Split From Paypal Will Enable eBay to Begin Accepting Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies

(ANTIMEDIA) — Internet giant eBay made headlines this week over its decision to drop Paypal as a payment processor on its site. While this was news in itself as Paypal’s stock price took a dive, perhaps more interesting are the potential options that come with eBay’s new processor, a Dutch company called Adyen.

Adyen, which processed roughly $25 billion worth of payments in 2014 and $50 billion the follower year, is unique because it has partnered with BitPay since the end of 2015. Bitpay is a popular payment platform that allows consumers and businesses to conduct transactions with bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Announcing the partnership at the time, Bitpay noted their union would allow “some of the biggest companies in the world the ability to begin accepting bitcoin payments.”

Boasting that Adyen works with “over 180 currencies and over 250 payment methods to process their payments,” Bitpay added that “Adyen’s merchants can now easily accept bitcoin as a payment method from their e-commerce stores.”

Now that Adyen is partnering with eBay, it’s possible the e-commerce giant will be able to accept bitcoin for payments. As Fortune pointed out, “buyers will have a wider choice of options on the new, more open eBay payments platform (bitcoin, anyone?).”

If that’s the case, there will likely be a variety of crypto payment options considering BitPay started working with other coins at the end of last year.

Still, Fortune notes that eBay “is still somewhat restricted in what it can offer in the financial realm under its original agreement with PayPal but that deal expires in June, 2020.” Regardless, the developing relationship between Adyen and eBay will be one to watch in the coming years.

In a 2015 “buying guide,” eBay published a list of merchants that accept crypto, either directly or through third parties like Gyft. A mounting number of retailers are moving to expand their abilities to accept cryptocurrencies, which continue to grow in popularity. Even Craigslist.org now has a crypto option now.

The potential for eBay to grow the pervasiveness of cryptocurrency use is huge considering that in 2015, the site was hosting two billion transactions per day.

Anti-Media has emailed both eBay and Adyen regarding if and when the retailer will integrate bitcoin and other cryptocurrency options. This article will be updated with their statements should they respond.

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Guess Who’s Behind Facebook’s New ‘Fake News’ Detector?

December 18, 2016   |   admintam

(RPI) Are you terrified of “fake news”? Don’t worry, the elites are doing something to combat it!

As anyone active on the Internet is aware, there have been increasing calls for social media companies (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to address the mostly manufactured crisis of “fake news” making its way onto people’s computer screens. The mainstream media, which finds itself increasingly viewed as untrustworthy by the American public, has latched on to the idea that the relatively free flow of ideas and opinions on the Internet actually poses a threat to our well-being.

As could be expected, political leaders jumped in early on this attack on independent media. In October, President Obama urged Americans to avoid independent news sources and stick with the mainstream, urging a kind of filter for information. He told an audience in Pittsburgh:

There has to be, I think, some sort of way in which we can sort through information that passes some basic truthiness tests and those that we have to discard. … The answer is obviously not censorship, but it’s creating places where people can say ‘this is reliable’ and I’m still able to argue safely about facts and what we should do about it.

Hillary Clinton, after losing the election, sounded even more bitter about non-mainstream media sources, warning the Senate about the, “epidemic of malicious fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year.”

To Hillary, it was personal: independent media could be deadly. Said the defeated candidate earlier this month:

This isn’t about politics or partisanship. Lives are at risk — lives of ordinary people just trying to go about their days to do their jobs, contribute to their communities. It’s a danger that must be addressed, and addressed quickly.

Lives are at risk! It was only a matter of time before some of these social media behemoths embraced the requests of the elites they most identify with. Yesterday, Facebook announced that it was going to employ a variety of “fact-checking” organizations to make sure no “fake news” made it onto people’s Facebook news feeds. So Facebook will be using Snopes, PolitiFact, Factcheck.org, ABC News, and the Associated Press, among others, to check its members’ postings and label them as “fake news” if these organizations determine them to be so.

One problem: these organizations themselves are among the biggest purveyors of real fake news! PolitiFact has a whole website dedicated to exposing the organization’s biases. The popular site Snopes is in fact run by a husband and wife out of their home in California. Neither have any background in research or investigative techniques — they just use Google to make their determinations. As for AP and ABC News — they are mainstream media outlets with no clean hands when it comes to propagating fake stories. In fact the Associated Press has a long history of coordinating with governments to produce fake news.

Political fact checking is not a science. On the contrary, more often than not it carries with it all the biases of any hyper-partisan organization.

Never fear. A group of selfless and unbiased philanthropists have stepped forward to offer millions of dollars to assist these “fact-checkers” in their efforts to ferret out and disappear anything they determine to be “fake news.” It seems rather curious, however, that these donors are all in fact in one way or other completely beholden to Hillary Clinton and the left-interventionists of the Democratic Party.

Who are they? George Soros, otherwise known as Hillary’s sugar daddy. EBay founder Pierre Omidyar who’s given more than $30 million to the Clintons and their charities. Google — “in like Flynn” for Hillary. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And the commie/neocon National Endowment for Democracy (which, as a government-funded entity, will be using our own money to censor news it deems harmful to us).

These are the people who will decide what you will see on Facebook. Are you happy to be thusly protected?

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This article (Guess Who’s Behind Facebook’s New ‘Fake News’ Detector?) by Daniel McAdams originally appeared on RonPaulInstitute.org and was used with permission. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.