PayPal recently cut off WikiLeaks from its service and thereby closed an important source of funding for Julian Assange's company. The company claimed that this was done because WikiLeaks violated its acceptable use policy, “which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity.”
This argument would, however, appear to include various other media organizations too, since newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post and other media groups routinely publish material that is classified. The argument is therefore likely just a made up claim to get rid of WikiLeaks.
The hacking group Anonymous has declared on 4chan and elsewhere that they regard PayPal's decision as an attempt to censor the whistle-blowing site. Anonymeous said on its website:
"While we don’t have much of an affiliation with WikiLeaks, we fight for the same reasons. We want transparency and we counter censorship. The attempts to silence WikiLeaks are long strides closer to a world where we can not say what we think and are unable to express our opinions and ideas.
We can not let this happen. This is why our intention is to find out who is responsible for this failed attempt at censorship. This is why we intend to utilize our resources to raise awareness, attack those against and support those who are helping lead our world to freedom and democracy."
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