Payments giant Stripe stops processing Trump campaign website payments

In the aftermath of the Capitol violence last week, payments company Stripe is no longer processing payments for the Trump campaign website, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Why should we care?
Stripe is the latest big tech player to cut connections to President Trump in the wake of the Capitol attack. PayPal last week closed an account held by a group that paid for supporters of the President to travel to Washington, D.C. for the Capitol event. Meanwhile, commerce platform Shopify stopped supporting shops tied to Trump. PayPal and Shopify’s moves were due to violations of acceptable-use policies that prohibit use of the platforms to support violence. Stripe’s ban is tied to similar violations. The company requires users to agree to not accept payments for “high risk” activities, including for any business or organization that “engages in, encourages, promotes or celebrates unlawful violence or physical harm to persons or property.” This isn’t the first time Stripe has banned users for non-compliance with this policy. In 2018, the company banned social media forum Gab.com after an attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue resulted in 11 deaths. The alleged Pittsburgh shooter reportedly posted anti-Semitic messages on the chat platform. Gab.com is also in the news, reportedly gaining 10,000 users an hour as Parler, a social media platform popular among conservative activists, got booted from the Apple App Store, Google Play, and Amazon Web Services.