Facebook is halting political spending for at least the first quarter of 2021 following last week's deadly attack on the Capitol.
Why it matters: Tech companies have been de-platforming President Donald Trump and his supporters at a rapid pace since the attacks, and freezing political giving may be the next step tech companies take to show they're seriously rethinking their approach to Washington.
The Internet Association named K. Dane Snowden, a former official at cable and wireless trade groups, as its new president Monday.
Why it matters: IA represents Google, Facebook and Amazon as they face increasing scrutiny on content moderation and privacy, and have been without a leader for nearly a year.
It was already shaping up to be a very strange CES this year, with the world's largest consumer tech show going virtual. Now, CES also has to compete with a constitutional crisis and worsening pandemic.
The big picture: The Consumer Technology Association, which puts on CES, has done its best to move the big press events and keynote online.
Twitter's decision Friday to kick President Trump off Twitter proved just the opening salvo in a broadening series of other consequential moves by tech companies cracking down on those who took part in or encouraged last week's insurrection at the Capitol.
Why it matters: The moves have renewed debate over how much power tech companies should have to decide whose content lives on the internet.
Many Democratic legislators say Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other online services stood by while the president used them to discredit a lawful election and his supporters used them to organize a violent assault on the Capitol.
Why it matters: Right at the moment that Democrats are about to take over the White House and both houses of Congress, the Capitol riot poured gas on the fire of the party’s anger at Big Tech platforms.
Republicans are losing power where power matters most at the national level: in politics, media, technology and the workplace.
Why it matters: Republicans often felt mistreated when they had real power in the form of the presidency and Senate. Watch Fox News or listen to Ben Shapiro, and you will see and hear how this new isolation will feed Republican worries and grievances in the months ahead.
Following Wednesday's violent siege of the Capitol, Stripe will no longer process payments for President Trump's campaign, which continued to fundraise. The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, and confirmed by Axios with a source close to Stripe.
Why it matters: This is the latest escalation in Big Tech's revulsed reaction to last Wednesday's insurrection in D.C., and the first to directly target money flows.
Amazon's decision to boot conservative chat site Parler from its hosting platform, on the heels of Twitter and many other services banishing President Trump, brings three decades of hot argument over online speech to a boil.
Why it matters: Four years of a president who behaved like a boundary-pushing online troll, fostering mayhem that culminated in Wednesday's assault on the Capitol, finally forced the executives who control today's internet to draw lines.
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