“We were punished.”
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That’s how Joe Lauria, the editor in chief of Consortium News, described PayPal’s decision to cut off their account.
Lauria has spent decades writing about international affairs, with the bulk of his career working as United Nations correspondent first for the Boston Globe and then for seven years at the Wall Street Journal. Those years taught him a skepticism of governments. He doesn’t parrot government propaganda—and he’s quick to call out other publications that do.
Consortium News was created in 1995 to be an internet-first news outlet—something that’s quotidian today but was groundbreaking at the time. The founder, Robert Parry, was a journalist best known for helping break the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s. In the wake of the Iraq War—when countless media outlets across the United States drummed up fears of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq—Parry wanted to create a more independent news outlet. Parry said he was concerned about a healthy democracy: “We looked at the underlying problems of modern democracy, particularly the insidious manipulation of citizens by government propaganda and the accomplice role played by mainstream media. Rather than encouraging diversity in analyses especially on topics of war and peace, today’s mainstream media takes a perverse pride in excluding responsible, alternative views.”
The question isn’t whether some websites spread false information. We already know that happens. The real question is this: Who should decide what is false information and what should be done about it?
Even after Parry passed away in 2018 and the baton was passed to Lauria, Consortium News has served as an independent voice. It offers a critical view of US engagements overseas and has provided ongoing, scathing coverage of US encroachments on press freedom.
When PayPal closed Consortium News’ account in May 2022, it held $9,000 of Consortium News’ funds. PayPal didn’t offer an explanation for why it shut off Consortium News’ account. But Lauria believes it was directly connected to their coverage of the war in Ukraine.
I spent hours reading through articles both on the Consortium News website and criticizing Consortium News to try to understand its role in the larger media landscape. In the weeks before PayPal’s decision to shutter their account, Consortium News published multiple articles about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and they didn’t merely paint Russia as an aggressor that must be stopped at all costs. Many of the articles on Consortium News were critical of the Ukrainian government’s current approach to the war and US’ involvement. One article published on Consortium News before the PayPal shutdown featured an interview with a Ukrainian academic whose book about President Volodymyr Zelensky painted his “neoliberal” economic policies as unpopular.
Another article discussed a curfew in the Ukrainian city of Odessa on the anniversary of a violent clash between pro-Ukraine and pro-Russia protesters. There was also an opinion piece from writer Caitlin Johnstone titled “Being Anti-War Isn’t Easy,” which argued that modern wars include a public messaging campaign that makes them palatable even to people who dislike the idea of war. “In theory people are just opposed to the idea of blowing other people up for no good reason,” wrote Johnstone. “In practice they’re always hit with a very intense barrage of media messaging giving them what looks like very good reasons why those people need to be blown up.”
PayPal never confirmed whether the account was closed for coverage of the war against Ukraine, and in fact provided hardly any explanation of why it had shuttered this pushy news outlet. As Lauria explained in an interview with podcast Scheer Intelligence on KCRW:
I only could surmise from their user agreement that they think we’ve published false information. What is that false information? What’s being left out purposely, deceptively, by the major media about these important facts to create a context for this Russian invasion of Ukraine.
And historians can talk about the Versailles treaty causing resentment in Germany, which led to the rise of Nazism in World War II, and that’s fine; that’s not excusing. But we can’t talk about the context and the causes of this war. That’s all we report; we don’t support either side. That might be a problem, because we’re not standing with Ukraine, but we are just trying to give a factual analysis of what caused this incredibly dangerous conflict.
Lauria also feared that PayPal wouldn’t be the only financial service to cut them off: “We’re worried about our bank account. We’re worried about another government-linked agency trying to sully our reputation. And we are not permitted to—well, we are so far, but the walls are closing in. PayPal may be the first step.”
Journalists started reporting on the account closure, including Matt Taibbi, Democracy Now!, and The Hill’s Kim Iversen. On social media, people were furious at PayPal.
On May 4, 2022, Lauria published an update on Consortium News noting that PayPal had “backed off” and would be unfreezing the organization’s funds, and he speculated that it was a response to the public outcry. The update from PayPal seemed to include the possibility that Consortium News could again begin receiving funds through PayPal: “Access to your account will remain limited until you perform the steps required to lift the limitation.”
However, two days later Lauria published another blog post. He said that a representative from PayPal’s Escalation Department told him that the notice about reinstating the PayPal account was in error and that Consortium News was permanently banned. Lauria wrote:
An agent from PayPal’s “escalation department” then said she could not provide any information about why the account was blocked because Robert Parry, the CN founder whose name is on the account, is deceased. She said they could only speak with him. PayPal is refusing to change the name to the current editor-in-chief because the account was permanently banned (even though days ago he submitted the documents necessary for a name change). The “escalation” agent also said she could not discuss details because she was worried about her “employment.”
Consortium News isn’t the only news outlet shuttered by PayPal in this way. Mint Press News is a small, independent outlet in Minnesota that started in 2012 as the passion project of journalist Mnar Adley. It offers alternative perspectives on many international news issues. It is particularly critical of Israeli violence against Palestinians. In April 2022, Mint Press News’ PayPal account and the personal PayPal account of their senior writer Alan MacLeod were closed without notice.
MacLeod spoke out about it, saying: “This is a warning shot fired at anyone even remotely antiestablishment. Alternative media operations run on shoestring budgets and rely on enormous corporations like PayPal to operate correctly. If they can do this to us, they can do it to you.”
Mint Press News was founded by Mnar Adley when she was twenty-four years old. When we met, Adley was poised and confident, wearing a stylish hijab of silver and white. While she founded Mint Press News in her twenties, she told me the idea was planted years earlier. An American citizen who spent the first nine years of her life in the United States, Adley then moved with her family to Jerusalem for four years. Returning to the United States was jarring. She told me about how strange it felt to be living in a place with a secure home, groceries, manicured lawns—no checkpoints, no restrictions, no military personnel on the streets pointing guns. She was stricken with survivor’s guilt for the easier life she enjoyed in the United States, and she struggled with PTSD from her early years in a land torn apart.
When she saw news coverage of what was happening in Israel in the early 2000s, it felt wrong to her. “I witnessed firsthand what it was like to live under an apartheid system and witness grave human rights abuses,” she told me, “only to come back to the United States to see how the media worked in the interests of the permanent war state.”
As a teenager just coming back from Jerusalem in the early 2000s, she felt the mainstream media wrongly painted the violence unfolding in Israel as a religious fight, but that it missed a huge piece of what was going on. Adley felt it should be viewed “through the lens of colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid and military occupation.”
Talking to Adley, I initially got the impression that she was an idealist—someone who felt she could change the world through journalism. But as our interview progressed, that seemed to be the wrong word. She was collected, fierce, and frankly jaded in her discussion of efforts to document wars around the world. “Relentless” is probably a more fitting word.
Like Consortium News, Mint Press News never got answers from PayPal about why it lost its account. And just as those with Consortium News believe, Adley thinks the site was targeted in a crackdown on so-called fake news.
“Fake news” is a label that has been cast at Mint Press News before. But the website isn’t full of articles about how the earth is flat or how aliens are controlling our government. It is filled with articles criticizing America’s involvement in overseas wars.
As with Consortium News, I tried to understand what was going on with Mint Press News by spending hours reading articles published on the site as well as articles from outsiders criticizing the outlet. The most controversial and debated article on Mint Press News is about the use of chemical agents in the Syrian civil war. While the United States had initially decided to stay out of the Syrian conflict, President Barack Obama had warned that the use of chemical agents would be a “red line.”
Then there were a series of deadly chemical attacks in Syria, including a particularly horrifying attack in Ghouta that left hundreds of people—including children—dead. This prompted the United States to authorize air strikes against the Syrian government. Mint Press News raised questions about what happened in Ghouta. It published an article with interviews from people in Syria, including fighters and family members of fighters, who questioned whether the al-Assad government was behind the attacks. The article was subsequently criticized as promoting fake news. Mint Press News didn’t remove the article but did update it to note: “Some information in this article could not be independently verified.”
During our interview, I asked Adley about the allegations that Mint Press News has published fake news. She didn’t flinch from the question. Instead, she said that we are living in an information war, and that those in power have a specific agenda to ensure that the United States stays at war—and information is disseminated to the media to advance that agenda. She pointed to media stories that were later debunked—like the famed weapons of mass destruction that fueled US engagement in Iraq—and said these ideas “were pushed and perpetuated by the mainstream corporate media outlets from the Washington Post to the New York Times, CNN, Fox News.” She saw Mint Press News playing an integral role in countering mainstream media narratives.
I also asked Adley how it felt to learn that the Mint Press News PayPal account had been suspended. “I was kind of shocked at first, but then I was like: Why do I feel shocked about this? This is not the first time we’ve been targeted,” she recalled. “But it was the first time we had been targeted in a financial way.”
The message Adley received explained that the account had violated PayPal’s terms of service. She was certain it was due to Mint Press News’ articles. She tried calling PayPal but got no definitive answers: “I kept getting transferred everywhere, but never to somebody at a high-level decision-making position.”
PayPal never confirmed that it closed Mint Press News and Consortium News over concerns about fake news. It never offered an explanation at all. But we do know PayPal was increasingly interested in the issue of fake news at that time.
In October 2022, a few months after the account closures of Mint Press News and Consortium News, a new version of PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy was publicized that included a prohibition against “sending, posting or publication of any content or materials that, in PayPal’s sole discretion,” are harmful or “promote misinformation.” PayPal’s terms promised a $2,500 fine for each violation, to be removed directly from one’s PayPal account. David Marcus, former president of PayPal, was dismayed by the change, writing on Twitter, “It’s hard for me to openly criticize a company I used to love and gave so much to. But @PayPal’s new AUP goes against everything I believe in. A private company now gets to decide to take your money if you say something they disagree with. Insanity.”
Reporting on this new policy prompted public condemnation as well as a letter of inquiry from senior House Republicans. It also prompted concerns from the civil liberties community. As Aaron Terr, a senior program officer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, explained: “Whatever motivation PayPal has for establishing these vague new categories of prohibited expression, they will almost certainly have a severe chilling effect on users’ speech. As is often the case with ill-defined and viewpoint-discriminatory speech codes, those with unpopular or minority viewpoints will likely bear the brunt of these restrictions.”
In the face of this huge public backlash, PayPal walked back its position. A PayPal spokesperson told Axios that the policy went out in error and included incorrect information. “PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy. Our teams are working to correct our policy pages. We’re sorry for the confusion this has caused.” Removing this controversial section of its terms of service did not result in Mint Press News or Consortium News getting their accounts reinstated.
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Having spent a lot of time on the websites of Consortium News and Mint Press News, it’s clear that both news outlets are reporting on foreign policy from an antiauthoritarian perspective. They are critical of US foreign policy interventions and unabashed in that position. There are also questions about the sources of their articles. In taking positions that run counter to mainstream outlets, are these news outlets promoting false information? Mint Press News, in particular, has faced repeated criticisms of spreading misinformation.
Censorship by payment processors should not be one of the tools we turn to. It’s too blunt of an instrument, wielded by companies that have no incentive to value speech.
Wartime news coverage is notoriously tricky. Nation-states are highly invested in projecting certain narratives about a war that align with their interests while downplaying contradictory narratives. That’s not a conspiracy theory; that’s just common sense. The widespread reach of social media has brought videos of war zones and the voices of people living through wars to global audiences, but often provocative images and videos that lack context can spread and be reshared in ways that further strip away context and nuance. It can be dangerous and difficult for journalists to report in war zones, and armies are understandably reticent to share details of their location, actions, and future plans.
As a result of these and other factors, the true story of a war may not be known until long after the conflict has ended. That story may even evolve over time based on witness reports, analysis by independent NGOs, and government reports—whether released on purpose or through whistleblowers.
I’ve come to think the phrase “fake news” as it’s commonly used is unhelpfully vague. It can be used to discredit antiestablishment independent media that counters government narratives, call out digitally altered and enhanced media that is used to prop up authoritarian government narratives, or describe whimsical, weird conspiracy theories, like how condensation left in the wake of high-flying aircraft is a nefarious chemical agent.
The question isn’t whether some websites spread false information. We already know that happens. The real question is this: Who should decide what is false information and what should be done about it?
Press freedom is a hollow term if it’s only used to defend journalists who are popular and uncontroversial. Journalistic outlets that challenge government power, corporate interests, and popular opinion are far more likely to face censorship than their mainstream counterparts. That’s because these outlets are more likely to attract the ire of the powerful while having fewer allies to defend them. Sometimes the dissenting voices that face the most censorship eventually prove to be particularly valuable to society for their efforts to report on abuses of power and spur reform.
As we continue to examine the role of payment intermediaries shuttering the accounts of news outlets and journalists, we need to hold space for two different values at the same time: first, that truth in journalism is important and necessary for a functional democratic society, and second, that payment intermediaries are ill equipped and inappropriate to decide which journalism is truthful or socially beneficial.
Payment services don’t have any incentive to consider the value of controversial and unpopular speech or how it may benefit our society. These services don’t have systems to ensure transparency, fair decision-making, and useful appeal processes for closed accounts. Especially when we consider the complexity and challenges of providing accurate, real-time reporting on war, financial services providers can’t act as competent judges of journalism.
Most importantly, financial companies are not positioned to help determine the impact of censorship on our democracy.
Fake news and misinformation are serious problems that require real solutions. Social media platforms and other information sharing services have been looking for ways to limit the spread of misinformation, offer additional context on articles with questionable information, and make fake news harder to find. Academics are studying the problem, and lawmakers are examining whether and how new legislation can help address the issue. Schools are even experimenting with teaching media literacy so that students can identify false information online. There are many tools for tackling this thorny issue, which is good because it’s probably going to take a range of tactics to address these issues.
Censorship by payment processors should not be one of the tools we turn to. It’s too blunt of an instrument, wielded by companies that have no incentive to value speech. But this tool has been used to punish controversial news sites, and for a long time.
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Excerpted from Transaction Denied: Big Finance’s Power to Punish Speech by Rainey Reitman. Copyright © 2026. Excerpted with permission by Beacon Press.
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