GoFundMe froze a fundraising campaign for the far-left news outlet The Grayzone due to “external concerns”, in the latest case to highlight the contentious role of tech companies in regulating controversial speech.
The Grayzone says it was unable to access more than $90,000 that about 1,100 contributors donated to support the work of three reporters.
Max Blumenthal, the founder and editor of The Grayzone, said the California-based crowdfunding company informed him in mid-August that he would not be allowed to transfer the donations pending a review of the fundraiser related to unspecified “external concerns”.
The donations were ultimately refunded to the donors after The Grayzone moved the fundraising campaign to a rival crowding funding platform.
Blumenthal said he believes the review was undertaken for “political reasons” related to the website’s coverage of the war in Ukraine.
“They only told me due to some external concerns, and I assume that someone would have to be fairly powerful to get GoFundMe to overlook the profit motive that usually governs companies like this to cancel a fundraiser that is extremely successful,” Blumenthal told Al Jazeera on Friday.
Blumenthal added that The Grayzone’s managing editor Wyatt Reed had similar problems with payment platforms Paypal and Venmo following his reporting on the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
GoFundMe said that every fundraiser on its platform is subject to review and that The Grayzone was able to continue to solicit donations until it cancelled the fundraiser.
Hellbound and Down 