Neither the Wyoming state auditor nor the treasurer use PayPal for state financial transactions.
PayPal made headlines last week after it dispatched an acceptable use policy (AUP) by which the company could pull $2,500 from a user’s account if the user were caught promoting “misinformation,” the National Review reported.
The tech giant quickly backtracked, saying the language was an error.
“An AUP notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information,” a PayPal spokesperson told the National Review last week. “PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy. Our teams are working to correct our policy pages. We’re sorry for the confusion this has caused.”
‘None Of Our Functions Use It At All’
But there was no confusion in Wyoming’s executive branch, as the state’s elected money-keepers don’t use PayPal.
Wyoming Auditor Kristi Racines, who keeps the books for the state, said her office doesn’t use PayPal.
Jeff Robertson, director of communications for Treasurer Curt Meier, said the same.
“I can’t speak for the state in general, but I can tell you in the Treasurer’s office, none of our functions use it at all,” he said. “To my knowledge, there’s been no need for it.”
Racines said the state’s technology department, Enterprise Technology Services, may know of smaller state departments that use PayPal. The technology department did not respond Monday to a Cowboy State Daily request for comment.
The Wyoming Department of Family Services offers child support payments via PayPal.
Misinformation
Before they were rescinded by PayPal, the new terms were to go into effect by Nov. 3, news outlets reported. These included prohibitions on “sending, posting or publication of any messages, content or materials” that “promote misinformation.”
“Hate,” “intolerance” and “discrimination” already were forbidden in the prior policy, but the new one would have applied specifically to “protected groups” and “individuals or groups based on protected characteristics,” including race, religion, gender, gender identity and sexual orientation, according to National Review.
PayPal recently banned Gays Against Groomers, a group of LGBT individuals that says it opposes “the recent trend of indoctrinating, sexualizing and medicalizing children under the guise of ‘LGBTQIA+.’”
Searches for how to “delete PayPal” skyrocketed by nearly 1,400% after conservative news outlets reported the policy change, USA Today reported.
