They know that KF will still exist and will move on from Cloudflare. The point isn't to hurt KF, but to hurt Cloudflare for daring to nominally support free speech. That's why they're botting hashtags, putting pressure on the stock price, and encouraging tech decision-makers to move their startups away from Cloudflare. The point is to say: if you do not pander to us, we will come for you.
It's an effective way to cement power over institutions from the bottom-up, without actually controlling those institutions.
It's a similar kind of social movement to the film censorship movement in early 20th century America, which was largely grassroots and yet ended up controlling the US's entire cultural output for most of a century.
In a capitalist economy, companies are guided by profit (in theory; Cloudflare has yet to actually be profitable IIRC). If people manage to affect that, they will take notice.
For instance, if they don't like you, they report you to your employer. If your employer defends you, they attack your employer's relationships with their customers, suppliers, and employees.
Basically, cancel culture exploits social networks to force the submission of an opponent.
It's bullshit.
"Boycott" comes from the last name of Charles Boycott. Protesters threatened and beat up people that worked with him, threatened shops not to sell to him, and ramped up to such a point that it cost more for the police to defend his harvest than the harvest was worth. His blacksmith was threatened with murder, and a 12 year old carrying his mail was threatened not to keep doing it. It was definitely not a polite "Oh, we don't buy from this particular guy" stand.
Now I'm not saying that threatening people is a good thing. What I am saying is that this narrative of that once upon a time people were civilized and suddenly this new "cancel culture" thing get everything out of whack is fiction. If anything, the past was a scarier and a rougher place, because if somebody stopped you in the middle of a rural road and threatened you, there were no cameras and no recording devices.
I think there's a line that most reasonable people can determine between "I disagree with $CURRENT_VIEW" and "I am against $PERSON_OF_CATEGORY existing." For example, frequently someone on Twitter will say things like, "calling for more bike lanes is ableist." I think - and am not afraid to have my name attached to this sentiment - that this is an absurd take. Every aspect of society cannot possibly serve everyone, but that doesn't mean we should fail to do something because a minority of that society can't participate. If the action actively harms that minority, then yes, close examination of it is warranted.
However, if your publicly stated opinion is that gay people shouldn't be allowed to be teachers, you deserve to be pilloried, because that opinion is harmful and without merit.
Primary boycott: I buy from you now, but you did something bad and now I don't like you and refuse to purchase your goods/services anymore. I'm going to campaign for my friends to not buy from you either.
Secondary boycott: I don't buy from you directly, but I don't like who you work with or sell to, don't associate with them. If you don't stop my friends and I will hurt you
In some jurisdictions, secondary boycotts are illegal, usually as a measure to prevent unions applying muscle to people tangentially related to a core business.
I'm not sure of the legal status of these things in the mess of jurisdictions involved in this controversy, though.
This is, if I recall, the same legislation that normally outlawed "unfair" practices in Capital/Labor relations, which included making illegal blacklisting, wildcat strikes, secondary striking, retaliation, etc...
Every boycott has detractors; if those detractors are too numerous, the boycott fails. Boycotts are marketing campaigns like everything else in the world.
> In a capitalist economy, companies are guided by profit (in theory; Cloudflare has yet to actually be profitable IIRC). If people manage to affect that, they will take notice.
The point is to observe which direction this pressures companies to lean towards, and what this says about who holds grassroots or institutional power at any given time.
Is it that hard to believe that the primary goal of a group of people who were being harassed, at times to the point of suicide, is to try to shut down the forum that is harassing them?
proof?
