Social Responsibilities from Companies

Popular companies have social responsibilities. Their actions mirrors their users'.

They can spark controversies when they support the wrong organizations, or turn their back on others.

In recent years, Paypal has banned wikileaks, and has blocked different accounts for different reasons. One of the most controversial one was the regretsy issue. Paypal have worked with regretsy to resolve the problem, but it is mostly understood that they did so because of the bad press they received. People cancelled their Paypal account because of this (myself included, though I should have done so sooner, when they banned wikileaks a year before).

Credit cards are losing face because of the same reasons. They blocked wikileaks for no reason. It is my money you have in your vaults. What right do you have to block me from helping any organization I feel is right? And why do you charge such a high percentage on every transaction? (3-4%) Dwolla is a very interesting alternative concept - let's hope it catches on completely in America, and spreads to Canada and the other countries.

This week (it is now December 23rd), it was made known to the internet that GoDaddy was supporting SOPA. SOPA is something that would give a lot of power to the US government to censor web sites, in a supposed attack against piracy. The thing is, it would also have a lot of power against free speech. There is a boycott rising against GoDaddy, which I will be part of when I have a few minutes to move my web site to another host. Soon after, like Paypal, GoDaddy withdrew its support for SOPA, but it was too late. Allegiances were made.Other companies declared their support for SOPA, with similar reaction from the public.

I think companies like that have social responsibilities to support the organizations that their users support. They should not respond to pressures from the government, nor other financially powerful entities.