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ars goatse

so uh

paypal's changing their terms again to basically state plainly that they'll be using bots to scrape your websites and social media for TOS compliance. it specifies users who have paypal integrated into their site, but us longtime working freelancers know they've been snooping on us for a while

don't integrate paypal into your site. only do transactions with invoices. no excess info on those, ESPECIALLY if you do nsfw work

don't put paypal dot me links on your social media

10 comments
ars goatse

to be extra safe, don't mention paypal by name on your sites or socials, we don't know what kind of terms they're skimming for, best not to create footholds for them to follow to "discover" you're posting shit that they don't like so they can ban you and never tell you why

ars goatse

here on fedi, you have the ability to exclude your profile and posts from search engine indexing

i HIGHLY suggest you toggle that on

it makes it that much harder for someone to sift through your stuff via google or other search engines, not just for this reason, but any reason

ars goatse

if you do NSFW art, especially as commissions, keep them on alts accounts/galleries/sites. don't discuss or link to paypal on those alts. ever.

juggling multiple accounts can suck, but paypal doesn't give a shit

ars goatse

when you take commissions, get the client's email, the details, and send the invoice. do not ever mention the nature of what you're getting paid for beyond the barebones basics. even language like "spicy", "lewd", "adult", "mature" could set off paypal's NSFW alarms and get you locked out of your shit, and unable to access your money

ALSO if you use paypal, never leave money sitting in your account. they are not a bank and if they get you, that money is gone

ars goatse

here's the actual summary of what they're changing, but it would be naive to think they haven't been doing this for a long time already

now you just can't sue them for it

ars goatse

i see a lot of people recommending stripe as an alternative

and while stripe doesn't actively look for reasons to ban people for TOS infractions, they also do not actually allow their platform to be used nsfw/adult content transactions as per their terms of conduct

basically you're gonna have to get used to be as vague as possible when discussing your business in public, and keep all the details between you and your client

ars goatse

basically you have until sept 19 to scrub your accounts and figure out your smut alts and clean up the wording on your invoices so that there's absolutely no way an interested party could draw a direct line from your adult content and your paypal account

or you can try your luck with another service which will likely either not be available in as many countries, or be less trusted by clients, and also likely doesn't allow NSFW (stripe, square, cashapp)

ars goatse

IF YOU USE PAYPAL AS A CUSTOMER/CLIENT, especially for NSFW, you are not safe either. you can also be banned if paypal figures out what you're paying for with their platform

if you're sending payments via a paypal link or directly to a username, do not ever mention what it's for. especially nothing indicating it's NSFW

ask the artist you're paying to send an invoice instead. and don't talk about commissioning lewd shit on public accounts, and if you do, don't link/mention paypal

ars goatse

this is an example of one of my invoice templates on paypal. this is about as much detail as you should ever include on an invoice, and you can put less if you choose to, down to just the price total and nothing else

i'll add some specifics, like a character's name, if i feel it helps the client's comfort level or if there's multiple characters i'm charging for, to keep an itemized list of what's being paid for, but that's it

Robert

@extinct financial institutions have such an impeccable ethical record with their own actions, it only makes sense that they should get to decide what forms of subsistence are immoral and thus functionally impossible to pursue

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