Digital Boycotting

It was when the US President phoned Giovanni Infantino, President of FIFA, and asked him to rescind the red card given to the US player, Folarin Balogun, and allow him to play the next game against Belgium that I thought things had gone too far. The rules of football were being trashed by an unholy alliance between two narcissistic men behaving like autocrats. Objections rained in from Belgium, Germany, UEFA, and the football press. All to no avail, but Belgium had the final say, beating the USA 4-1. Justice was done. The United States had treated the Iranian team with similar disrespect by refusing to let them stay overnight in the United States, a violation of international sports protocols.

If the World Cup teams had threatened a boycott, would Infantino have caved in to the pressure from the US President? Who knows, boycotts are seldom observed by all and can take years to yield results. I recall a sleep-in at the Senate House at Liverpool University in 1970, organised by Jon Snow, to persuade the University to relinquish its investments in South Africa. Jon was red-carded, and it was 24 years before Nelson Mandela became President and 41 years before the University awarded Jon Snow an honorary degree. 

National and International boycotts have had sporadic successes since Rosa Parks sparked the Alabama bus protest after she was told to sit at the back of the bus. Long-standing boycotts on South African products as part of anti-apartheid protests and the purchase of Russian oil and gas have had success over longer periods, and Twitter (X) lost half its advertising revenue after companies boycotted it for inaccurate and toxic content.

 On a personal level, I have boycotted many things, notably anything owned by Rupert Murdoch, American fast food and coffee chains, Virgin Trains, many companies owned by American hedge funds, Heathrow airport, Israeli produce since the genocide in Gaza and companies that have provided poor service or refused to refund payments like Booking.com. Does personal boycotting have any effect? Not a lot, but like voting, it is more effective than just abstaining, and it gives you a sense of doing the right thing.

I noticed that Lisa Nandy, the Secretary for Arts, Culture and Sport, has boycotted the use of X by her department. I cannot understand why the government and other organisations haven't done the same. Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart constantly air their gripes about X, where they are routinely abused for their moderate views. Still, they seem too worried about losing their followers to do the virtuous thing and deactivate their accounts. UK users have fallen from 8 million to 5.6 million since Musk took over. Notable company withdrawals from X include the majority of Higher Education organisations, many Councils, The Guardian, Sport England, London Marathon and British Red Cross. 

Most MPs seem to be frightened of losing their followers if they switch to Blue Sky or Threads. Perhaps we need a European microblogging site that banishes the use of algorithms that promote toxic views. In the meantime, I will stick to my own digital boycotting. I have never been tempted by X or, in its time, Twitter.  Facebook and LinkedIn are seldom visited; there are far too many unwanted adverts and mindless shared posts. Unlike our precious time, which is finite, tweets are for those more concerned about losing followers; they know neither the cost nor the value of time.