At Crust News, we are now actively seeking a non-U.S. donation platform after a major fundraising service abruptly revoked access to our account without providing any substantive explanation. If you were one of those who donated to our projects, or indeed to Crust News as an entity, there will be an email in your inbox regarding your donation, and how to keep your data safe.
We exhausted all attempts to appeal the decision and requested clarification multiple times, but no meaningful reason for the restriction was ultimately provided. For legal reasons, we will refrain from naming the company for now, as we are exploring our options.
As we are in the EU, we are entitled to an explanation when a removal of this type happens. Despite the company in question being U.S.-based, they do operate in the EU, and are expected to follow EU law. When asking them for a reason behind the removal, we were simply told that they will not share details of the removal.
The platform, who are one of the largest in the world of servicing donations, claims that we had been notified previously that the account would be deleted, in an email that doesn’t seem to exist. When asking for proof that they had sent the email in question, they couldn’t do so, despite requesting proof in all emails exchanged between ourselves and the platform.
The loss of access means ICE List can no longer log into the account, issue refunds, manage recurring donations, or control donor data held by the platform. Donors have since informed us that they are struggling to delete their data, and the company have yet to respond to a request regarding our personal data.
In a message sent directly to supporters, we warned donors that recurring payments may continue temporarily despite the organisation no longer having administrative control over the account.
The simple truth is we can’t verify the status of donations, and we don’t want to ask our supporters to keep money moving through, or your data sitting in, a platform we no longer control.
Supporters have been advised to cancel recurring donations directly through the platform itself, while the platform has also been informed that the donors had been contacted and instructed to cancel their donations.
The incident comes amid growing concern surrounding pressure placed on anti-ICE activists, journalists, and online platforms critical of U.S. immigration enforcement. Recent reporting revealed that U.S. authorities issued administrative subpoenas to major technology platforms seeking identifying information linked to anti-ICE activity online, raising wider concerns among civil liberties organisations regarding anonymous political speech and independent journalism.
We always expected financial infrastructure to become a target due to the nature of its work documenting ICE operations and related activity, and ultimately, there is some fault on us for keeping our donations inside a U.S. based company when we knew the risk of targeting was there.
We are now seeking alternative fundraising infrastructure outside the United States, specifically platforms where account restrictions require greater transparency and procedural protections.
The attempt to suppress our finances will simply push us to move faster, and we will be. The first anniversary of our ICE List project is upcoming, as are new features.
While the flow of funds will not prevent our work, we cannot pretend this move is not a major blow to the team. Our ICE List website will soon return to being entirely funded by the two of us at Crust News.
If you want to support our work through all of this, there are currently two ways to do so while we rebuild our donation infrastructure outside the United States.
The first is here, through our Substack. Paid subscriptions now directly help fund both Crust News and ICE List, and right now they are the most stable way to support our work long-term.
The second is through Buy Me a Coffee, which we have kept active for both one-time and recurring donations while we work on a more permanent replacement.
We know asking people to move platforms is frustrating, especially after many of you already went out of your way to support us once before. We do not take that lightly, and we would not ask if it was not necessary.
If you were a donor, and this is where your support ends, that’s okay too. We’re grateful for every person who helped keep this project alive up until now.
Either way, our work continues. Thank you for your continued support, we really do believe we have some of the best followers on the internet, and this setback is just a new beginning.
call your banks and have that account that you pay them from deny payment so you don't get charged in any ongoing..........explain what happened in a substack like Tom said here. I am pretty sure Trumps team had everything to do with it. But also sure someone somewhere will investigate this. Then you can sue whomever-for harassment and nondisclosure........
Very sorry to hear about this development. Of course democracy dies in darkness so keeping your platform running is more important now than ever. Like most people I'm not able to subscribe at present, but will do so when possible. I thank you for your commitment to providing information that is not freely available and is clearly contrary to the narrative of nonsense that pollutes the MSM.