A national conservative group of moms known as Moms for Liberty has had its PayPal, Twitter, and Facebook accounts frozen in the past six months.
The 18-month-old nonprofit recently announced at a press conference that PayPay had frozen its account on July 15, leaving dozens of monthly recurring donations from supporters in limbo.
Tina Descovich, a co-founder of Moms For Liberty, told The Epoch Times that despite repeated requests to lift the freeze, PayPay kept telling her organization “there was nothing it could do.”
However, after media reports about the ordeal over the weekend, Descovich said the freeze “was magically lifted.” She said it was the second time that PayPal froze the nonprofit’s account in the past year. Once the freeze was lifted, Moms for Liberty withdrew all their funds from PayPal. The group is now in the process of permanently closing down its PayPal account.
Meanwhile, the group is trying to decide what to do about Twitter’s recent move to suspend its account. The suspension came last week in response to a tweet by Moms For Liberty calling gender dysphoria “a mental health disorder that is being normalized by predators across the USA.”
Commenting on pending legislation in California that allows intersex surgery on children, the tweet said, “California kids are at extreme risk from predatory adults. Now they want to ‘liberate’ children all over the country. Does a double mastectomy on a preteen sound like progress?”
According to Descovich, Twitter told Moms for Liberty that it considered the statement hate speech. Twitter delivered an ultimatum: remove the tweet and admit it was hate speech or face permanent account suspension suspended.
“It really feels like well-timed suspensions,” said Descovich, pointing to the upcoming midterm elections. “It feels like they are trying to influence the outcome of upcoming elections.”
Moms of Liberty is a nonprofit organization started by a group of moms in response to liberal policies and other woke agendas adopted at their children’s schools, including gender ideology, critical race theory, and transgender sex education.
The group has at least one chapter in 40 states, with its highest number of chapters in Florida.
Last year, its New Hampshire chapter outraged progressives when it offered a $500 reward to anyone who turned in a public school teacher for breaking a new state law that prohibited teaching systemic racism. Then in December, the group of moms had its Facebook account suspended along with 30 of its member chapters with the social media giant labeling posts like “What time is the school board meeting?” and “Is anyone running for school board?” as hate speech.
“We’re talking about really benign posts,” said Descovich. After directly appealing to Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg, their account was restored.
Around the same time as the PayPal freeze, Moms of Liberty was sharply criticized on social media by LGBTQ supporters for calling the National Education Association (NEA) the “K-12 Cartel” in response to the NEA’s proposed resolution to replace the word “mother” in contracts with the terms “birthing parent.”
Descovich announced the PayPal freeze at a press conference by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on July 22. DeSantis announced bans his administration plans to impose against economic, social governance practices by Wall Street banks and the nation’s most prominent “woke corporations.”
DeSantis specifically named PayPal in announcing plans to implement measures to prevent banks, credit card companies, and money transmitters like PayPal from “discriminating against customers for their religious, political, or social beliefs.”
“They are using things like social credit scores to marginalize people they don’t like,” DeSantis said.
In January, two California residents and a Chicago businessman filed a class action lawsuit against PayPal for freezing and seizing money from customer accounts. Last month, PayPal asked the court to schedule arbitration in the federal case.
The plaintiffs accuse the digital payment platform of violating racketeering laws by freezing customer money and refusing to explain the move. The plaintiffs had more than $300,000 seized by PayPal.
Chris Moneymaker, the winner of the 2003 World Series of Poker, threatened to sue after he said PayPal placed a hold on $12,000 of his money.
Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., PayPal has an estimated 325 million account holders worldwide. It did not respond to inquiries made by The Epoch Times.
