GoFundMe Statement on the Freedom Convoy 2022 Fundraiser
medium.com>we will work with organizers to send all remaining funds to credible and established charities verified by GoFundMe.
>All donors may submit a request for a full refund until February 19th, 2022 using this dedicated refund form.
Even if we grant for the sake of argument that their decision not to disburse funds to the protests is justified, I don't understand why a legitimate business operating in good faith would not give the donators refunds as the default action. Requiring them to submit a form in order to possibly avoid re-appropriation of their money feels like theft from the donators.
I don't see how this is even legal, GoFundMe is basically stealing the funds and doing whatever they want with them. Refunds should be automatic without an opt-in required. The fact they waited until Friday evening is even more sketchy.
If ever there was a use case for crypto and smart contracts a GoFundMe replacement would be it
How in the world would crypto make a difference?
If you want to send money directly to a person in an irrevocable way, do so.
If however you want to use an established intermediary platform with standardized and seamless fundraising and distribution and payment processing capability and its own terms of service... How would crypto change that? We can't just use the magic world to wave problems away... This is the type of statement that breeds deep skepticism and even cynicism of crypto currencies and eco system.
> If ever there was a use case for crypto and smart contracts a GoFundMe replacement would be it
Right, then the money would literally disappear due to a random coding bug.
The charge-backs is what I'd really worry about if I were GoFundMe, besides the massive hit to their reputation they just inflicted on themselves of course.
And everyone who donated absolutely should do a charge back.
My only thought on their refunding process is that maybe they don't have a simple way to just click one button to refund everyone for that specific campaign?
We should probably not assume bad intent on their part!
I don't see why anyone would use GoFundMe after this.
Did they similarly freeze fundraisers during the BLM riots?
The GoFundMe Team themselves donated $150 to a criminal who brought a molotov cocktail to a protest to (in his words!) "start fires". [1]
When they fund domestic terrorists, it's fine.
[1] https://twitter.com/antifawatch2/status/1489778959835357189
LOL, no. Apparently they didn’t feel that CHAZ in Seattle was an illegal occupation either.
> (Term 8, which prohibits the promotion of violence and harassment)
So when it's all violence by the State it's all peachy and fine.
> law enforcement
Why do you even trust the claims of law enforcement? They are not a neutral party at all.
> promotion of violence
Erm, BLM riots were not THAT long ago, GoFundMe do you think we forgot things so fast?
Apparently despite defacing many monuments around our capitol, blocking access for emergency services, desecrating the tomb of the unknown soldier by urinating on it, and literally throwing shit at a business because they had a pride flag up some people will still support these idiots.
I don't care who you are - what your politics are or anything else, if you associate with a group who has done the things these "peaceful protesters" have, you are completely in the wrong.
The vast majority of them are not doing any of those things; the vast majority just want the same basic bodily autonomy you do to opt out of experimental drugs they don't want or need.
Irrelevent.
They are acting as a group. If anyone within the group had stopped the others, I would agree with you in principal, even if not fact. But they didn't, they stood by and watched or cheered. They enabled.
Literally throwing shit is not peaceful protest.
Urinating on a war memorial is not peaceful protest.
Blocking access for ambulances - potentially causing significant harm or death - is not peaceful protest.
Ottawa has peaceful protests all the time - this is not that.
I have no stake in this protest one way or the other but I'm curious how you expect the peaceful protesters to stop the bad actors? Ask them politely? Shoot them? Call the police?
Exactly as most protests in Ottawa go. Megaphones, signs, vehicles driving through, convoys etc honking or blocking one side of a road etc etc.
Its definitely annoying, and ocassionally lasted multiple days, but it gets support and doesn't potentially cost lives.
I lived in Ottawa for a lot of years and there were countless protests - but they respected the need for society as a whole to keep functioning (read: emergency services) and worked with the local police to make sure they were in the right.
Their livelihoods are being threatened by fascists who are lying about them constantly, Trudeau is calling them every name in the book, yet where is the evidence? Where exactly are you seeing all these things taking place? If you watch any of the man-on-the-street video streams you'll see an overwhelmingly peaceful protest taking place with the media constantly lying about them because they won't bow their knee to Pfizer and Moderna.
What group? I've only seen plenty of peaceful footage. The "desecration" of the Fox statue was just a neat poster stuck between the arms. The "desecration" of the soldier monument was a woman walking on it.
The Confederate/Nazi flag groups were splinter groups of less than 10 people who may have been agent provocateurs.
The protests were more peaceful than BLM with burning buildings. The PM supported BLM, which says how much he cares about peaceful protests.
If this is the state of affairs, any demonstration can be discredited and defunded by organized groups of less than 100 people. This is extremely dangerous for democracy.
Suppression of wrong-think, nothing new when it comes to GoFundMe.
This is where a decentralised fundraising platform would come in handy :)
Not sure if you can call it decentralized, but there is liberapay.
This is theft. You reverse the transactions. Not give it to whoever you think is the rightful recipient.