A community newspaper"s payment to enter a feel-good story about a family of Syrian refugees in an awards competition prompted PayPal to freeze the account of a national media organization after flagging the suspicious transaction, The Canadian Press has learned.
The action by the U.S.-based Internet giant sparked dismay, anxiety and raised questions about Canadian autonomy.
"It"s quite scary about how insidious the security agenda has become," said John Hinds, CEO of News Media Canada. "The demonization and racial profiling, that"s really scary, too."
The weekly Flin Flon Reminder entered the article — titled "Syrian family adapts to new life" — last month as part of its submissions to the annual Canadian Community Newspaper Awards. The feature story from July 2016 outlines the challenges and triumphs as the family settled in the Manitoban town of 5,100 and the community"s willingness to make them feel welcome.
Reminder publisher Valerie Durnin said when she tried to pay the $242.95 for the paper"s entries, PayPal flagged the payment as possibly not in compliance with its "acceptable use policy," which she said she hadn"t been able to track down. PayPal did promise to follow up within 72 hours of its investigation, which it never did. Instead it reversed the payment.
This week, Durnin called News Media Canada — formerly Newspaper Canada — to find out what had happened. They realized PayPal had frozen the News Media Canada account, said Nicole Bunt, who processes the awards entries.
"You may be buying or selling goods or services that are regulated or prohibited by the U.S. government," PayPal said in an email to News Media Canada.
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