I'm glad the governor is looking into this. Undoubtedly there are FL residents who contributed to this worthy cause via GFM, and then to have GFM suddenly say they're going to redirect the funds? Seems like some sort of fraud to offer a service for one thing and then change it after money has changed hands. GFM obviously realized this was a problem, so changed their minds and is providing automatic refunds. But this sort of fraud can only have a negative impact on the cause people were wanting to fund.
But GFM at the very least comes across as partisan, if not hypocritical. If they're going to be a partisan funder, then I'm sure there are other laws they need to comply with which they currently don't.
The plan presented to GFM by the organizers called for excess funds to be given to charities. How is it fraud for GFM to follow the organizer’s plan? The only thing they refused to do was fund the illegal occupation of downtown Ottawa.
To equate giving all of the funds to other charities and not allowing any of it to be used for its given purpose with giving the rest of the money after its intended purpose has been met is... well, not right.
Like, consider a non-profit that you want to support its vision. Most of the money goes to its mission, the rest pays its execs. They decide to use 100% of it for the execs. According to your argument, that's just fine.
I neither believe it is truthful to call it "occupying the nations capitol" nor am I surprised that GFM won't fund it.
Regardless, your response was a non-sequitur. You really need to deal with what I actually said.
To help you along, I also wouldn't be surprised for a charity to redirect 100% of its income to its executives. But that wouldn't mean I would say it was fine for them to do that, even though the reason I gave the money was for clean wells in Africa. That's what you're defending.
> I neither believe it is truthful to call it "occupying the nations capito
People who live in Ottawa disagree.
> To help you along, I also wouldn't be surprised for a charity to redirect 100% of its income to its executives. But that wouldn't mean I would say it was fine for them to do that, even though the reason I gave the money was for clean wells in Africa. That's what you're defending.
This is a textbook strawman. We're talking about a specific situation here, so stop trying to invoke entirely different situations to defend it.
The fact is that this has turned into an occupation. It's not reasonable to expect GFM to fund that.
Look, I've already explained that I'm not surprised. You are claiming I'm lying? Or what? Also my example is not a straw man. It's a simple analogy. This will be my last comment.
The thing I'm trying to address is your claim that it's just fine and dandy for them to redirect all the money to charities because that's equivalent to what the original organizers were going to do anyway. It's not. It's so obviously not appropriate that GFM immediately realized they could never get away with that and changed their minds and decided to refund all of the money instead. So I don't know why you're even bothering to defend their original plan. You're probably literally the only person in the world who thinks it's fine.
> The thing I'm trying to address is your claim that it's just fine and dandy for them to redirect all the money to charities because that's equivalent to what the original organizers were going to do anyway. It's not.
Not just any charities, charities that were going to be chosen by the organizers, which is in line with the agreement the organizers accepted. I honestly don't understand how you can believe something nefarious was going on when they were following the agreement that was made with the organizers.
> It's so obviously not appropriate that GFM immediately realized they could never get away with that and changed their minds and decided to refund all of the money instead. So I don't know why you're even bothering to defend their original plan.
That's one interpretation. A much simpler interpretation is that they realized it's 100x easier to just refund the money instead of having to vet every charity chosen by the organizers to make sure the money wasn't being embezzled or used for actual nefarious purposes. Go head and look into the organizers of this protest. They're overt white supremacists.
its a bit of dark pattern but i'm not sure if it is illegal. i suspect gofundme wanted the donations redirected so they would still receive the revenue the donations created. from their POV if they refund all the donations then they are paying fees for processing and refunding and not receiving any revenue. if gofundme wanted to still try and process the donations the more ethical option would be to set the default to be refund and allowed people to opt-in to have their donations redirected. also, my understanding is gofundme always planned to redirect funds to charities approved by the original organizers. i've seen some people claim that it was going to be charities approved of by gofundme alone but i have not seen evidence of this. i think in that case that would be deeply unethical.
I would think that every GFM campaign is approved by default once the money starts flowing in. To change it after the fact should be seen as a criminal act.
But GFM at the very least comes across as partisan, if not hypocritical. If they're going to be a partisan funder, then I'm sure there are other laws they need to comply with which they currently don't.