Disney allegedly lost 1.7 million customers after suspending Jimmy Kimmel. He was very quickly reinstated.

It’s not that boycotts don’t work, it’s more that they require a critical mass to work and that can be hard to achieve.

Boycotts just brought back * Jimmy Kimmel like 2 weeks ago.

BDS worked on South Africa, but it was a pariah state at the national level in most of the world. You have to get your taxes to stop going to Israel for that to work tbh.

Doesn’t mean I don’t participate. What little we can do does a little, and is worth doing.

When enough people care collectively yeah. Rare.

Canadians vs Heinz Ketchup in the past and I think that one has stuck around somewhat to present day.

Canadians again vs American booze in response to 51st state threats. Yesterday’s headlines were about a continued drop in sales, down 85% this year so far.

Travel is down too. Not enough in my opinion, but enough that a few states are whining about it including Newsom in California. Fuck the USA.

Usually no though.

Boycotts in general do work, absolutely. But it has to be a near-complete boycott, e.g. 90+% participation. Just a few will never work.

They work if they’re organized, well-informed and well-planned.

They don’t work if they’re reliant on petitions, mixed messages and no structure.

Like do they actually, reliably effect change in the way the activists intend?
Have they worked against Israel? Did they work against Apartheid South Africa? Could they work against Trump’s America?
My hunch is that they don’t, really, but can be a useful promotional tool for other issues. Like don’t buy American is a simple message. >If people will listen to that, they may listen to reasons why, which maybe could build a movement.
But on the whole I am very sceptical, and would be interested in any reasons for or against boycotts.

Try to look at it the other way around: Every single one of your actions shapes the world around you and thus is a vote for how you want the world to be. By the very act of visiting a country you declare that country to be worth visiting, by purchasing a product you endorse it, by using a service you support the continued existence of that service and all things connected to it.

Now why wouldn’t the reverse be true?

If BDS didn’t work, it wouldn’t be illegal to promote BDS for Israel…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws

Know what works better than boycotts? A general strike. Stop the economy in its tracks. Have a clear, articulated goal. No leadership. No one to arrest. No one to identify as a troublemaker.

The trouble, when systemic, is the system. A boycott is meant to strike at an individual or group of allied organization(s). A general strike is the last level.

Governments tend to be allergic to general strikes. Their reactions are heavy-handed, thoughtless, and reactionary. Howard Zinn recounts several in A People’s History of the United States. But, when primed and done well, it is a demonstration of political will unlike any other. It is a change agent.

I was in Guatemala in 2015 for the one-day general strike that led to the arrest of then-President Otto Perez Molina. His party had been funnelling tax revenues into a slush fund. Look up #noletoca and #LaLinea. He was removed from the presidency, tried, convicted, and served time.

If it’s a company selling a product an effective boycott of 30% or more of their customers would work under extended period’s of time.

For military you have to go to war against them. You don’t ask Israel to stop killing you. You pull out the uno reverse

It works, albeit imperfectly. In particular, it’s sometimes a difficult prospect for would-be participants who don’t have the luxury of choice. Also attention/bandwidth can limit participation since no one can sustain an endless game of whack-a-mole. Ultimately, it’s just one of many tools, but it has often been effective.

Depends. If a significant chunk of your userbase starts to leave you will have to rethink sooner rather than later.

Sometimes they do. Sometimes they are a useful promotional tool for the cause. Sometimes they don’t work at all. How do you know which will be which? You don’t.

Every person who supports a boycott very slightly improves its effectiveness, either directly or to create more awareness of the cause.

Avoid black-or-white thinking. it does not have to “win” to be part of a change, it only has to have the chance for change or contribute to change, and we won’t know how much of a contribution it made, if any at all, until and unless the change eventually happens. It may be the butterfly flapping its wings that causes a hurricane, or it may be a butterfly flapping its wings that does absolutely nothing at all. Either way, let the butterfly flap its wings first, and then we’ll see what happens. It is neither guaranteed to succeed, nor guaranteed to fail. That’s the kind of black-or-white thinking you need to avoid. We don’t live in a world of certainty, the world is a complex place full of uncertainty. We try because there’s a chance, not because it’s guaranteed, and the chance to make a change is the worthwhile part you should be pursuing. Seeking absolute certainty from future events is a form of self-sabotage.

Well, back in the day they successfully ousted Mr. Boycott by boycotting him. So at least the first boycott successfully worked.

It can work, the impact increases the more support it has.

I don’t think you can effectively boycott whole countries if you aren’t doing so on a country level.

Consumer level boycotts against companies on the other hand seem to work very well.