The Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan were asking for donations on their website, and supporters of the white domestic terrorism group could send funds via one of the most widely used online money transfer services in the world — PayPal.
While the company, based in San Jose, California, did block the account as of Friday (August 30), protesters are unhappy it took PayPal six days to act.
“I have [tons] of concerns that PayPal is not able to act quickly and decisively on hate groups,” Nandini Jammi, of the internet-based group Sleeping Giants, told the BBC.
“There are some examples of them acting in a fairly timely manner,” she added. “But they’re not applying [their anti-hate policy] in a consistent enough manner.”
Jammi first blasted the company on Aug. 24 when she tweeted a screenshot from the KKK website with the PayPal donation button visible.
Oh cool you can donate to the KKK with @PayPal.@AskPayPal can you explain this? pic.twitter.com/bkEzSlM3p2
— Nandini Jammi (@nandoodles) August 24, 2019
PayPal’s spokesperson responded to the uproar, stating, “We do not allow PayPal services to be used to promote hate, violence, or other forms of intolerance that are discriminatory.”
Still, “donation blessing for the cause” on the KKK’s website linked to a PayPal page, which now states the recipient is “currently unable to receive money.”
“I’ve been tracking hate groups on PayPal for several months now,” Jammi said. “I was just Googling for a new example and I kind of knew all I had to do was type in KKK.”