People overseas can still use PayPal, the outside the us thing only applies to personal transactions made through business accounts, it’s for tax purposes

But if you don’t want to use PayPal, square and Venmo are options

It's the whole possible cracking down on nsfw thing that worries me and others. Unless that updated TOS thing has been misunderstood

I think it’s all being misunderstood. Nowhere in their TOS does it say they’re going to do that though. It says they’re going to use webcrawlers to help combat fraud, not ban people for being on nsfw sites. The only times they’ll ban for nsfw is if you put questionable things in the item description because they may take that as prostitution or sex trafficking

it's always been kinda explained to me that paypal does not like NSFW at all. that's why you don't put that stuff in there. and the new TOS mentions searching for things that also "enforce TOS"

From what i can tell, the only mention of that is here
“If you integrate or reference PayPal services on your website, we are clarifying that PayPal may use automated technologies (e.g., website crawling) to assess your website to ensure compliance with the user agreement and to combat fraud.” But the TOS doesn't say that you’re not allowed to sell nsfw art using paypal. To me that seems more like theyre going to try and make sure your site isnt a scam and that you’re not selling illegal things. I think this’ll also apply more to private sites than public ones like furaffinity

But also they have no way of knowing what products you’re selling on this site too, it could just as easily be fursuits

Reading this does put me somewhat at ease, although I still find it reads like a red flag - they go after fraud now, but who is to say they stop there, y'know? Especially since we know PayPal is very willing to close any account the moment it gets a hint of adult content. It's preferable to just move to an alternative now. It reminds me a bit too much of some antics Patreon got into with NSFW artists.

When it comes to alternatives, I've been told that banks (at least within the US) generally don't care what you're using your money for in this way, but you still need some kind of middleman service. I remember looking into Square at one point but their TOS does specially mention they don't allow "Adult entertainment" of any kind.

Well it’s not that they’re closing accounts because of a hint of adult content, its because people are using adult keywords in their invoices which isnt allowed since you can be a minor and have/use a paypal account. Yes maybe one day in the future they could decide to change their mind and do away with adult content, but as for now it’s nowhere in their TOS that they will. If they do plan to change those rules they’ll give people a heads up beforehand and people can move to a different method of money transfer, but theres no reason to worry about doing it right now

Also as long as you’re doing your invoices correctly, paypal will have absolutely no idea what you’re spending your money on. They can only track where you are if you are offering paypal services (like you’re actually making a payment through a website, like how you would on eBay or amazon, not just sending someone your email in a written message)

And they dont care, which is why people can make money on onlyfans and streaming services like twitch, paypal doesnt care what you spend your money on as long as its not illegal, IE: sex trafficking and prostitution

Having seen a recent retweet about PayPal, I'd been forgetting an important detail in this: Artists have found that their accounts were closed, and whatever money in it was kept from them, with no specific reason given for the ban, and support not even providing anything other than a canned response about violating TOS. I recall this happening with people who didn't run into any issues with invoices.

If their account is closed it could be for other reasons, like your account can become closed if people chargeback, for example, so your customers can screw you over in that regard. (I’ve had this happen before with customers trying to steal from me and getting my account frozen because of it) Or your account may just have a lot of suspicious activity? If you receive a ton of money from different sources that are marked “from friends and family” paypal might assume you’re scamming people or that you’re running a business and not marking it as goods and services which is super against their rules since people use that to get around paying the fees. I’ve actually seen a lot of people get their accounts frozen because they’re trying to get around paying the fees.

If that happens, though, you just have to message them and write up an appeal. Assuming a person isn’t trying to cheat the system, they should be able to get their account back pretty easily.

it’s not because of web crawlers though, especially since they havent even implemented those yet so if people’s accounts have been frozen already it’s because of other reasons

The fact remains that there have been artists, who do adult content, whose PayPals have been shut down without much reason given, who have had their livelihood completely screwed over by this large company, with little-to-no explanation as to why, and no hope of getting their money back. They are simply seen by PayPal as users who screwed up and had to pay the price.

If there are other users who've had this exact thing happen without even being NSFW artists (thus debunking its connection to adult content), or if there are stories of this being resolved at all, I certainly never see it being talked about. Folks like you, who approach from a reasonably skeptical perspective, would be the types to share those stories of people who got their money back in order to debunk the concerns.

But so far, the only thing I've seen in circulation is the affirmation that PayPal is bad news for adult content creators.

What "stabbing themselves"?

it could be a huge misunderstanding, but recent TOS changes seems like they are hard crackign down on NSFW stuff. meaning they would be getting rid of a huge amount of their user base. Tumblr all over again

Just sell censored image in invoice and send a free nsfw version?

That's very much not a solution here. The point being that PayPal wants to present itself like it's family-friendly and thus will close any account it suspects is dabbling in adult content. The concern is that no adult content, in any form, will be tolerated, and there would be no chance of PayPal playing along because it's in their best interest to completely stomp out anything that could make them look like they accept adult content.

Can someone explain this new controversy with Paypal?

A lot of people are misunderstanding what the new paypal TOS update means and are taking it as if paypal is going after nsfw artists who use sites like Furaffinity. I have a journal about it here https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10304280/

I've been using Square

there's venmo and cashapp