by WorldTribune Staff, August 24, 2018
A conservative think tank reported that it had its donation processing system blocked by Visa and Mastercard after it was labeled a “hate group” by the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
The David Horowitz Freedom Center in an email to supporters said the SPLC had convinced Mastercard and Visa to block the Center from receiving payments and donations via credit card, Breitbart News reported on Aug. 23. The think tank’s founder, David Horowitz, said he then had to request that supporters send donations via check to a P.O. Box.
“This blow could be the end of the Freedom Center,” the email to supporters said. “Decades of work, down the drain because the hateful Left wants to quash free speech and silence an organization that dares to question them.”
Horowitz provided the following statement to Breitbart News:
“We have been attacked by the left wing hate machine whose goal is to suppress and silence conservative voices. This is the work of a Soros funded Media Matters and Southern Poverty Law Center operation. It’s cynical, calculated and supported by the Democratic Party. The reason Mastercard and Visa gave us for cutting us off and thus sabotaging our online fund-raising operation is that the SPLC told them that we were a hate group. It is wrong to focus on the Tech heads as the culprits because as businessmen they have a vested interest in keeping their platforms politically neutral. They have been threatened by Sen. Mark Warner and other Democrats if they don’t censor conservatives. The fact that Mastercard and Visa are now part of this juggernaut indicates how dangerous this has become.”
Visa has since contacted Breitbart News to deny involvement in the blacklisting of the Freedom Center, claiming to have not been aware of the Freedom Center’s financial blacklisting before the article.
Breitbart News also said it reached out to Mastercard for comment on the issue but has yet to receive a reply.
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