Over the past several years, payment processing companies have been pressured into not providing services to businesses, merchants, communities, websites and nonprofits because of what they host, sell or even their political opinions. This creates an environment where it's deemed socially, civilly, and morally acceptable to financially punish anyone or anything these companies don't seem to be 'safe'. The recent shuttering of Ken Akamatsu's archive dedicated to out-of-print manga is just one out of many examples of this kind of indirect censorship. I know not everyone likes the nature of the works that were housed in the archive itself. But this is a stark example of what everyone stands to lose if this continues unabated. In this way, preservation of long-gone or rare books is threatened by those with an axe to grind with adult content. The Internet Archive, one of the largest digital archives on the Internet, could have its donations suddenly cut off because it hosts controversial books like To Kill A Mockingbird or any of Mark Twain's works. Nonprofits that specialize in archiving old or hard to find works would suffer greatly. And It also has political implications. Calls for defunding organizations that espouse views that another group heavily disagrees with have become alarmingly more common. This other form of jawboning from international governments and from non-governmental organizations threatens freedom of speech and freedom of expression. This shouldn't be considered a fringe issue or a niche issue. Authoritarian governments could use this as a tactic to cut off supplies to citizens that have fled or to coerce other nations to do what they want.

If you care about conscientious issues and want to support your favorite nonprofit organization, good luck doing that financially if this becomes the norm. Already fundraising sites have been pressured into cracking down on speech disfavored by handfuls of people in fringe groups. With the current polarized atmosphere that seems to be growing in size, there needs to be pushback against defunding.

Enough is enough.