to find out what had happened. It was then that they realized PayPal had frozen the News Media Canada account, said Nicole Bunt, who processes the awards entries.
A PayPal message indicated the account had been limited, saying, "You may be buying or selling goods or services that are regulated or prohibited by the U.S. government." In an email, PayPal requested News Media Canada supply more information about its business, along with a "complete and detailed explanation of the transaction" and the purpose of the payment "Syrian family adapts to new life."
"We would like to learn more about your business and/or some of your recent transactions."
The PayPal note also said the company wants to be sure that people using the global payment service comply with regulations, including those from the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which, among other things, enforces sanctions targeting foreign countries and regimes, terrorists and international narcotics traffickers.
Hinds said he was nonplussed by the "extraterritoriality" of what had happened.
"Since when did the U.S. government start regulating Canadian media?" Hinds said. "It's pretty clear that our account is a newspaper account. It's not like we're Hamas Inc."
Bunt said she had supplied PayPal with the requested information and was waiting to hear back. As of Friday, however, the organization still couldn't send or receive any money. The good news, she said, was that the bulk of payments for the more than 1,000 entries had already been processed before the halt.
"We encourage people to pay by PayPal because it's quicker for us and easier to keep track of," Bunt said. "It was a really nice article, and unfortunately it was flagged for the word 'Syrian,' we were led to believe."
The company, based in San Jose, Calif., told The Canadian Press it was looking into the issue.
Durnin said everyone is aware of computer surveillance but what had happened had brought the awareness closer to home.
"It's pretty odd and unsettling," said Durnin, who initially thought the issue might have been the new credit card. "It's such a disconnect between what the story is actually about and the reaction to it based on the words in the story.
Hinds speculated that an automatic filter had flagged the payment — "it would be worse if a human was involved" — but wondered how many other reporters or media might run into problems given the nature of the stories they do.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2017