Facebook is freezing some of its political spending

Facebook plans to pause its contributions to political action committees (PACs) through the first quarter of 2021 in the wake of last week’s US Capitol riot. The company told Axios, which was the first to report on the development, it will also conduct a review of its political spending practices.

“Following last week’s awful violence in DC, we are pausing all of our PAC contributions for at least the current quarter, while we review our policies,” a spokesperson for the company told Engadget.

The freeze will only affect the company’s PAC contributions, not all the money it spends to influence politics in the US and other countries. The move follows a similar one from Microsoft, which told Axios it wouldn’t make any political contributions until it has a chance to assess “the implications of last week’s event.”

The decision is just one of the many outcomes that have come out of last week’s deadly riot. On the same day of the attack, Facebook banned QAnon, marking its most drastic step against the conspiracy theory to date. One day later, the company said it would block President Donald Trump’s accounts until at least President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20th.