Boycotts
0001 - I'm all for boycotting companies that support SOPA/PIPA/ACTA/etc. I am generally a fan of voting with my wallet, and I've boycotted Walmart (for its discriminatory employment practices) and a number of cosmetics manufacturers (for their refusal to stop animal testing), among others, for years.
0010 - The list of companies supporting SOPA being linked all over the place is inaccurate and out of date: a number of companies listed on it have already withdrawn their support for SOPA in response to the backlash. I don't know how many and which ones exactly, but specifically, members of the Business Software Alliance (including Apple and Microsoft) -- BSA withdrew its support of SOPA in freakin November and they're still showing up on that list.
0011 - If you are going to make a conscious individual decision to boycott a company's goods/services because it is doing something you disagree with, don't be a lazy asshole about it. Make sure the company is guilty of whatever it is before you start your letter-writing campaign. Otherwise you're gonna be the noise, not the signal.
0100 - If you're a buyer of books and are tempted to start waving the MASSIVE BOYCOTT ZOMG pitchfork, please realise that it appears every single major publishing house in the USA (that's including Scholastic, fellow Harry Potter fans; at least for now, though letters have been exchanged) supports SOPA. Unless you actually truly literally intend to stop buying books and start pirating them instead, please STFD and STFU.
0101 - If you're going to chastise people for not participating in the boycott, you're a fucking asshole. How the ever-loving fuck do you expect someone with, say, $10K of Visa/MasterCard debt to boycott Visa/MasterCard (both SOPA supporters, though to what end, I'm not sure)? Stop making their payments? As if. Boycotts should hurt the companies they target. The point of a boycott is to vote with your wallet. If someone's wallet isn't big enough to let them vote with it and you upbraid them for that, you're judging someone for being poorer than you. That makes you a fucking asshole, as above. (I admit I find it irritating when people claim to support gay rights and then go on to happily stuff their faces at Chick-Fil-A, which donated massively to anti-gay causes, but that's because I'm 99.999% certain no one's ever gone bankrupt by refusing to eat at Chick-Fil-A.)
0110 - That is all.
*what-the-fuck-ever-else
0010 - The list of companies supporting SOPA being linked all over the place is inaccurate and out of date: a number of companies listed on it have already withdrawn their support for SOPA in response to the backlash. I don't know how many and which ones exactly, but specifically, members of the Business Software Alliance (including Apple and Microsoft) -- BSA withdrew its support of SOPA in freakin November and they're still showing up on that list.
0011 - If you are going to make a conscious individual decision to boycott a company's goods/services because it is doing something you disagree with, don't be a lazy asshole about it. Make sure the company is guilty of whatever it is before you start your letter-writing campaign. Otherwise you're gonna be the noise, not the signal.
0100 - If you're a buyer of books and are tempted to start waving the MASSIVE BOYCOTT ZOMG pitchfork, please realise that it appears every single major publishing house in the USA (that's including Scholastic, fellow Harry Potter fans; at least for now, though letters have been exchanged) supports SOPA. Unless you actually truly literally intend to stop buying books and start pirating them instead, please STFD and STFU.
0101 - If you're going to chastise people for not participating in the boycott, you're a fucking asshole. How the ever-loving fuck do you expect someone with, say, $10K of Visa/MasterCard debt to boycott Visa/MasterCard (both SOPA supporters, though to what end, I'm not sure)? Stop making their payments? As if. Boycotts should hurt the companies they target. The point of a boycott is to vote with your wallet. If someone's wallet isn't big enough to let them vote with it and you upbraid them for that, you're judging someone for being poorer than you. That makes you a fucking asshole, as above. (I admit I find it irritating when people claim to support gay rights and then go on to happily stuff their faces at Chick-Fil-A, which donated massively to anti-gay causes, but that's because I'm 99.999% certain no one's ever gone bankrupt by refusing to eat at Chick-Fil-A.)
0110 - That is all.
*what-the-fuck-ever-else