Stripe bans Trump campaign
There is a difference between bank accounts, Visa&#x2F;MasterCard access and Internet service, on one hand, and App Stores, Twitter accounts and payment providers, on the other hand.<p>The First Amendment promises both free speech and free assembly. Core to the latter is the freedom <i>not</i> to assemble. This freedom is regulated. You can’t refuse to do business with protected classes. But political affiliation is not a protected class.<p>There are utilities, which have limited freedom not to assemble. Then there are private persons and private businesses. Stripe and Twitter are clearly the latter. AWS and Visa <i>feel</i> like the former, though they are legally the latter.<p>The cost of switching private activity to a utility model is a loss of innovation and an increase in political involvement. We are re-evaluating, as a society, the balance between the freedoms of speech and assembly. Let’s not forget these are freedoms in balance, not a spectrum of tyranny and anarchy.