Independent news outlet Mint Press News alleges financial censorship by crowdfunding platform Indiegogo, which withheld funds from a successful fundraiser, suggesting a pattern of silencing dissenting voices through financial means.
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Well, the Trump administration promised
us that censorship would be over when
they came into office, right? We would
not see the censorship that we saw
during the Biden administration,
especially during COVID. A lot of
Republicans focused in on that. If you
remember the trucker convoy when they
went up to Canada and they started
fundraising and one of the big
controversial things that happened to
them was their fundraiser pulled the
money and essentially wouldn't hand it
out. basically said, "We don't agree
with your fundraiser and therefore
you're not going to receive any of the
money that people willingly gave. People
were donating willingly wanting to
support the trucker convoy." And they
were completely shut down and worse.
Well, that type of censorship is still
happening under the Trump
administration. What gives? Mint Press
News, one of my favorite news
organizations, is an independent
alternative news outlet based in the
United States. They focus heavily on
foreign policy, war, intelligence
agencies, um, also on corporate power,
media criticism. Well, recently they had
a fundraiser on Indiegogo and sure
enough, look what's happened. They're
not able to get their money. Why? Well,
uh, with with us now is Manar Adley. She
is the founder of Mint Press News.
Manar, welcome to the show. Thank you so
much for being here.
>> Thank you for having me, Kim. very big
uh supporters and fans of your amazing show.
show.
>> Oh, thank you so much. I'm a big fan of
Mint Press News. Um and and I think this
is the this is astonishing that this is
still happening that fundraisers are not
giving out the money. So tell us when
did you start the fundraiser? What was
the goal? Which platform did you use and
what was what were you fundraising for?
So, Mint Press News, as you know, is an
independent watchdog journalism
organization that covers and highlights
the architects of the forever war
machine and really connects the dots
between, you know, the Israeli uh
national security state and basically
how it has infiltrated the US national
security state. And so because of our
independence, we heavily rely on
donations and support from our readers
um from our viewers. And so, you know,
you mentioned the truckers being
censored by GoFundMe. And that was a
platform that we actually used a few
years ago where we were also censored.
We had our fundraisers taken down and we
uh were completely uh banned from
GoFundMe. And the same thing happened
recently during our fundraising drive on
Indiegogo. And what's really interesting
about Indiegogo is that we've actually
been using Indiegogo for over a decade
for multiple projects to support our
independent journalism. And we put up a
fundraiser. We put up a call of action
for $51,000
and $50,000, excuse me. And we actually
went over. We raised more than we
expected. and we met our fundraising
goal literally within the 10 first 10
days of our fundraising drive. So, it
was a huge success, but something, you
know, smelled a little fishy when we
weren't receiving our our um payout
within, you know, 10 days of the
campaign ending. And so, I had reached
out to Indiegogo and tried to claim our
payout and they had said that, you know,
our banking information was incorrect
and so I had to update that. And so I
updated that, sent them my ID, our bank,
you know, routing, everything, account
number, information. And then I didn't
hear back for two weeks. And then I
started to kind of, you know, the alarms
kind of start to sound off in my head,
like, you know, is what's are we not
getting our payout now because of, you
know, our journalism? And surely enough,
I received a message literally the next
day after I had that feeling that our
fundraiser does not meet the guidelines
of Indiegogo. And I just want to
reiterate that I had received this
message literally 3 months after the
campaign had ended. And so we had been I
had been trying to get our payout since
October when the fundraiser um ended.
And so we thought Indiegogo was an
independent uh fundraising platform.
Well, uh maybe to a certain degree and
while they do claim that they're going
to be refunding um the donor uh the
funds to the donors, we did a little bit
of digging and we actually found out
that um the the founder, one of the CEOs
of the company of Indiegogo is Slava
Rubin. He's a conservative Zionist who
has traveled to Israel many times and
he's openly said like, "I'm a big fan.
I'm Jewish. I think Israel is a
beautiful place." He said that in 2015
and in the wake of October 7th attacks
um and the genocide in Reubin came out
publicly to support Israel in its fight
against terrorism. And so while our
funding has been denied, we also found
out that Indiegogo has allowed highly
controversial pro-Israel funding drives
to continue. For example, in 2014, it
allowed the Temple Institute, a
Jerusalem based Kahanist organization,
to raise over $100,000
to complete architectural plans for the
actual construction of a third temple on
the site of the Al Axa Mosque. I mean,
this is a far-right plan to bulldoze the
third holiest site um in Islam. And so,
the reason I bring up this Israeli tides
is because Mint Press News for the last
year has uncovered a massive spy network
in the United States um by Israel's most
elite um branch in the Israeli military
and its intelligence mil branch of the
Israeli military called Unit 8200. And
so they have infiltrated, you know, um,
all of the big tech industry here in the
United States, which I can talk more
about later. But we do believe that we
are being targeted because of our
coverage, exposing uh, this unit 8200
network within big tech, within Silicon
Valley, within the very platforms that
we are using every single day from Meta
to Google. I mean, people don't realize
how much Israel's national security
state has infiltrated our uh big tech
platforms to control the free flow of information.
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Mintress News has been targeted uh by
British intelligence and by pro-Israel
lobby groups that have pressured GoFundMe
GoFundMe
to ban us, take down our fundraisers,
and to ban Mit Press from PayPal. From
PayPal. And I know that we're not the
first, okay? We're not the first
platform, but we're an independent media
outlet. And the way that we are being
treated now is the same way that the US
sanctions regimes uh treats its enemy
states like countries like Iran or Cuba
or Venezuela with its sanctions. They're
targeting us financially so that we
cannot sustain ourselves. We are up
against a goliath of a corporate media
and propaganda machine that is very
wellunded, very well fueled by these
special interest groups. And that's why
it's so important that we put our money
and our support behind independent
media. And of course, we've seen this
before. You know, you remember when
Wikileaks exposed US war crimes, it was
not shut down in court first. Of course,
Assange spent many years in in jail, but
it was financially censored first.
Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and other
banks were pressured by the US
government, by uh DHS to get PayPal or
to get uh Wikileaks censored
financially. So that actually became the
blueprint for how dissenting journalism
is silenced today. I mean, this is what
modern-day censorship looks like. It's
financial choke holds designed to
quietly starve independent journalism um
that holds power accountable and that's
exactly what we've been trying to do for
the last 14 years um as an independent
media outlet. Mint press holds the
military and intelligence elite
accountable and the very networks that
profit from endless war surveillance and
repression. And we are mapping out
exactly how these pro-Israel pro-Zionist
actors are targeting us in I mean we've
been targeted in many ways of course you
know so many ways too many to probably
mention in this interview in this
conversation but one of the main ones of
course is this financial uh censorship
>> that's where it usually begins. So when
Indiegogo messaged you and said you
don't meet our terms of service or
whatever it is, did they give you an
exact violation? Did they say this is
what exactly you violated and and why?
No, they didn't. And I emailed them
twice to ask that very same question and
they did not give me a response about
what exactly about our campaign uh
violated their terms of service. And
it's the same thing that happened with
GoFundMe and PayPal when I contacted
them directly and asked them what
exactly about our because they they all
banned us under the pretense saying that
we violated their terms of service.
Well, what exactly did we violate? We
didn't violate anything. We were just
doing our job um as journalists to cover
the forever war state.
>> What is the alternative now? So, well,
first of all, with Indiegogo, they take
a fee every time somebody donates
through their platform, right? just like
GoFundMe. Are they returning all the
money to the to the donors and also the
fees as well?
>> I don't know about the fees, but when
somebody donates for for example,
there's no fee to the donor. They can
add a tip if they want to. The tip would
go to Indiegogo because Indiegogo again
has framed itself as this independent uh
fundraising platform.
But they but they did say that they are
refunding um the donors and we did
receive messages from donors saying that
they did receive their their um refund
and not everybody has received them yet
and so we have been redirecting people
to our website directly where there's no
middleman. Um but of course
>> well that's what I was just going to ask
you is is what's the alternative because
even you know people would then say okay
well then PayPal me or Venmo me or uh
but those are all still middlemen. So,
how do you what what do you do now? I
mean, you just give them a direct bank
account and say, "Deposit it into our
bank account."
>> But even then, there's there's a
middleman there because there's a bank.
>> Exactly. So, even with the website, most
websites will use Stripe, which is um
just another financial platform. We use
Stripe on our website like any other
website that exists. Now, we've looked
into other um you know, alternatives and
not many exist. And that's where this
financial choke hold was created. Um,
these are not alternatives. These are
all corporatebacked, pro-Israelbacked,
pro-establishmentbacked. And so the
second you get out of line or say
something out of line, they have the
power to cut you off. And we're seeing
that now. So far with our with our
website, we haven't faced this issue.
Um, we know we've been accepting
donations there for the last 14 years.
But um I guess only time will tell.
>> Yeah. I mean, who knows? Stripe could
turn around and say, "Hey, we're
actually discontinuing our services with
you because we we don't agree with your
viewpoints." I mean, that's um this it
brings up such a daunting issue. I mean,
then people would say, "Well, you can go
to crypto, but now crypto is becoming
regulated and and everything could be
traced on crypto." So it's, you know,
which was the the point of crypto was to
try to get around the man, but here it
is being now absorbed into the system.
So I don't even know what the
alternative is besides people like
mailing cash in the mail, right? I mean,
I I don't know uh you know, as the world
becomes more digital and as we we are so
reliant on these financial institutions,
it really puts us in a precarious
position. And I think your your
situation here in this fundraiser, I'm
glad it's working out for you right now.
But again, you know, Stripe could pull
their services because they are a
private company and they could do that.
I suppose when they get the right
pressure or they've got, you know, some
Zionist running the joint and they don't
they want to ensure that they protect
the cause. And so yeah, I mean this this
really I think should cause everybody to
stop and think about what
you know what do we do to fight back?
Like how do we fight back? Because
financial they figured out sanctioning,
you know, they sanctioned countries for
a long time. They've been weaponizing
that against countries. That was a bad
weapon. People would say it's a bad
weapon. It was only a matter of time
before they'd start sanctioning
individuals and and they have. They
they've actually literally sanctioned
individuals like Franchesca Albanese for
example. But then they've got now these
kinds of
>> um kind of mini sanctions. I mean that's
kind of what's happening to you. It's
like a mini sanction. Maybe it's not
being called that, but it's essentially
the same thing where they're saying
you're not allowed to bank with us.
You're not allowed to run money through
us. You're not allowed, you know, for
perfectly legal things. You're just
fundraising money. What exactly was your
fundraiser for? Was it for a specific
project or was it just for funding Mint
Press News and and the journalism?
>> It was for funding um Mint Press News. I
mean, we do annual fundraisers uh
regularly. I mean, every every single
year and you know, we try to draw
attention to the fact that we're
independent and we rely on the the
support of our readers and viewers and
um it was great. I mean, we literally
reached our goal within two weeks. So,
right because you're a popular site,
people want it, right? People want to
donate to you and they're being
prevented from doing that by the powers
that be, which is completely unfair that
one individual or one company can decide
to silence however many hundreds of
people donated to your to your campaign.
>> I I guess, you know, it just again
really raises the question of how do we
how do we get around these sorts of the
the weaponizing of money? They
weaponized the money against foreign
countries and now they're weaponizing
the money systems against American
citizens and they hide it under well
this is private companies they have
terms of services they could do whatever
they want but they they said that during
COVID and the Twitter files and you know
there's a lot of stuff that's come out
now where they're just you know we've
seen many examples of this weaponization
of the monetary system and it's um it is
It really is. And of course, it didn't
even start with financial. I mean, the
last 14 years, we've been hit on
Wikipedia. We've been hit with smear
campaigns, with labels, with,
>> you know, getting blacklisted and then
the Israeli lobby targeting our
journalists. Um, even some of them
getting arrested and some of them
getting blacklisted and pressured to get
taken off of speaking engagements, which
I've been a target of as well. And so
it's just an allroundout
organized campaign to shut us down. And
it's a it's a common thing for for
journalists that do the kinds of work uh
that we do.
>> So now you're able So people can fund
raise help you with the fundraiser. They
just have to go directly to your website mintpressnews.com.
mintpressnews.com.
Is that right? >> Yes.
>> Yes.
>> And have you been able to recover much
of that? I mean I would imagine a lot of
people maybe were un are unaware. you
know, people get busy and they're
unaware. They donated to you. They
wanted to do that and
uh I mean, have you been able to to
recover most of those donations privately?
privately?
>> So, we've uh obviously this just
happened like literally less than a week
ago. So, we've been in communication
with our donors via email, via social
media campaigns to make them aware of
what has happened to us from Indiegogo.
And we've recovered maybe like $8,000
out of the $51,000, which is a good
start. I mean, it's only been one week.
I mean, as long as we keep pushing, we
might there it is possible that we might
be able to to recover a lot of it or
most of it or even more. We don't know.
We're going to continue to push for
that. But what's been really beautiful
about our supporters is that they have
bombarded Indiegogo with messages, with
campaigns of their own to kind of call
them out and say, you know, refund, give
m press back their money. Um, and so we
are actually looking to take a legal
action against Indiegogo. You know, in
the past, I think with everything that
we've been doing, it didn't I don't
know. I don't know why we didn't do this
in the past, but right now I'm I feel
like I'm in a position where I feel
quite confident that we can take some
sort of legal action against Indiegogo
for disrupting our business um and not
providing us with any sort of reason
because they allowed our campaign to
continue and then we were not even given
a reason until 3 months later. And we
have emails from them saying that
they're going to give us the payout as
long as we update X, Y, and Z with our
information. then later they said no,
we're not going to do that. So um I
believe that there is a case against
them that they've disrupted um our
business because we were relying on that
payout to pay our journalists and now we
don't have access to that money. It's
not like we just have this big bank
account filled with millions of dollars
like CNN or you know the BBC. Um it's it
doesn't work like that for for us right now.
now.
>> Right. Right. Well, good luck on this
fundraiser. I'm hoping um you are you
are able to not only get the donations
that you were looking for, but also
you're able to maybe be able to hold
Indiegogo accountable as well. We do
have the link to the website mintpressnews.com
mintpressnews.com
down below to donate. Um and definitely
encourage people. It's a really great
news organization. Mintress News has
really done a lot of great journalism
and a lot of a lot of really great work.
Thank you for watching this clip from
the full Kim Iverson show which you can
watch Monday through Friday 5:00 p.m.
Eastern, 2:00 p.m. Pacific at kim
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