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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024

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I could perhaps imagine a rule that provides that no payment processor can deny a customer the right to engage in any 'legal' transaction that is <$500 in a single day with a $10,000.00 total limit on a rolling 30 day basis, which is cumulative for the customer in question across any processors they use.

In exchange, the banks/processors get some kind of 'chargeback insurance' up to that $10,000.00 limit, analogous to FDIC insurance on deposits.

So "basic guaranteed processing" is a fundamental 'right' which any regulated bank has to provide.

I'm certain there would be abuses of this system, and second order effects.

But yeah, the idea is to HOPEFULLY prevent average citizens from being 'debanked,' and allow certain 'sketchy but legal' companies to eke out an existence if they have enough customers and not have to worry about an arbitrary policy change from one of like three major companies putting them out of business.

right to engage in any 'legal' transaction

How do you determine this? Is it hooked up to some sort of imagine recognition software that scans the image, determines content (including guessing the apparent age of a fictional 2d character), and then cross-references that with the laws of both the host country and the customer's current location? Sounds complex!

That would be for the government to investigate, ultimately.

But point being if a person isn't breaking the law, then they should not be getting debanked.

But point being if a person isn't breaking the law, then they should not be getting debanked.

I think we all agree on that in principle. But in practice it's not that easy to determine whether someone is breaking the law. The banks all default to safetyism, so they debank someone if there's even the slightest chance that the might be breaking the law, or just causing trouble. Maybe we need some sort of government bank account with a "right to banking" for anyone that hasn't been formally convicted?

It sounds like what Faceh is after is a presumption of innocence when handling transactions. The banks wouldn't need to prove the transaction isn't part of a crime, just process them. Now, how that squares with the normal fraud screening banks do is another question.