Apparently, the market for vile, loathsome, bottom-dwelling bigots, racists, xenophobes and anti-Semites just isn't what it used to be.
As always, send money.
P.S. More to come ...
AFTERSNARK: To no one's surprise, Ezra misrepresents reality ...
Um, no. According to the Rebel's own masthead, the sole addition to its stable of utterly fake journalists is one Adam Soos, so the suggestion of having hired new "reporters" (plural) appears to be nonsense, even after the gullible rubes of Rebel Nation crammed almost half a million up Ezra's pasty backside recently to do exactly that:
This story is not over.
BONUS TRACK: I will leave you with one more observation on this whole fiasco, then I will get back to work. Over at the Urban Dictionary, you find the following absolutely delightful definition of "grift":
Note well the highlighted portion, characterizing some forms of grift as when the need for financially support is significantly overstated, or (and here's the kicker) "typically by stoking fears of being censored," and if that last bit doesn't just scream "Rebel News" at you, then you haven't been paying attention.
The last few months alone have seen a number of hysterical Doomsdsay scenarios from Rebel Obergruppenfuhrer Ezra Levant, in every case shrieking about how he suddenly needs a massive cash infusion to soldier on:
- "A banker [sic] just called in our loan -- without your immediate financial support, we might not survive!"
- "We've just been de-monetized by YouTube -- without your immediate financial support, we might not survive!"
- "We've just been kicked off PayPal -- without your immediate financial support, we might not survive!"
Are you starting to see the pattern?
EVEN MORE CRUNCHY GOODNESS: Commenter on previous post properly mocks Ezra's tiresome shtick of "Gosh, I have no idea what we've done wrong, if only someone would explain it to us!":
As was the case with his YouTube cancellation, Ezra professes complete astonishment about which of Paypal's terms he might have violated. I would think that's pretty obvious.Paypal does not permit transactions that "...encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity." The Rebel has been celebrating and promoting violation of public health measures, assisting with the organization and promotion of events held specifically to mock and flaunt the law, and in some cases supporting people in sneaking out of legal quarantine.Or could it be the provision that forbids "...the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance"?
I think that sums it up nicely.
AND IT JUST GOES ON ... as even the replies to Rebel News Online's Twitter account have had enough of their relentless pandering ...
ABOUT THAT "FIGHT THE FINES" CAMPAIGN: So here's a thought ... recall Rebel News' "Fight the Fines" campaign, where Ezra and Co. explicitly encouraged people to go and violate lockdown regulations and get ticketed, wherein Rebel would selectively decide who to represent in court to fight the ticket. What happens to people who were dumb enough to take Ezra's advice, choose to get, perhaps, a $2,000 fine, and now have to deal with the fallout of Rebel News being kicked to the curb by PayPal?
If a lot of the donations to that campaign were coming in via PayPal, then some of those gullible buffoons might be shit out of luck as, having got those expensive tickets and sent in their applications to Rebel for legal representation, what are the chances that what they're going to hear back is, "Yeah, I know we told you to go out and act like idiots and get a huge fine and that we'd be here for you but, see, things have changed so you're on your own and good luck with that"?
Rebel News is completely off the hook here as they made it excruciatingly clear that they had the freedom to pick and choose who to represent, so absolutely no one can claim they were promised anything. But one wonders if there's going to be any blowback if Rebel just cans that entire campaign due to lack of funds, leaving all those suggestible twits with tickets they're now responsible for.
As people say, stupidity should be painful. And expensive.
HUMOUR:
Canadian right-wingers: "We should start a payment service exclusively devoted to far-right groups and agitators and provocateurs here in Canada!"
RCMP: "Well, that would make our putting together a domestic terrorist watch list a lot easier, yes."
*SIGH* ... Disliking Rebel News dismissed as being anti-Semitic in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...
8 comments:
Regarding what part of PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) that Rebel News has violated, I can think of one obvious example. Rebel has been raising money for their stupid "Fight the Fines" program, where they promise to bankroll legal challenges for people getting tickets for breaking lockdown regulations.
In other words, Rebel appears to be using PayPal for the express purpose of raising money to encourage people to participate in illegal behaviour. I'm not sure it gets more obvious than that since PayPal's AUP clearly states that you can't use PayPal for any transactions that "encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity."
Rebel doesn't have a legal leg to stand on here. They're fucked.
What the previous commenter said; PayPal has totally covered their asses here. Rebel has zero chance of winning that lawsuit.
Ezra brags about how Rebel is a "big client" of PayPal with his 150,000 transactions over six years. Apparently, PayPal processed 15.4 *billion* transactions in 2020 alone, which means that, last year, Rebel made up all of ... 0.00019 per cent of PayPal's transactions. That's not even a rounding error in PayPal's business.
Not so sound skeptical, but how do we know that any of these recent financial difficulties actually happened, or whether Ezra is just making them all up?
He claims to have had Rebel's "loan" called in, and produced documents to prove it. How do we know he didn't just make up those documents himself?
He claims that YouTube demonetized Rebel. Again, are we absolutely sure that happened?
And now being kicked off PayPal. Do we have any evidence he didn't just make all of this up?
Why should we trust anything that guy says?
I'm amused by some of the people online who are defending Rebel, and suggesting that people start using Bitcoin or Dogecoin to donate to Rebel. Yeah. Rebel's average supporter is a white, middle-aged, pickup-driving hick who, on a good day, probably can't program the clock on his oven, so I don't think those idiots are suddenly going to embrace the idea of cryptocurrency. Good luck with that idea.
I'm listening to Ezra's live noon show, where he has just spent thirty minutes reading a court decision on Shopify's decision to dump nazi and other regalia, and whining about how mean PayPal has been to him. Literally. That's ALL he's doing. It's horrible and fascinating - there's absolutely nothing to this "show" except Ezra stumbling through a long legal document, apparently reading it for the first time.
I'm listening to the same excruciating self-absorbed whining at the moment ... it's painful. And, I should add, utterly misses the point.
At this point, poor Ezra has given up trying to be a news outlet, and has descended entirely into talking about himself.
It's reminiscent of the final days of Lenny Bruce. Deep into addiction and depression, he took to wandering on stage, reading page after page of legal transcripts, haranguing his audiences about his suppression, and alienating even the staunchest of his supporters with his obsessive ramblings. Not that Ezra was ever as funny or relevant as Lenny, but he seems to be sliding into the same black hole.
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