PayPal suspends account of neo-Nazi who was using the site to sell hate speech

GettyImages 1154091538 — PayPal suspended a neo-Nazi user after anti-fascist activists noted he was selling books using the company's service.
Photo Illustration by Avishek Das/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

PayPal suspended an account used by a notorious white supremacist.
The man was using PayPal to sell copies of his book.
The activity was brought to light by anti-fascist activists.
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An avowed white supremacist will have to find another way to sell his racist tracts after PayPal suspended his account on Tuesday.

Billy Roper is a third-generation white supremacist, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center; his father and grandfather were both members of the Ku Klux Klan. The SPLC describes Roper, based in Arkansas, as "the uncensored voice of violent neo-Nazism."

"I'm a biological racist," he said in a 2003 essay published in a neo-Nazi newsletter, per the SPLC. "Every non-white on the planet has to become extinct," he added in a 2005 radio interview. He also praised the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, admiring the "testicular fortitude" of al-Qaeda.

Though his views were well-documented, Roper was until this week selling his latest collection of hate speech, purporting to be a guide to surviving "the future breakup of America" into racial enclaves, on his own website, where he was accepting credit cards through PayPal - after Amazon and other online retailers had the 126-page screed removed from their platforms.

"We regularly assess activity against our Acceptable Use Policy and carefully review actions reported to us, and will discontinue our relationship with account holders who are found to violate our policy," a company spokesperson said after Insider asked about his use of the service. PayPal's policy states that users may not promote "hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance."

On Twitter, the Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists group has been calling on supporters to contact PayPal and other companies and bring to attention their roles in facilitating the spread of racist propaganda.

"Billy Roper is a well known neo-Nazi leader, so he has been on our radar for years," an activist from the group told Insider. "Cutting off funding to white supremacist organizations and figureheads makes their recruitment and propaganda efforts more difficult."

It's not the first time that PayPal has acted against right-wing extremists after activists pointed out they were exploiting its platform. In 2019, it suspended an account being used to fundraise for the KKK after a co-founder of the anti-racist group Sleeping Giants highlighted it on social media.

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