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Pro-Trump political commentator Candace Owens launched a GoFundMe fundraiser for an Alabama cafe owner who called George Floyd a “thug.” After raising more than $200,000, GoFundMe stepped in and canceled the fundraiser for “hate, falsehoods against the black community” and other violations of the company’s terms of service.
Owens has been outspoken against the nationwide protests in support of Floyd and against police brutality while bringing up his past record in an effort to attack Floyd’s character.
That, along with controversial comments made in an interview with Glenn Beck, led to GoFundMe putting an end to her campaign and banning her from the platform.
“GoFundMe has suspended the account associated with Candace Owens and the GoFundMe campaign has been removed because of a repeated pattern of inflammatory statements that spread hate, discrimination, intolerance and falsehoods against the black community at a time of profound national crisis,” the company said in a statement. “These actions violate our terms of service.”
Despite ending the fundraiser, GoFundMe will release the money that was raised to Michael Dykes, the co-owner of Parkside Cafe in Birmingham, Alabama.
Owens also commented on GoFundMe’s decision.
“After raising $205,000 in a few hours @gofundme decided to halt my campaign for the Parkside Cafe in Alabama. At their discretion, they deemed that funds raised for a conservative business constitutes ‘intolerance. They WILL however give the funds raised thus far to the cafe,” she wrote on Twitter.
“While I am glad they will give the funds raised this far to the cafe to the owner, I am angry that such a blatant form of discrimination is acceptable by GoFundMe. There was NOTHING intolerant or violent about raising funds to help a conservative business owner.”
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Floyd was killed after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on the back of his neck for nearly 8 minutes while Floyd pleaded for air. The ex-officer, Derek Chauvin, has been arrested had his charges upgraded to second-degree murder. The three other officers involved — Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao — have been fired by the Minneapolis Police Department and were also arrested and charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.
