Cross posted from https://lemmy.zip/post/65355368

What if you woke up tomorrow and completely lost access to your bank account, credit cards, PayPal, and Venmo, all because of something you posted online?

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[–] 27 points 5 months ago (2 children)

The EU's payment processors cannot come fast enough.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Why do you assume EU's or any other payment processor for that matter would be any less draconian? EU and the US are not that far apart when it comes to puritan nonsense.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago

    Why do you assume EU's or any other payment processor for that matter would be any less draconian?

    Because the EU has MUCH better privacy and consumer protection laws than the US.

    EU and the US are not that far apart when it comes to puritan nonsense.

    That's simply not true.

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  • [–] 14 points 5 months ago

    They've already been no small arbiters of what is and is not "acceptable" by just refusing to service certain transactions and industries.

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  • [–] 13 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I mean, the gap will be filled with something not Visa/Mastercard if they keep it up.

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  • [–] 16 points 5 months ago

    Many countries are already implementing independent payment systems. What's missing is international payments that could be simple, but most of these national systems don't allow interoperability yet. I really hope they tackle this soon.

    That and reserving money like for car rental and other deposits. Shouldn't require a credit card. A bank or payment provider could implement this transparently.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    Ruin it more?

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    If it was tomorrow they did that to me, I probably wouldn't even notice for a few days.

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  • 63 comments in c/privacy@programming.dev view that post
    [–] 36 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Class action lawsuit. Their terms and conditions when I opened my accounts did not mention this and further, updating those terms and conditions and then closing my accounts is not justifiable. Since I'm likely not the only one they will do this to, it sounds to me like they need to learn a lesson.

    My online campaign to point out every time one of their executives has said anything sus would be legendary.

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago

    If things were shut down to prevent access to anything, I don't think legal action is possible, or even the path to take. Probably why it would never be done that quickly or drastically. The art of oppression is knowing the limit of what people will put up with and not crossing the line, but moving the line slowly. Go too fast, the commons get upset and find their torches.

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  • [–] 20 points 5 months ago (22 children)

    Pretty sure having a bank account is like an EU right, so banks can't just close your account willy-nilly over some online post.

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  • [–] 10 points 5 months ago (18 children)

    Yes, but VISA would hold the keys to the infrastructure that let's you use it in in a modern world.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (15 children)

    WERO might be the EU alternative.

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  • [+] -4 points 5 months ago (15 children)
  • [+] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (14 children)
  • [+] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (13 children)
  • [–] -1 points 5 months ago (12 children)

    The way to fight the surveillance state is to keep the fight simple

    Fight for free computing, keep encryption legal.

    With those two you can build much more on top, like secure communication, Monero and other crypto, etc.

    There is no need for a national currency like Wero

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  • [+] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (7 children)
  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (6 children)

    I simply don't want the government to be able to sanction individuals, block certain transactions they don't like. So I'm against any payment system controlled by a central authority (banks, government, etc)

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  • [+] 1 point 5 months ago* (5 children)
  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (4 children)

    I don't think my proposition was a big ask. Free computing and legal encryption are already the norm, I'm simply saying we should not let them be taken away.

    But I imagine that you're not talking about that. I imagine you're talking about the adoption of crypto. You are right, that it's a greater leap than Wero. But I would also hesitate to call Wero an improvement over the existing system. Visa and Mastercard are problematic due to their scale. That is why their actions become oppressive. If Wero reaches the same scale, then what prevents Wero from censoring the same content? Visa and Mastercard already compete with each other, why did they cooperate to censor porn previously, and why wouldn't Wero do the same?

    The problem is centralization. Small central authorities having control over the world's payment systems. Wero doesn't solve that. Now I don't mind incremental improvements, but as long as we recognize that the problem is centralization, then we should also be pushing for decentralization, and the only system we have that supports it (crypto).

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  • [+] 1 point 5 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    I'm not convinced that a triopoly (not sure what it's called) is significantly different from a duopoly.

    My own views are that we need a balance of control and chaos. Both extremes have substantual downsides.

    My main view is that a centralized system can be built on top of a decentralized one, but not the other way around. And by the way, if crypto and traditional banking co-existed, with broad support for both, that would be a decentralized system, and I'm fine with that. As long as people can easily convert their fiat to crypto and interact with the same sellers in order to bypass censorship.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (3 children)

    The problem with all of that is the "and other crypto" bit nestled in there.

    You KNOW crypto on-the-whole is bad for humans, because the Orange Menace is promoting it.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    "and other crypto" is there because the technology is still developing. I love Monero because it's private, and it's effectively the only way we have right now to make payments anonymously. But it also uses proof-of-work, aka bad for the environment. A choose-between-two-evils situation. But I'm confident a proof-of-stake coin can have the same privacy properties of Monero without the environmental concerns. That's why I talk about crypto the technology as a whole, and not specifically Monero.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I can agree that value proposition was a siren song, and that I backed a Fistful of POS coins POST coins during the second and third crypto waves , but I fully exited that space because I believe it is inherently exploitable and that the technologies will not be a net benefit for humans.

    I get that a few of the tech firms I like including MullVad VPN company accept Monero as payment and I too want there to be financial networks which the US dollar and its interests can't lock people out of. But seeing the radical swings of Monero valuation, and it being the best example you and I have got, means the landscape is pretty disappointing for me because it will be pretty inaccessible for others.

    At this point I'm just trying to learn how to get an intl bank account which will allow me to interface with BRICs.

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    [–] 20 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Visa is already censoring the world's porn. As if we needed more reason to hate them.

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago*

    It has been happening for a long time now. Say something the government doesn't like and suddenly your bank and credit cards stop working.

    This is done through a perverse private/public partnership where the US government will give a vague instruction to deplatform an individual or group and a private company will voluntarily enact this de facto ban.

    The government then gets to claim they are not banning anyone and the private company can say they reserve the right not to do business with anyone.

    Hell it used to be common to not even allow women or blacks access to banking.

    https://kindredfutures.org/trapped-by-design-background/

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  • [–] 21 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    For the USA and the rest of the world, Brazil has its own payment system as far as I know, and Europe is making one already, so jokes on you. Correct me if I'm wrong.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    We have several, but are mostly country level. We are working on interconnecting them so payments and money can flow along the EU without any USA dependency.

    And there is also the digital Euro for small payments, that is being also being developed right now.

    International bank transfers and direct debit are already in place via the SEPA instruments.

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Asia has a very unique financial system in this sense. They are not reliant on 3rd party payment processors that can be counted on one hand, and they usually support P2P payment between banks. They also usually prefer to use QR than NFC (like on wechat, line, and kakao). This is one example standard that I found from Indonesia called QRIS, and they are expanding it wherever they can. Of course Visa is upset about those lol (see the section about US Government response)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QRIS

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  • [–] 14 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    Without having watched the video, but having an idea of what it's about given seeing a few places and creators I follow being sanctioned because the payment processors getting butthurt, I think it's worth mentioning crypto and direct competitors to the Visa and Mastercard mono(duo?)poly.

    On crypto, if issue is that it burns too much energy, afaik generally new technologies are like that, improvements to consumption happening over time.

    And about direct competitors, Russia made one from what I read, Brazil has Elo, and I think the EU was introducing their own recently. All 3 countries/country-like territories with their own problems, but I think it's a worth idea to copy and improve upon.

    Also fomenting use of physical cash is a good idea too, me thinks.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    I think you're confusing Elo (just a local company) with Pix, a government created interbank payment system. And from what I know of Pix, yes, we should all definitely copy that.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    Elo the "bandeira" (forgot the name), similar to Visa and Mastercard. But about Pix, now that you mention it, I think PayPal does too? Although not in some countries.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    Pix has no taxing whatsoever in direct transactions. The only reason people still use cards is due to habit.

    Banks also offer parceling payment, but each one does that on it's own way afaik. I never used it. Not leaving payments for the future is a load of my mind tbh.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Fwiw, there are already some cryptos which use proof-of-stake instead of proof-of-work which overcomes the entire electricity consumption thing.

    I do wish that places started accepting cryptos which were meant to be used for transactions (e.g. NANO) rather than ones like bitcoin that just happen to have existed for a while, but is technically inferior to most everything else.

    Unfortunately, crypto in general challenges not just payment processors but the entire banking industry, and that's probably too much to ever succeed.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Interesting!

    About challenging the industry, I remember reading some years ago that Visa/MC enforced higher taxes on the companies that also accepted crypto. If that is/still is a thing, might give a hint of why it isn't more widely accepted.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    Yeah, it's probably part of it! Banks are even more obvious about it. E.g. in the UK where crypto is a taxed and somewhat regulated thing, most of the banks have taken the stance of rejecting any payments to and from(!) exchanges, even if they're approved by the government. All because it's "high risk so they want to protect users". No such issue with gambling though, obviously.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    Good thing I deleted PayPal as soon as I heard of this. They can't do shit to me.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    I know this is off topic but the cc companies are going crazy from a state law that passed saying how oh it will be so bad because they just won't be able to handle it at all and will have to pull out or something. eff em.

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  • [+] 12 points 5 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

    Lol wut.

    Most banks in Germany charge you for taking cash out of your own account. It's one of the most difficult countries to use cash without getting fined for using cash

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  • [+] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Also ATMs have max withdrawals. And if you want to take a larger amount from a human at the window, there's a fee for that too.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago

    Time for more monero

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (8 children)
  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (7 children)
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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    Are you being intentionally dense? There's no article, only video.

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    They are clearly implying that they don't want a video, they want an article. I also would, but since there isn't one I'm just hear for the comments.

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  • [–] -4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Then there's no information, only misinformation

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    It's weird how hostile we are to reading, and how malleable we are to video.

    I'm the same way about expecting people to cite real sources; incidentally, I caught a bunch of flak last week on Lemmy for asking for literally any other source than one self-aggrandizing vlogger.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    The vocal fry made that video unwatchable, jfk. I think the video is about financial censorship. They have been warning about this for more than a decade now, but most recently Trump issued an executive order to force payment providers to keep customers despite religious or political beliefs (article by yahoo finance).

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    This is why I liked the idea of Bitcoin in the beginning. (Before it became what it is now).

    I still like Monero. It would make shit like this impossible to touch by authoritarian idiots.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

    That point has been completely missed by all the speculators and the characters who hate the speculators, especially the institutional gamblers but think they hate btc.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago
    [–] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

    Remember that there exist alternatives to the big three US payment processors.

    China's UnionPay is pretty much global now, one can open a bank account remotely in Hong Kong or Singapore and go through UnionPay.

    Russia's Mir is the answer to the current geopolitical situation and the country being cut off from SWIFT, they are backed by UnionPay and are accepted all over Asia, Africa and increasingly in Latin America, many local banks in these parts will give you a card with Mir if you request it.

    India's UPI is also gaining traction in the subcontinent, in Europe Wero is rolling out as an answer to US dependency.

    You don't have to be a prisoner to the three American processors, even in the US and Canada, UnionPay is gaining traction as a result of the demand from the Chinese diaspora and business owners.

    Competition is good for business.

    Edit : typo car -> card

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  • [–] -3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

    What if you woke up tomorrow...

    Yes if you "woke" up too much you will be censured

    Edit: seems misunderstood , it is a bad thing that anything considered too woke is being censored

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