UPDATE: Whether because of a claimed outcry or because someone in legal reminded management about the GoFundMe Guarantee, GoFundMe announced at 4 a.m., after this post was published, that it would refund people's money:

The update we issued earlier enabled all donors to get a refund and outlined a plan to distribute remaining funds to verified charities selected by the Freedom Convoy organizers. However, due to donor feedback, we are simplifying the process and automatically refunding donations.

— GoFundMe (@gofundme) February 5, 2022

UPDATE II: You can donate to the truckers via GiveSendGo, here.

ORIGINAL POST: GoFundMe, a site that holds itself out as the go-to place for online fundraising, just shut down the Convoy 2022 Fundraiser, which had passed $9,000,000 (Canadian).  The same organization that funded the violent and illegal Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle, as well as myriad other violent BLM organizations, says that, once law enforcement told it that the convoy was dangerous, it was obligated to shut everything down.  Adding insult to injury, GoFundMe is refusing to return the money donated, which runs directly counter to its "GoFundMe Guarantee."

To give context to just how awful GoFundMe's behavior is, here are a few facts.  To begin with, this is not the first time GoFundMe has yanked the rug out from under conservative fundraisers.  It's a sign of the truckers' political naïveté that they didn't go straight to GiveSendGo, a Christian-based online fundraising site.

As this Fox Business article details, GoFundMe has repeatedly cut off funding for conservatives. An athlete who believes in marriage (monogamous and heterosexual) had his fundraiser (unrelated to his marriage beliefs) stricken.  GoFundMe also cut off a fundraiser for a bar owner who had dared to call George Floyd — a multi-offending felon who held up a pregnant woman with a gun to her belly and who died after sticking fentanyl up his derrière — a thug.  It's also shut off people who sought to raise funds after losing their jobs because they refused to get vaccinated.

No conservative or non-leftist group should ever use GoFundMe again.

Also, GoFundMe has freely and happily funded incredibly violent organizations.  It kept open the fundraising platform for the illegal Seattle Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, which radicals set up during the height of the George Floyd riots.  It was undeterred even after people got murdered there, along with other acts of extreme violence.

Image: Not as safe as you think from macrovector.  Freepik license.

GoFundMe also kept the money flowing to BLM.  We've learned now that much of BLM appears to be a giant communist grift, with the leaders apparently siphoning off millions for themselves.

However, while it might not have been immediately apparent to softheaded leftists back in 2020 that BLM was a con job, it was apparent that it was violent.  Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Kenosha, Dallas, New York, and other cities all suffered tremendous violence in BLM's name, with people murdered, whole communities burned to the ground, and both chain stores and family stores looted and destroyed.  None of that deterred GoFundMe.

As I said, if the truckers hadn’t been naïve, they would have avoided GoFundMe from the beginning.  It was inevitable that GoFundMe would cut them off.  It was also inevitable that it would do so at the behest of a leftist politician who lied about the truckers being violent.  Also, that GoFundMe would say, as if it had never funded CHAZ or BLM, that it couldn’t possibly countenance handling money that might go to violent people:

GoFundMe didn't just cut off the truckers, though.  It's also refusing to return the money to the donors.  Instead, it claims that it's going to work with the convoy organizers to find agreeable charities:

Ezra Levant says that this amounts to open theft from the truckers:

At the request of Trudeau, @GoFundMe has just stolen $9,000,000 from the truckers. Rather than automatically refunding it to the donors, they say they’re going to give it to groups of their own choosing. What a windfall for Black Lives Matter, Greenpeace and Planned Parenthood! pic.twitter.com/prEwLnypfe

— Ezra Levant рџЌЃ (@ezralevant) February 4, 2022

It's not just the truckers who should be upset.  If you go to any GoFundMe page and click the "donate now" button, this is what you'll see:

There is nothing on that page that informs you that GoFundMe, if it doesn't like the charity to which you've contributed, will keep your money and give it to another charity that's not of your choosing.  Instead, as I've highlighted, it offers a "GoFundMe Guarantee" to protect people's donations.

Here are the specifics of that GoFundMe Guarantee:

Our team of Trust & Safety specialists work night and day to make sure that funds get to the intended recipient, every time. In the rare case that something isn't right, we will refund your donation. If funds aren't delivered to the right person, we will donate the missing amount. [snip] The GoFundMe Guarantee protects your donation. It takes a leap of faith to help someone else. That's why we make sure to honor your generosity by backing it up with the first and only guarantee for online fundraising. In the rare case that something isn't right, we will refund your donation.

If I were a Convoy 2022 donor, I think I would be inclined to discuss with GoFundMe the fact that its intended actions run counter to its Guarantee to me that the money I donated would either go to the donee of my choice or come back to me.

What we're seeing with leftist organizations such as GoFundMe is hubris.  They've gotten away with hypocritical and morally indecent behavior for a long time and right now.  However, this particular decision may prove to be its Waterloo, provided that the truckers and donors are willing to make it live up to its promises and past behaviors.