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Salesforce relieves Republican National Committee of its tools citing 'risk of politically incited violence' across the US
See that horse disappearing over the horizon? Time to close the stable door
Cloud CRM megacorp Salesforce is the latest tech player to join Amazon, Twitter and Facebook in deciding there is something off about organisations that hype up insurrection against a democratic mandate.
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 storming of the US Capitol.
"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 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 Twitter and Facebook kicked outgoing Prez Trump off their platforms after the insurrection. Meanwhile, 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 Joe Biden has nominated Rhode Island governor Gina Raimondo as commerce secretary.
Those familiar with Salesforce's grotesque online self-promotion carnival, Dreamforce, might remember her cosying up to CEO Marc Benioff, telling the world about how she used the Salesforce platform in her state's pandemic response.
In an irony too delicious not to point out, Salesforce has now hit the street hawking its latest product, which is aimed at, you guessed it, loyalty. ®