Salesforce relieves Republican National Committee of its tools citing 'risk of politically incited violence' across the US
- Reference: 1610474705
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/01/12/salesforce_rnc_stance/
- Source link:
[1]According to Reuters , the company said it had "taken action" to prevent its tools from being used by the Republican National Committee in any way that could lead to a repeat of last week's [2]storming of the US Capitol .
[3]
"We are all deeply troubled by the terrible events of January 6," Salesforce said, referring to events driven by supporters of Donald Trump last Wednesday. "And while we all hope that they are never repeated, sadly there remains a risk of politically incited violence across the country."
The cloud giant, which [4]gobbled up Slack for $28bn last year , would not say what action it is taking with regard to the Republican National Committee, which has been a longstanding customer.
Although Salesforce's policies say its technology should not be used to promote illegal activity or mislead people about voting processes, the committee said that it had decided "independently to stop fundraising on all of our digital platforms, including on Salesforce".
Earlier this month [5]Twitter and Facebook kicked outgoing Prez Trump off their platforms after the insurrection. Meanwhile, [6]AWS suspended accounts hosting the Parler social network for its role in allowing users to co-ordinate the attack on the US Capitol buildings.
Maybe Salesforce senses which way the wind is blowing long after the weather vane has swivelled. President-elect [7]Joe Biden has nominated Rhode Island governor Gina Raimondo as commerce secretary.
Those familiar with Salesforce's grotesque online self-promotion carnival, Dreamforce, might [8]remember her cosying up to CEO Marc Benioff , telling the world about how she used the Salesforce platform in her state's pandemic response.
[9]
In an irony too delicious not to point out, Salesforce has now hit the street hawking [10]its latest product , which is aimed at, you guessed it, loyalty. ®
Get our [11]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-corporate-salesforce-com/salesforce-says-it-has-taken-action-to-prevent-further-us-political-violence-idUSKBN29H003
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/06/us_congress_trump_stormed/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_datacentre/cloud&sz=300x250%7C300x252%7C300x600&tile=3&c=33X-4qCA-64ogEqypnFp5M6AAAAFM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/01/salesforce_buys_slack/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/07/social_media_trump/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/11/parler_sues_aws/
[7] https://www.npr.org/sections/biden-transition-updates/2021/01/07/954497760/rhode-island-gov-gina-raimondo-is-bidens-commerce-secretary-pick?t=1610463499568
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE8s1ItRG6Y
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_datacentre/cloud&sz=300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251&tile=4&c=44X-4qCA-64ogEqypnFp5M6AAAAFM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2021/01/12/loyalty-management-update/
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
This I think: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55628946
Scary adverts
I read US journals using the Tor browser and thus get to see web adverts. For the past six months the adverts have mostly been for clever trompe-l'œil T shirts, you know, spirals disappearing into your chest. For the past two weeks all the adverts are for body armour and combat clothing.
To be expected
Lots of rats are leaving what they reckon to be a sinking ship. Nobody gave two hoots while the trump's trumpetings were in vogue, but it's a matter of "reputation" now.
Everyone of these moves
backs the hardened Trumpists and friends (MAGA, Q-anon etc) even more into a corner.
What's all this about 'cornered rats'?
They won't give up easily.
Salesforce is not alone here
Apple is going to apparently make a big announcement on Thursday.
They might be joining the club of GOP boycotters.
There is absolutely no evidence that the Republican National Committee promoted any violence whatsoever. So Salesforce is saying it's ok to dump a customer you find inconvenient whenever you want. Apparently "Cloud Reliability" now depends on your political leanings.
Anyone cheering this on needs to think good and hard about the ramifications of organisations and financial institutions breaking contracts and cutting access to the financial system, over mere guilt by association. Not over illegality or criminality, or incitement, or anything else. Merely being guilty of being in the same intellectual space as people who might have done wrong. This sort of coordinated action, to isolate people and groups who have broken no laws, is terrifying to anyone who has even the smallest amount of intelligence in their head.
If they can effectively form a cartel to do this to one of the largest political organisations in the western world, without any apparent repercussion, then they can do it to anyone. The worst part is they already have, and morons celebrated, because it was politically convenient.
A good contract
Would give them a way to legally do this, reputational harm? Salesforce will have good contracts :) hope that eases your pain. Oh,and ain't capitalism a bitch.
Re: A good contract
Capitalism? When giant corporations and governments collude to shut down political opponents, that's not capitalism that's, um... Let me think, what do we normally call that?
"There is absolutely no evidence that the Republican National Committee promoted any violence".
But they have kept on shutting up, like most of the GOP, when decency demanded they for once stood up.
Just listen to Jordan here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP_SuxCEt4c
Meanwhile senior Democrats raise funds for people that were arrested for using violence (including arson, riots and assaulting the police) for political purposes.
https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1267555018128965643
A lot of people are noticing the hypocrisy, by politicians and by technology companies.
@Cederic - Small correction
people that were arrested and charged with using violence is more appropriate here. It is up to a judge to decide the matter.
The real truth...
"When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say."
George R.R. Martin, author of A Clash of Kings
Picking sides
The problem with picking sides in a politically polarized debate is alienating one side or the other.
It does not matter which version of the election results you believe. When a business publicly picks sides, one chunk of their potential customers become disaffected. Do the players of big tech really think they have become so indispensable that their customers will silently stand by and do nothing?
Re: Picking sides
You do know Trump lost fair and square, the majority of Americans know it too, it's not that hard to pick one side. the honest side.
There is never two sides to reality.
That's the least of their problems. Somewhere on the Beeb (as ever, now unfindable) it was reported big firms were stating to reconsider political donations. That's their really big problem.