By the end of January, more than 25,000 Palestinians had been reported killed as a result of Israel\u2019s military assault on Gaza. Just a handful of doctors remained at the largest medical facility in the Gaza Strip, where every day, 10 children lost one or both of their legs<\/a> amid the Israeli military\u2019s siege. A weeklong communications blackout \u2014 the longest since October 7th<\/a> \u2014 cut off civilians from their families and journalists from the rest of the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A. wanted to help. With a small group of friends, they set up a GoFundMe campaign with a modest goal of $300. They hoped to donate that money to organizers sending eSIMs, a digital version of a SIM card connecting devices to mobile networks, to Gaza. In the months since October 7th, when Hamas launched an attack on Israel, eSIMs have become an essential \u2014 though patchwork \u2014 method of keeping Gaza online.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe eSIMs give people a way to continue to connect with their loved ones and continue to report on the ground and let the world know what\u2019s happening,\u201d A. told The Verge. <\/em>\u201cI really believe in [journalists\u2019] right to continue to report, and everybody\u2019s right to communication.\u201d (A. requested anonymity due to fear of harassment.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Are you a current GoFundMe employee? <\/strong>I\u2019d love to hear from you. Contact me at mia@theverge.com, and I\u2019ll share my Signal. You can be anonymous.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A.\u2019s community came through, blowing past the $300 goal in under a day. But shortly after the GoFundMe campaign was launched, the campaign was placed \u201cunder review\u201d by the crowdfunding platform. A. and fellow organizers couldn\u2019t withdraw the funds that were coming in, which surpassed $3,000 by the end of the seven-day fundraising period, nor could they begin refunding donors. The money was in limbo. A., who has donated to several GoFundMe campaigns in the past, found themself in the middle of a maze of customer service email chains, along with back-and-forths with donors and organizers \u2014 all while the need in Gaza grew ever more urgent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI felt like there was a trust with GoFundMe. I felt like I knew it well enough,\u201d A. says. \u201cThey have these other fundraisers that they\u2019re showcasing for other countries like Ukraine. I felt like it was a safe place to do a fundraiser.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Since 2010, GoFundMe campaigns have raised a combined $30 billion<\/a> for everything from wildfires and emergency hospital bills to gender-affirming healthcare and small business relief. GoFundMe has become part of the fabric of mutual aid and charity efforts, and people around the world have turned to the platform as Israel\u2019s bombardment of Gaza stretches into its fourth month.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But what fundraiser organizers see as heavy-handed moderation has slowed down aid efforts, and inconsistent policies have left organizers and donors confused. Multiple organizers for fundraisers related to Palestine have received the same form email from GoFundMe referring to \u201cthe crisis unfolding in the Middle East,\u201d requiring them to provide additional information and documentation. These additional hurdles are baffling to the organizers, many of whom have run GoFundMe campaigns for other causes and have never encountered this extra red tape.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Even after A. sent additional information about the original beneficiary, the fundraiser didn\u2019t meet GoFundMe\u2019s requirements. Securing a new beneficiary would lead to even more time under review and a delay in aid. Finally, after weeks of corresponding with GoFundMe to try to find a solution, A. and their fundraising team ultimately decided to refund all donors: instead, they walked donors through how to purchase eSIMs themselves to be donated to people in Gaza.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The issues with A.\u2019s fundraiser underscore the tension between the resources that Gaza urgently needs and the legal bureaucracy platforms work within.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n While A.\u2019s fundraiser was under review by GoFundMe, the campaign was visible and open to donations \u2014 another point that has caused confusion and unease. Typically, GoFundMe hides campaigns<\/a> that are being reviewed and turns off the ability for the public to donate. But in Gaza-related campaigns, the fundraisers appeared to be up and running as usual. GoFundMe didn\u2019t answer The Verge<\/em>\u2019s questions about this discrepancy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThere\u2019s now been so much distrust between me as an organizer and them as the platform, and there\u2019s been so much distrust between our group doing this fundraiser and a number of people in our community that even if we wanted to do another fundraiser, I don\u2019t even think it would serve the purpose that it needs to,\u201d A. says. Donors and other community members criticized the fundraising effort and questioned the campaign\u2019s legitimacy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Despite its global reach, GoFundMe only operates in a handful of countries<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n One issue stems from the fact that despite its global reach, GoFundMe only operates in a handful of countries: people creating fundraisers (and those that are able to withdraw directly from GoFundMe) must be based in one of 19 countries<\/a>, which excludes entire continents like Asia, Africa, and South America. Money raised for beneficiaries outside of the 19 countries must be transferred to the creator of the fundraiser and then passed on to beneficiaries off of the platform.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But even with a plan in place to get money safely to beneficiaries, fundraisers for Gaza have been under intense scrutiny. A. was asked to provide personal information for people involved in eSIM donations as well as a list of individuals who would receive an eSIM \u2014 a potentially impossible request to fulfill given the grassroots nature of the effort and the emergency state on the ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThank you for your efforts to help those affected by the crisis unfolding in the Middle East. Due to recent developments within the region, we\u2019re carefully reviewing fundraisers related to this crisis,\u201d the form email received by multiple organizers reads. \u201cThis is an important step to help ensure fundraisers are in compliance with all applicable laws and strictly enforced policies from our payment partners and our Terms of Service.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Like all US companies, GoFundMe must comply with recent government sanctions against Hamas officials and other \u201cfacilitators\u201d in the wake of the October 7th attacks. In requiring extensive information about who and what money is going to, GoFundMe is likely running names against lists of sanctioned individuals and groups, says Aaron Martin, assistant professor at the University of Virginia with expertise in humanitarian organizations and tech policy. There are government-run lists as well as private services used by banks for things like anti-money laundering or terrorist financing screenings, Martin says, but these are often incomplete or inaccurate, and false positives can occur in regions where people have similar names.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cFor [GoFundMe\u2019s] own internal due diligence and risk management processes, they need to be able to say at least we checked, and we either cleared the names or we\u2019re still investigating because these are common names, and we simply don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Other humanitarian organizations like the UN Refugee Agency or the World Food Programme have what\u2019s known as privileges and immunities, allowing them to dole out food or other aid while being protected from government pressure or other interference. A company like GoFundMe, meanwhile, is subject to local laws.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThis kind of compliance is really just an ass-covering exercise, because you don\u2019t want to be in a position where money went to a quote, unquote bad guy,\u201d Martin says.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThis kind of compliance is really just an ass-covering exercise, because you don\u2019t want to be in a position where money went to a quote, unquote bad guy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n GoFundMe spokesperson Jalen Drummond didn\u2019t respond to specific questions about how the company flags and reviews campaigns or what tools it uses to review beneficiaries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cOur top priority is protecting the generosity of our donors. Just as we have done with past crises, we have a team of experts reviewing and vetting fundraisers through our standard verification process to ensure they are verified, and compliant with relevant international laws, global regulations, and the requirements dictated by our payment processors,\u201d Drummond said in a statement. \u201cAny suggestion of discrimination is wholly without merit, baseless, and contrary to the values that guide our platform.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Even campaigns benefitting US-based organizations working on Palestinian causes have been placed under review without explanation. Slow Factory, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, launched a program<\/a> to buy billboards in an effort to, in the words of co-founder Colin Vernon, \u201cbring visibility to the ongoing injustices and genocide being committed against Gaza.\u201d <\/strong>Actor and activist Poppy Liu, who is not affiliated with the organization but had admired its work, set up a GoFundMe campaign in support of the project<\/a>. Liu\u2019s campaign reached its goal within a day \u2014 and just as quickly, was placed under review.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201c[I felt] incredibly mad, because it feels incredibly apparent that this is part of a national trend of censoring anything that talks about Palestine,\u201d Liu told The Verge<\/em>. \u201cIt feels explicitly racist. It feels anti-Arab.\u201d Liu says they complied with GoFundMe\u2019s requests for additional information \u2014 including specifying multiple times that Slow Factory was a US-based nonprofit \u2014 and waited days until the review was finally lifted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never had an issue before and I\u2019ve fundraised for things that were not even registered 501(c)s,\u201d Liu says.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Vernon, co-founder of Slow Factory, hasn\u2019t experienced this type of review before, either.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThis was positioned as \u2018routine\u2019 verification but haven\u2019t heard of any such validation in the past, so we were of course suspicious that it is because of the content of the campaign,\u201d Vernon told The Verge <\/em>in an email. \u201cWe have seen so many instances where \u2018routine\u2019 bureaucracy is only deployed in specific cases, which points to a political motivation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt feels incredibly apparent that this is part of a national trend of censoring anything that talks about Palestine\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In emails, GoFundMe notifies campaign organizers that reviews will take anywhere from five to seven business days. For Zoe, whose GoFundMe campaign for a friend in Gaza was also placed under review, that delay feels unbearably long. (Zoe requested that The Verge <\/em>use her first name only in order to speak freely.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI understand that there are very valid fraud concerns, or misappropriation of fund concerns. But also, I feel like if there were a greater sense of urgency for what\u2019s at stake, these things would be, at least, accelerated,\u201d Zoe says. \u201cFive to seven business days \u2014 in the face of death, that\u2019s not even guaranteed for anybody right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n While under review, Zoe\u2019s campaign languished at $10; she refrained from sharing the campaign, unsure of whether she would ever get access to the money. The conditions of her friend in Gaza, meanwhile, were dire: one of their children was injured by shrapnel, and food, water, and medicine were scarce. The friend in Gaza, who asked The Verge <\/em>not to identify them, hopes to evacuate to Egypt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Nearly two weeks after initially setting up the fundraiser and then providing GoFundMe with more information, Zoe was notified the freeze was lifted. She says she didn\u2019t receive any explanation for why it was flagged for review in the first place or details about GoFundMe\u2019s findings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The roadblocks \u2014 both literal<\/a> and digital \u2014 that prohibit Palestinians from receiving aid reveal what otherwise might go unnoticed: there\u2019s a complex web of red tape and corporate interests that undergird the supposedly seamless digital transfers that happen online every day. PayPal, for example, has refused to allow Palestinians to use its service<\/a> for years, even as Israelis in illegal West Bank settlements are able to. In 2021, when violence broke out between Israel and Hamas, Venmo (which is owned by PayPal) was found to be delaying payments<\/a> that included terms like \u201cPalestinian emergency relief fund\u201d and \u201cemergency Palestinian relief fund.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Martin, who studies tech policy, says that humanitarian organizations have historically wrestled with the tension between verifying that funds or other types of aid are not reaching sanctioned groups or individuals. The task is \u201cpractically impossible,\u201d Martin says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s amazing how some of these very basic concerns around money laundering, terrorist financing can sort of trip up what most of us recognize as an important cause \u2014 helping people who are in desperate need,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When A., who was fundraising for eSIMs, decided to refund their donors, they knew that asking people to buy eSIMs themselves would result in less money being contributed \u2014 but they couldn\u2019t bear to delay aid any longer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cEven if we wanted to do another fundraiser, I don\u2019t even think it would serve the purpose that it needs to because of what\u2019s happened now,\u201d A. told The Verge <\/em>as they were weighing their options. \u201cIt is really heartbreaking and just hurts the people who need it most.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n