Financial deplatforming will be the next phase of online censorship

Financial deplatforming will be the next phase of online censorship. This has now arrived in Canada. We cannot allow it to become our future in the U.S.

A Social Credit System Arrives in Canada

Justin Trudeau just created a caste of economic untouchables. Can we stop this dystopian policy from taking hold in America?

Last summer, I warned readers of Common Sense that financial deplatforming would be the next wave of online censorship. Big Tech companies like PayPal were already working with left-wing groups like the ADL and SPLC to define lists of individuals and groups who should be denied service. As more and more similarly minded tech companies followed suit (as happened with social media censorship), these deplorables would be deplatformed, debanked, and eventually denied access to the modern economy altogether, as punishment for their unacceptable views.

That prediction has become reality.

What I could not have anticipated is that it would occur first in our mild-mannered neighbor to the north, with the Canadian government itself directing the reprisals. It remains to be seen whether Canada will be a bellwether for the U.S. But anyone who cares about the future of America as a place where citizens are free to protest their government needs to understand what has just occurred and work to stop it from taking root here.

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Trudeau escalated things further on Tuesday night, when he issued a new directive called the Emergency Economic Measures Order. Invoking a War on Terror law called the Proceeds of Crime and Terrorist Financing Act, the order requires financial institutions—including banks, credit unions, co-ops, loan companies, trusts, and even cryptocurrency wallets—to stop “providing any financial or related services” to anyone associated with the protests (a “designated person”). This has resulted, according to the CBC, in “frozen accounts, stranded money and canceled credit cards.”

Banks, according to this new order, have a “duty to determine” if one of their customers is a “designated person.” A “designated person” can refer to anyone who “directly or indirectly” participates in the protest, including donors who “provide property to facilitate” the protests through crowdfunding sites. In other words, a designated person can just as easily be a grandmother who donated $25 to support the truckers as one of the organizers of the convoy.

Because the donor data to the crowdfunding site GiveSendGo was hacked—and the leaked data shows that Canadians donated most of the $8 million raised—many thousands of law-abiding Canadians now face the prospect of financial retaliation and ruin merely for supporting an anti-government protest.

Already, a low-level government official in Ontario was fired after her $100 donation came to light. A gelato shop was forced to close when it received threats after its owner was revealed to have donated to the protest. On Wednesday, Justice Minister David Lametti went on Canadian television to say the quiet part aloud, namely that anyone contributing to “a pro-Trump movement” should be “worried” about their bank accounts and other financial assets being frozen.
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How did things get to this point? For years, ideologues have used accusations of bigotry to hound people from their jobs, kick them off social media, and rescind their right to participate in the online economy. However, many observers shrugged off these cases as outliers—fringe examples that could be ignored because they affected unsympathetic individuals. But now we have a wide-ranging group of working-class people and their supporters who are being financially deplatformed for civil disobedience.

The Canadian truckers have been so thoroughly defamed as racists and bigots by the media on both sides of the border that few are thinking about the nightmarish implications for ordinary citizens. For the most part, the CBC, CNN, MSNBC, and the major newspapers in both countries have cheered and egged Trudeau on as he descends into authoritarianism—even as various Canadian provinces rescind the vaccine mandates that originally inspired the protests.
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How do we stop this dystopian policy from taking root here in the United States?
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The real answer lies in politics and the law. Policy makers need to build safeguards into our laws that protect citizens’ financial rights against some future emergency that would be used as the excuse to take them away. Just as University of Chicago professor Richard Epstein proposed that the largest social media companies should be treated as common carriers to prohibit them from restricting speech, we may need to prohibit the largest financial institutions from denying citizens access to the financial system because they dislike their politics. In order to prevent discrimination on the basis of creed, political beliefs may need to become a protected class.

We must also stop the definition creep around “terrorism,” a term whose use has become so elastic that it now even includes angry moms fighting school boards. Just this month, the Department of Homeland Security made a little-noticed change in its definition of domestic terrorism, citing “widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19” as a key driver of what it deemed a heightened domestic terror threat environment. As we have seen for over 20 years, “terrorism” is the magic word by which any curtailment of rights and expansion of government power can be justified.

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/a-s...utm_source=url

Mark Strahl, Member of Parliament: Briane is a single mom from Chilliwack working a minimum wage job. She gave $50 to the convoy when it was 100% legal. She hasn’t participated in any other way. Her bank account has now been frozen. This is who Justin Trudeau is actually targeting with his Emergencies Act orders.


206 bank accounts affiliated with the Canadian trucker convoy already frozen. More to come. Frigid temperatures, unable to pay bills, and no idea if/when you will get access to your money again. If this were done in Venezuela, China or Russia it would be seen as another authoritarian step. Fuck the fascists doing this and supporting this

I don’t care if you don’t support or have grievances with the trucker protest. The government is freezing bank accounts and harassing small businesses based on perceived wrongthink in a our northern neighbor, which is both horrifying and wildly disproportionate.

Ottawa police are now going after local business owners who served the truck drivers, like this coffee shop that served coffee to them, thanks to tips by local residents. They are forcing them to close.

https://twitter.com/stillgray/status...q74ZlC9O26orow

Can you imagine if Trump had tried to do to BLM what Trudeau is doing to the truckers? The media would have called for his immediate impeachment. Banks would have refused to cooperate—hell, they’d have released statements saying they stand with the protesters against Trump.

Told you. I hope when conservatives regain control, every libtard who supported this fascist regime has their bank account frozen and their funds seized. That is the only way the idiotic libtards will learn.

Trudeau Government Moves to Make Expanded Surveillance Powers over Financial Transactions 'Permanent'

https://www.nationalreview.com/corne...ons-permanent/

Trudeau's deputy, Chrystia Freeland, had already said she plans to make the bank seizure powers permanent. Today Trudeau said he will continue with the emergency, even though all the trucker blockades are long gone.

He plans to make this a permanent emergency. It's a coup by a fascist dictator.

... As I mention - don't believe the news media.
The Trucker convoy people have a "plan B"...

#### Salty

This is fucking crazy. The tree of liberty will be getting awful thirsty if stuff like this and unlawful jailing of J6 people persists.

Told you. I hope when conservatives regain control, every libtard who supported this fascist regime has their bank account frozen and their funds seized. That is the only way the idiotic libtards will learn. Originally Posted by berryberry

You've shot yourself in the foot here pal. First you complain about others having accounts frozen, and then in the same thread wish you ideological opposites have the same done.

"The only way an idiot learns."

Maybe you and Trudeau have more in common than you thought?

But my how hypocritic you do sound.

... As I mention - don't believe the news media.
The Trucker convoy people have a "plan B"...

#### Salty Originally Posted by Salty Again

I actually don't think they do, and that's the problem they never thought of an exit strategy. Hard workers who likely didn't think things would last as long as they did. Sadly they should have thought this out a little further down the road than just idling and honking, while they created a blockade. As I've mentioned I don't have anything against protest, but I do not agree with a blockade that affects other people. It's not an inconvenience when we're starting to talk about millions or billions of dollars.

You've shot yourself in the foot here pal. First you complain about others having accounts frozen, and then in the same thread wish you ideological opposites have the same done.

"The only way an idiot learns."

Maybe you and Trudeau have more in common than you thought?

But my how hypocritic you do sound. Originally Posted by eyecu2

Hypocritical sure - but needed, absolutely. When you have moronic libtards supporting fascist actions like this because they simply don't agree with the political views of the protestors, the only action idiots like these libtards understand is when the tables are turned on them. They never think the same thing could happen to them. Time to prove them wrong

That is the problem - conservatives have for too long played nice. It's time to turn the tables and do to the fucking libtards what they have done to loads of innocent people

Just a comment- but

What I sense from many posts on here is frustration, and of course some internet muscles from both sides. Shame the ppl in Washington can't just grab few beers and agree on some shit. Most people I know can do that and get along & Im pretty sure we'd all be able to do it and still laugh about libtards / reptards and all the rest. We're all in this shit together and while Putin is making crazy plans, China's plotting to scheme on us, and immigrants are racing here....in the end, all us Americans, need to boot out the fuckers who have let the polarization of our country, get out of hand, and get back to solving problems through compromise and getting along.

I know..a pipe dream perhaps but a better result than continuing a political rift in our country. If not we didn't learn a fucking thing since Gettysburg.

Sounds great until you realize that the keyboard warrior's been playing nice all this time and is lamenting taking it so easy on you

But the oranges...

If only Trudeau didn't know everyone's real names and bank account info Ronnie D wouldn't have to save him from financial ruin.

... Trudeau and his people won't be able to remain
in power forever.... Leaderships there are surely
looking for escape as Trudeau has them caught-up in this.

The Freedom protest has been GOOD as pulling-away
the curtain of "democracy" and showing Trudeau
and his liberal mates for what the REALLY are:
Militant agents who want to rule by COMPLETE FORCE.

Now the last day or so has surely met the correct silence
of the oppressed. ... First stage is SHOCK and FEAR.
The next stage will be ANGER and RETRIBUTION.

Trudeau's assault on the civil liberties of Canadians will
surely have far-reaching consequences for elected officials.
They are the ones at the centre of things.

The Canadian people are watching this unfold - and to
their great horror - the see just how corrupt their
elected officials really are - the masks are off.

#### Salty