Could it be that the loudest and angriest twitter scolds actually represent ~0.0001% of the population and shouldn’t be immediately kowtowed to by our academic, cultural, and business leaders?
“We do not make decisions based on petitions”
[1] https://www.boston.com/news/business/2020/07/31/trader-joes-...
2000 is virtually meaningless, in a country of 300 million people, and yet it was getting significant news coverage.
What's funny to me is, at least in my feed, these stories are shared most by people who use them to decry cancel culture. This in turn drives clicks to these stories and creates the demand for them, amplifying the impact of those 2,000 people in exactly the opposite way they intend to.
Anyway, it's possible NYT wrote that article knowing it would be a hot-button article and would be shared widely by anti cancel culture people.
Those not privy are being brainwashed into kowtowing to the whims of the intolerant Twitter mob.
So that whole thing was over something a high school student originally posted?
Not to generalize, but basing business decisions based on something a teenager posted on a website isn't necessarily going to lead to the best decisions.
Teenagers are almost exclusively idiots. By design. They have had almost zero life experience so when someone props them up, as experts or authorities or cares who they are offended on behalf of - I recoil pretty hard at that. Anyone that’s talked to a 16yo for more than a couple minutes knows they certainly shouldn’t be taking any advice from them.
Yet... get the world stage if the cause is good or “good”.
I’m not surprised a teenager’s petition almost effected changed at Trader Joe’s, I’m surprised it didn’t work. Good for them.
How old was the person who wrote in response "The packaging indicates it’s authentic to the country the recipe comes from!" ?
Not to be too cynical, but I doubt many companies give a damn what peoples opinions are, if those people aren’t buying their products, or if there isn’t a creditable threat those people will start to influence the opinions of people who do buy their products.
It's also easier to dismiss with how silly and unimportant (and in my opinion, wrong) their position is - and how obnoxious their self-perceived moral authority is.
Greta Thunberg was rather annoying from a "trotting out a teenager for political purposes" but at least in that case, the moral argument and the "generational" nature of climate change make more sense to see a minor push the issue.
Twitter used to feel like a positive place. But after 2016 it took a dark turn. Trends are overwhelmingly negative, and the platform pushes politics non stop. In the past topics were more varied, divided into categories like tech, or science or music. I just can't escape the political rage promoted by the platform.
But now we live on a planet with almost eight billion people screaming at each other. The criticism of a few means nothing. The old heuristic of counting critics to get a proxy for the opinion of the group doesn't work anymore. But we still fear the rejection of the group, and at some level, deep down, we still interpret an attack from a few people as evidence of deep unpopularity.
Rejecting this instinct is essential for participation in a global conversation. It doesn't come naturally to us, but it can be learned --- just as you can train yourself out of a fear of spiders or heights. It looks like at least some corporate leaders have started to learn the essential skill of not fearing social media loudmouths.
That comment...it's really hard not to take that as a troll comment...
This is exactly what happened to the "OK" hand symbol, which people have lost jobs over: It was a 4chan prank. There were alternate suggestions for what a bunch of different common hand symbols could mean, and this was the only one that caught on mainstream.
The Santa Hat change most likely also made it so much easier to move forward with the renaming of the master branch on GitHub. One could also argue that the master branch name should have been changed back in 2014 in connection with the Ferguson unrest and the killing of Michael Brown.
A Jira ticket was filed the next morning to change all instances of "execute" to "run".
The negative effects of social media tend to be environmental in that sense, threats to national security, destruction of the political climate, negative effects on minorities and so on aren't felt by most customers. The negative behaviour of companies like Facebook affects the commons, not individual customers.
Celebrities such as Elton John and George Clooney had called for a boycott of the Dorchester Collection, a chain of hotels owned by the Sultan of the country, which includes The Dorchester and 45 Park Lane in London.1 Several large companies including JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank followed suit, telling their staff to avoid Brunei-owned hotels in the wake of the new laws.
2018 JANUARY: The Body Shop successfully ended, after the company's owner declared itself cruelty-free. Natura, which bought the high-street chain in 2017, announced a clear animal testing policy after hundreds of consumers wrote to the company. Naturewatch lifted the boycott call, after 11 years of campaigning, and has invited both Natura and The Body Shop to join its list for cruelty-free cosmetics brands.
FEBRUARY: Multiple companies cut ties with the NRA, following boycott calls.
Delta Airlines, United Airlines, Hertz, Budget, Avis, Best Western and Wyndham Hotels all stated that they would no longer offer discounts or other special offers for NRA members. The insurer Chubb dropped cover for NRA Carry Guard insurance. Enterprise Rent–A–Car announced that is was severing ties. First National Bank of Omaha stated that it would end a Visa credit card it offered with NRA branding. The companies all faced boycotts for their links to the NRA after the association called for teachers to be armed and spoke out against student gun control activists, in the wake of the Parkland high school shooting.
JULY: Ivanka Trump closed her fashion brand, after boycotts from consumers following her father's election. The brand was a target of the Boycott Trump campaign due to Ivanka's links with the President and her own role as a senior adviser. According to the Wall Street Journal, which cited research from Rakuten Intelligence, online sales of the brand at Amazon, Macy's and Bloomingdales fell almost 45% in the year to June. Several retailers also dropped the brand.
The Irish Senate approved a bill that would ban the import of goods from the Palestinian occupied territories. If the bill passes Ireland’s lower house it will set a precedent within the EU. The Act will prohibit “trade with and economic support for illegal settlements in territories deemed occupied under international law”, which would make Ireland the first EU country to introduce a national boycott of Israeli-settlement goods. The bill does not name Israel but instead refers to “occupying powers” and “illegal settlements” – both terms that the Israeli settlement fulfil under UN law.
SEPTEMBER: Burberry announces that it will join Armani, Versace, Gucci, Vivienne Westwood, Stella McCartney, and others in banning fur after a long-running boycott campaign from animal rights group PETA.
DECEMBER: HSBC announced that it had fully divested from the Israeli drone manufacturer Elbit Systems, known for selling weapons to the Israeli military used in attacks on Palestinian civilians.
Elbit Systems has been the target of a long-running divestment campaign for supplying surveillance systems and other technology to Israel’s Separation Wall and settlements in the West Bank as well as for the US-Mexico boarder. The company has also manufactured the white phosphorous and artillery systems that can be used for cluster munitions. More than 24,000 War on Want supporters emailed HSBC asking the company to end its investments in Elbit Systems and other arms companies selling to the Israeli military.
Cartier pledged to stop buying gems from Myanmar and gemstone exports from the country fell 65% during the course of 2017. Human rights activists called for jewellers to boycott gemstones mined in Myanmar, which are funding the country’s military.
Myanmar’s military dominates the country’s gemstone industry, with military-affiliated companies controlling distribution of licensing and permits and running gem auctions that raise hundreds of millions of dollars. The long-running campaign, led by SumofUS and The International Campaign for the Rohingya, responds to the military’s attacks on communities of Rohingya Muslims in the country.