all 43 comments

[–]yellow_algebra_31 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (16 children)

I never used many of these companies, and I've stopped using others since. These will be the hardest for me:

  • I can move my bank account to a local bank. That's probably the highest impact thing I can do.
  • Mastercard: fuck. How tf am I supposed to engage in commerce? Visa and mastercard? Do I just send checks by mail now?
  • I could move my email account to Protonmail (or a better alternative that doesn't give in to DDOSers). Google docs I'll need an alternative to. I guess I can just keep that stuff locally, I don't really use it for anything that really needs sharing. Maybe I already use alternative browsers but I'm not sure what's best. searx? duckduckgo? startpage? qwant? I'll need to download my email data. Youtube will be hard but I guess I gotta do it.
  • Twitter will be hard, I follow people there. Maybe I can learn how to make a tweet mirroring bot to the fediverse. No, that's probably not realistic. Fuck. Those tweets get me through the day and provide my news. This one I will need help with, comments appreciated.
  • Guess I gotta stop visiting reddit subs for good.
  • There are a lot of payment processor and fund transfer stuff on that list. We need some legit options to switch to.
  • Mozilla, yikes. Guess it's time to ditch firefox? Suggestions?
  • Microsoft?! Time to do that switch to Linux I've been putting off.
  • No more gardening supplies from Lowe's... or Home Depot...
  • No logitech purchases, I potentially needed some new hardware...
  • Intel?! and AMD? How tf am I supposed to do computing? I think we need a list of computer hardware and software suppliers that are legit.
  • FexEx?! Ebay?! Alternatives please?
  • Can commit to not using Discord again.
  • CVS, yikes.
  • Creative Commons?!
  • Burt's Bees? :'( I liked their stuff, but fortunately I already found another lip balm maker. This is something your local small business artisinal beauty products maker can do, btw.
  • I think I gotta get a new cell provider.
  • Amazon :(

We need a full legit whole supply line, guys. This is absurd. Don't ever fucking sell out ever under any fucking circumstance every fucking again, you guys here me? No letting somebody "buy" your company. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book and they've been doing it since the invention of agriculture.

This is a longer list than I thought it would be. I think I'll start with the banks, that seems like the highest-impact. Started doing this several years back but never made the transfer, ashamed now that I didn't. Time to go look up all that old info the Occupy people put together about banking.

Any helpful info about alternatives greatly appreciated.

[–]Aureus[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Thank you for going over these one-by-one.

My take is that there's different levels. Some companies are worse offenders than others. Some just made a virtue-signalling tweet, while others donated millions to shady organizations. Beyond this list, we need to draft a sort of hierarchy of companies, from the biggest offenders (most important to boycott) to the smallest offenders (least important to boycott).

Btw: If a service is important to your daily life, you don't have to boycott it. Your wellbeing, and the wellbeing of your family and extended community come first.

A decent rule of thumb is it's okay to use a service as long as you get more value out of it than it gets from you.

Twitter will be hard, I follow people there.

I would actually discourage people from boycotting sites like YouTube or Twitter if they can spread their message using it. One crafty technique would be to keep using YouTube/Twitter for videos and comments, but boycott their advertisers. Every time you use YouTube, Reddit, or Twitter, you are consuming their resources... if you're blocking their ads, you're actually doing more than a boycott would. Of course don't let online platforms take up too much of your time though.

Maybe I already use alternative browsers but I'm not sure what's best. searx? duckduckgo?

I've heard DuckDuckGo is good. At least don't use Google as a default search engine - that's an easy switch to make.

There are a lot of payment processor and fund transfer stuff on that list. We need some legit options to switch to.

While you should keep using services important to your daily life in the short-term, this is a good point. In the long-term we need to build alternatives to these.

Mozilla, yikes. Guess it's time to ditch firefox? Suggestions?

Brave is good. However, I'm not sure Mozilla works the same way as other products and services, since you don't pay for it. I would absolutely make sure to turn off all monitoring in the settings, and don't donate to the Mozilla Foundation.

There's also Waterfox, a fork of Firefox, but I've had issues using that. We need a tech team, lol.

Microsoft?! Time to do that switch to Linux I've been putting off.

I use an older version of Windows. IMO the new versions are just annoying to use, and there's supposedly a lot of tracking software on them anyway. But it would be good to start thinking about Linux distros.

No letting somebody "buy" your company. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book and they've been doing it since the invention of agriculture.

Absolutely. You see this with almost every company... the privately-owned ones are usually the most decent, especially if they're still run by their founders. The publicly-owned ones are awful.

[–]flugegeheimen 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

However, I'm not sure Mozilla works the same way as other products and services, since you don't pay for it.

The majority of Mozilla Corporation revenue is generated from global browser search partnerships, basically Google, Microsoft etc pay them to use a corresponding search as a default search provider in browser. When Firefox's usage will drop to 0%, I imagine Mozilla will be financially dead for good. So, it's a good idea to not touch Firefox.

[–]yellow_algebra_31 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

that does not bode well for open source browsers, is there an alternative that does not have this problem?

[–]danuker 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This guy looked at everything browsers send and receive:

https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/browsers.html

[–]Aureus[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Didn't know that, thanks!

[–]FlippyKing 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

Wow, that is a staggering list. I guess it is just obvious that the tech companies are owned and run by VERY-like-minded people, o say the least.

Local products, and as you say local smaller banks and credit unions, are important. Even if their "politics" don't line up, what is more important is that local communities build themselves up as best they can so these behemoths have less power over us. So many communities have been neglected and their economies so devastated, that they can't repair their own water infrastructure.

I guess it helps to know the monetary system is just completely fake anyway. Anything we can do to get out of using the fake money and dealing in real things is better. Ultimately, the money is a way to manipulate how we get what we need. We need shelter, food, clean water, clothing, and community. If money were real, the people who just manipulate it would never make more than a farmer.

I think real solutions, as in the kind that might free us from being dependent and influenced by these douchey corporations, will ultimately come via local organizing: community by community, addressing specific needs where they are, and untangling ourselves from the things that sap our power away from us and towards them. Yes, that's all just a bunch of empty rhetoric.

[–]Aureus[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Local products, and as you say local smaller banks and credit unions, are important. Even if their "politics" don't line up, what is more important is that local communities build themselves up as best they can so these behemoths have less power over us.

Totally agree.

Ultimately, the money is a way to manipulate how we get what we need. We need shelter, food, clean water, clothing, and community.

I'm thinking barter, gift economies, trading in precious metals, and crypto could become more prominent in the future. It's also important to think of the basics and start from there.

I think real solutions, as in the kind that might free us from being dependent and influenced by these douchey corporations, will ultimately come via local organizing: community by community, addressing specific needs where they are, and untangling ourselves from the things that sap our power away from us and towards them.

You are right on. Local organizing is the way, and unfortunately it's been sorely neglected.

[–]FlippyKing 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

We took local for granted for too long, just as we took a lot of things for granted. Another option is postal banking. People used to be able to cash checks and have accounts at the post office. It was an alternative to banks and served a lot of people. It ended un Reagan.

One solution is like no solution, having a lot of options in everything is probably important. It will make us more resilient-- which is like a key word here. There is, or was, a small "resilient communities" movement that looked at natural disasters and organized or encouraged communities to be prepared and ready for when they had to rely on themselves. It's not a big stretch to just say "we should rely on ourselves as much as possible"

[–]yellow_algebra_31 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

kindof thinking out loud here

We need shelter, food, clean water, clothing, and community.

Yes I have been thinking about this. I have felt for a long time like I don't really understand "money" the way I understand needing food or something. I was thinking maybe listing these sorts of real things, maybe in order of necessity, is a way to start building an infrastructure. Idk. Maybe not quite the right way to think of it. But something more material than "money". Though I think we should still be supporting the USD, we rely on the US for protection and it would be nice to pay down the debt one day.

  • security / not getting attacked / killed
  • shelter
  • water
  • sanitation
  • food

Community. Yeah. That's a very important one.

[–]Aureus[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I totally agree. The best way to start building an infrastructure is to focus on basic needs. If you're part of a community that can provide its own water, shelter, food, sanitation, and clothing, everything else is just convenience.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs would help here

[–]FlippyKing 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Money's been mystified by people who want us not thinking about it, much like law has. If we take a step back and just look at what communities need, and what they have, problems look very different and the idea that coal miners should learn to code can be applied to people who sit atop piles of money like they were dragons.

Sanitation is one I always leave out, thanks for adding it. Yes, there are essential services like that that are just as critical as food.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

the problem with credit unions is that they have terrible I.T. security and privacy problems. They don't have as much money as the big banks to spend on cyber security. I used to work at one and it was a nightmare and so easy to steal people's personal information. It is mostly old people who use credit unions and that's they are are targeted in scams online. I think Bitcoin will solve this in the future. Im using Bitcoin more and more often. Leaving traditional banking.

[–]FlippyKing 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I agree about the problem with credit unions and IT security. I wonder about how much investment one must put into such security before you get a real and effective protective result. I think it's an area where a lot of money is wasted on fools and bad services.

I'm just anti-currency at this point. I don't see how bit coin or any currency can solve problems caused by currency, those who issue currencies, those who manipulate them, and those who rig the the system so bankers "growing" a social construct make more than farmers growing food.

The problem I see, and I probably say this above, is that essential things our species had a very easy time with-- food and shelter-- are now tied to and made difficult by currency. How many generations of humans have had to secure shelter either via a 30 year mortgage or a 2 1/2 month security deposit, a credit check, a bank statement, proof of ID, the legal contract of a lease, and first and last month up front? Same with food. We live successfully on almost every acre of land on the earth. Problems with survival certainly exist in some areas. Inuit people dealt with growing too old to be of use to society and being a burden on loved ones and a drain on limited resources by just walking off into the wilderness to die. But, the fact that they lived long enough to become burdens shows there were successful in ways that should make us question ridiculously low life spans in segments of civilized society now and more so historically.

In the US, fish stock has been depleted and I blame currency. hear me out. In NYC, large farms like what was on Delancey St are gone. They do not grow their own food. They were replaced by factories and sweat shops, but now those are gone and Wall St grows "money", the media industry distribute lies for money, and the rest of the population mostly support those industries either through education or entertainment or food and services. How did such a large population in a region just stop producing their own food? By burdening the food production capacity of other regions and other populations, by exchanging food for currency. But food is real and currency is a social construct. Gardeners and farmers often have to experiment to find the best practices for the specific bit of land they are on. If the experiment fails, they produce less. No one bails them out, instead it is something taken advantage of as farm bankruptcies weaken farmers and enable the investor classes to buy up the land. Also and counter-intuitively, governments have paid corn farmers to destroy corn to keep prices up, and this kind of thing still happens as recently Vermont paid farmers to destroy milk to keep the prices up.

Why are prices kept up by limiting supply? Excess could feed people, or stored for the future. It's done to make the flow of currency balanced in some way, but also to keep the food out of the mouths of the poor and to keep fed the mouths of the idle who produce only social constructs.

People who make nothing but money also dream up ways of making new money, but if those ideas are bad they've also dreamed up ideas to protect themselves from from the kinds of catastrophes farmers face with their efforts fail. Marx spells this out better than I, but essentially politics is an arena reserved for those with the free time and money to participate. The overworked and underpaid off far away from centers of power are unable to influence the actions of government in the same way as those who manipulate social constructs.

The only solution I see is to disentangle the necessities for life from the constraints of currency, and to treat farmers or health care workers or the building trades, as something separate from lower forms of life like politicians or bankers or movie stars. That is not to say these lower forms of life should not be rich or famous, but those who provide for our material needs need a level of security that just is not provided for in a society run by people who deal mostly in social constructs.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The point of Bitcoin is that it's decentralized and controlled by no one. You dont need a third party. I can keep my Bitcoins offline and I become my own bank.

Food and shelter is not made difficult by money. Its made difficult by the people who control and print the money. The "Bankers"

You take away the ability for them to print, lend and control money and then you have a strong currency which can easily buy you food and shelter.

The bankers have always been the root of the problem. Farmers are poor because they bankers force them to borrow millions of dollars and they are always in debt. Generations of families who only know a life of "borrowing money" is exactly what the bankers wanted.

This has been going on for decades maybe 80 years. You blame money because you stop at that. Keep investigating how money works and where does it come from and you will find out the truth. Most people dont investigate further past currency.

[–]FlippyKing 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

(I apologize for the length here. It is a mix of questions and fleshing out of my ideas, and pointing out some flaws in them)

How do you keep your bitcoins off line, and then how do you use them offline? (I'm really asking. I have none.) Is this a solution that can be used practically by people who now use the central-bank issued currency of their state's choosing? (maybe an unfair question, but I can't think of a better way to ask it).

With regard to the question if food and shelter are not made more difficult by money but by those who control it: I refer back to my point about how many generations of us have lived in shelters without needing security deposits or mortgages. Currency does not exist with out people who control and print it, that must include something exactly analogous to control and printing applicable to bitcoin.

We freely made shelter as we spread across the planet but now depend on currency to purchase it. Bitcoin will not change that, bankers or not. Shelter has been made scarce by a variety of factors (actually talked about by Colin Ward in Anarchy in Action). In the US there are more vacant homes than homeless people, so the scarcity is artificial. The fear of being homeless is a tool capitalism uses to make labor less willing to stand up for itself. I have to admit that my desire to eliminate currency does not address that either though. Making shelter a right removing it from the artificial scarcity, might be the only way.

I agree with you that the problem is the bankers (that may be overly broad. Maybe the banking system is more accurate?). You state the problem very clearly-- the problems farmers face etc, excellently stated-- and I agree most of that. Banker’s power comes from our respect for their currency, which is respect that we have no real choice in the matter.

Bitcoin may be a better method of doing currency, it just seem that anything involving currency places extra steps between us and our needs and transactions. Picture any transaction, minus the money. What changes? The totals in bank accounts, really that’s it.

You can not use bit coin everywhere, you can't really use any currency everywhere. But we must use currency virtually everywhere. I think the potential for problems grow as the range and universality of the currency grows. How can people be assured that similar gamings of the system that bankers now use will not be found by those who issue and manage bitcoin or any other replacement for what we use now? Perhaps more importantly, now can any currency displace the current system while that system not only crushes competition but can be used to make people homeless and ruin whole countries economies, the way Soros did to Portugal and other countries?

I have to say that it’s been more than 80 years, and my ideas in these comments do not address the problem either. Lords and Kings sent soldiers and tax collectors to take the produce of the poor. I can’t say the plight of the peasant or serf was due to currency any more than anyone can blame central banks. For it. I guess authority is the problem, as so many anarchist writers have pointed out.

Well after admitting flaws in my ideas, here are my reasons for not really backing away from my central issue with currency. I chose blame money and stop there, because I see that as the most fundamental way to strike at those who have power undeservedly. Bitcoin is no end-around to the Federal Reserve. I think the ultimate problem is that our natural resources are commodified in terms of a social construct. Being hungry or shivering in the cold is not solved by physical means, but by adding extra steps between those physical means via currency. "Homeless? GET A JOB" should be replaced with Homeless? Build a Shelter while we integrate you into the tasks we do to provide for ourselves as a community, and I say it that way because we fail as individuals and are a social species that live in communities.

[–]NoNewAbnormal 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Twitter will be hard, I follow people there. Maybe I can learn how to make a tweet mirroring bot to the fediverse. No, that's probably not realistic. Fuck. Those tweets get me through the day and provide my news. This one I will need help with, comments appreciated.

This is a good idea, and something I've thought about a bit. I'm not a developer by any stretch of the imagination, but I am interested in learning and I know there is already a Python twitter scraper out there. Someone could definitely build something that would let you follow Twitter users without actually registering or participating on Twitter, although it wouldn't let you comment or anything like that.

There is already something of the sort for YouTube called FreeTube. Great project, lets you view YouTube through an open source desktop app, manage subscriptions locally, download videos, etc. I don't know if I'll ever be at the level to be able to create such a thing but having something like that to track the major social media platforms in the most anonymous/privacy-respecting fashion feasibly possible would be neat. A social aggregator of sorts, I suppose.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

this is easy for me, ive been doing it everyday

I never pay for entertainment, it's a waste of money especially since hollywood stuff is garbage and hollywood is corrupt,

the educational entertainment stuff is always free, so i watch that

i hate sports, i always find sports are targeted towards low IQ people

clothes, ive always bought fake stuff, Ive never saw the point of paying 100 for nikes when i can get a no name pair for 20

Its always kids that want name brands and their parents use credit cards to purchase them, thats where the big problem is

it's mostly the u.s.a. where the biggest problem on consumerism this, most of 3rd world countries are trying to survive

i use my credit card everywhere, it's so convenient, but starting to slowly use it less, as Bitcoin is going to be my main money now,

I am not in debt and have a high amount of savings because ive always kept this type of life

[–]Aureus[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Awesome! Could you share some of your experiences on /s/Activism? I'm especially interested in Bitcoin as well

[–]NoNewAbnormal 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I already avoid Apple, professional sports and hollywood generally. I've never used Hulu (but thank you for the heads up). I'm happy to boycott Disney, Nike and Gillette. I cancelled Netflix some time back for other reasons but not really surprised to see them show up in this list.

We all have to do our part no matter how small, this is as good a place to start as any. Thank you for the thread. Avoiding worst offenders and gravitating towards the alternatives that deserve and need our support is one step in the right direction.

[–]Aureus[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Well done, thank you for the comment!

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

maybe related: /s/AltTech/

[–]Aureus[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks, good suggestion! Subbed. I'll also link it in the sidebar to /s/Activism. We should get a group going of high-quality subs that link to one other.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (12 children)

this post is heavily edited


/u/Aureus is this project still ongoing? Do you still have the riotelement chat going for this? eta: found it, chat link


If the sub wiki were turned on, it might be easy to collaborate on a company & alternatives list whenever someone has time.

What's the point of this project, exactly? We're going to try to get these things mass boycotted until some specific demands are met? We're going to try to make a mass migration away from them? What exactly?

It would be nice to have:

  • sources for info about donations or whatever companies did and when and why and what context
  • ordering for which to target first I guess, and maybe some analysis of what affect we can realistically have? idk it's not my project idea just thinking aloud here really, hopefully /u/Aureus can clarify

Once we have those things I guess we go one by one and do the boycott? get it arranged? do a publicity thing?


Ok, I sorted the breitbart list. I looked for things that looked less bad to sort into a second table, and some of them seem pretty non-objectionable like "help black communities" but ... it's all still unfair to every other race, and it's all still in response to the threat of violence from a bad group. So I left it all in one table sorted by $$.

I would do the other list next, which is a lot more items, go through and get the same info for each place one by one. All the archive stuff is linked . But I probably won't be able to do more on this project right now. But if someone else wanted to do it, it's a pretty clear task. Just go one-by-one and get the $$ amounts and what they went to for each of the companies.


Companies:

Starting with Breitbart's list from OP

ok, got a list, now I think we need a table. tables in saidit.

looks like we can't make sortable tables here, so sorting by amount seems best. Maybe I can make a "problematic" table and a "less problematic" table (e.g. ACLU vs. friendly neighborhood black guy)

Company Amount Where Alternatives
Pepsi $400 million to lift up Black communities and increase Black representation at PepsiCo TBD
Facebook $210 million $10 million in grants to “groups working on racial justice” and a $200 million commitment to Black-owned businesses and organizations TBD
Sony Music $100 million a fund “to support social justice and anti-racist initiatives around the world” TBD
Apple $100 million a “racial justice initiative, details to come TBD
Walmart $100 million a new racial equity center TBD
Warner Music $100 million campaigns against violence and racism and social justice causes related to music industry TBD
Nike $40 million “Organizations that put social justice, education and addressing racial inequality in America at the center of their work” TBD
Alphabet/Google $12 million various organizations, starting with $1 million each to Center for Policing Equity and Equal Justice Initiative TBD
Verizon $10 million National Urban League, NAACP, National Action Network, Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights, Rainbow Push Coalition, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund TBD
General Electric $10 million organizations that promote inclusion and racial justice; An initial $1 million will go to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund TBD
United Health $10 million YMCA Equity Innovation Center of Excellence and Minneapolis-St Paul businesses TBD
Goldman Sachs $10 million donor-advised fund to support leading organizations addressing racial injustice, structural inequity and economic disparity TBD
Amazon $10 million American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundation, Brennan Center for Justice, Equal Justice Initiative, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), National Bar Association, National Museum of African American History and Culture, National Urban League, Thurgood Marshall College Fund, United Negro College Fund (UNCF), Year Up TBD
Target $10 million long-standing partners such as the National Urban League and the African American Leadership Forum in addition to adding new partners in Minneapolis-St. Paul and across the country TBD
Spotify $10 million matching employee donations TBD
Quaker Oats $5 million funds to “create meaningful, ongoing support and engagement in the Black community” TBD
Cisco $5 million Equal Justice Initiative, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Color of Change, Black Lives Matter, and a Cisco fund for fighting racism and discrimination TBD
Procter & Gamble $5 million NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, YWCA Stand Against Racism, and UNCF; also smaller organizations that mobilize and advocate, such as Courageous Conversation TBD
Chik-fil-A $5 million non-profits that are black-led or serve black communities TBD
Lego $4 million organizations supporting black children and educating all children about racial equality TBD
Disney $5 million organizations that advance social justice TBD
Microsoft $1.25 million Black Lives Matter, Equal Justice Initiative, Innocence Project, Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights, Minnesota Freedom Fund, and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund TBD
Starbucks $1.25 million “Organizations promoting racial equity and more inclusive and just communities” nominated by employees TBD
Intel $1 million support of efforts to address social injustice and anti-racism across various nonprofits and community organizations, and encouraging employees to consider donating to organizations focused on equity and social justice, including the Black Lives Matter Foundation, the Center for Policing Equity, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, all of which are eligible for Intel’s Donation Matching Program TBD
Warby Parker $1 million organizations “combating systemic racism TBD
The Travelers Companies $1 million organizations such as the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the National Urban League, YWCA Minneapolis, and the We Love Midway fund established by the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with the City of St. Paul TBD
PwC Charitable Foundation $1 million NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Dream Corps, ACLU, and the Center for Policing Equity TBD
Duke Energy $1 million nonprofit organizations committed to social justice and racial equity TBD
McDonald’s $1 million unspecified TBD
Bed, Bath & Beyond $1 million NAACP‘s Empowerment Programs TBD
Etsy $1 million $500,000 to the Equal Justice Initiative, $500,000 to Borealis Philanthropy’s Black-Led Movement Fund, and match any employee donations TBD
Uber $1 million Equal Justice Initiative and Center for Policing Equity TBD
Glosser $1 million $500,000 to various organization that are focused on combating racial injustice, including Black Lives Matter, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and We The Protesters; also an additional $500,000 in grants to black-owned beauty businesses TBD
H&M $500,000 NAACP, ACLU, and Color of Change TBD
Yelp Foundation $500,000 Equal Justice Initiative and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund TBD
Lebi's $200,000 $100,000 to the ACLU and $100,000 in grants to Live Free USA TBD
Lululemon $100,000 the Minnesota Freedom Fund TBD

music alternatives

computing tech alternatives alternatives

[–]Aureus[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Hey! I'm about to read through everything you sent. It's still ongoing, it's just really tough finding interested people.

Ideally I'd like to work on this with specific interested people rather than making broadcast posts that people may or may not respond to.

I'll check out the Element chat in a bit, and also turn on the wiki feature

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I think my window to work on this right now is closed now... like I said can't commit.... :/ sorry to bother you if it's not really any help with one-off thing like this. If any of the above is helpful great if not pls just ignore... and don't worry about the wiki unless it's something you feel is a good idea personally. Want to help but don't want to disrupt whatever plans you already have going.

[–]Aureus[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

sorry to bother you if it's not really any help with one-off thing like this

Don't apologize, you've literally been the most helpful person so far lol.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Ideally I'd like to work on this with specific interested people

Oh, I see. Well maybe I won't be much help then. I was just feeling tired (too tired to work on other stuff) and bored and looking for something productive to do for a bit, I thought why not try to help with this.

Oh dear. I know that sounds bad or something but I want to help if I can, y'know? I'd rather work on this than other stuff I could be doing right now. But I can't commit to it really.

I was kinda hoping I could hop in and help with some specific research item while I can, it sounded like that's what you were working on at this stage? More research?

& I didn't send anything really, most of that post is just copied from breitbart

[–]Aureus[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'd rather work on this than other stuff I could be doing right now. But I can't commit to it really.

I appreciate all the help I can get, just definitely don't neglect real-world responsibilities to work on this.

I'll get this going and find ways so that people can work on smaller bits and pieces. That's what all successful projects do anyway - most people can't commit huge chunks of time, so smarter projects make room for all levels of engagement.

[–]Aureus[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Wow, it looks like a lot of donations went to the same places.

Donations directly to impoverished neighborhoods would be fine, but it looks like most of the money went straight to activist groups like the NAACP.

The silver lining is that makes sorting the list a bit easier. If the recipients are mostly the same, the amount of money donated is the main thing that matters. Thanks again for listing this btw.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I sorted the breitbart list by $$ in a table.

I looked for things that looked less bad to sort into a second table, and some of them seem pretty non-objectionable like just "help black communities" kind of things but ... it's all still unfair to every other race, and it's all still in response to the threat of violence from a bad group. So I left it all in one table sorted by $$.

But of course you could separate some into a second table if you think that's better. Or sort however you think is best.

I would do the other list next, which is a lot more items, go through and get the same info for each place one by one. All the archive stuff is linked in the 2nd list. But I probably won't be able to do more on this project right now. But if someone else wanted to do it, it's a pretty clear task. Just go one-by-one and get the $$ amounts and what they went to for each of the companies.

Table code here:...

...Well nevermind, I can't get the code block to work. If you want the table code to edit it or whatever, I can copy it to the sub wiki if you turn it on and then everyone can see it to easily copy the table if they want.

[–]Aureus[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Thanks again. I am seriously impressed by all the work you've done so far, and I really appreciate it.

The wiki should be active and open. Please let me know if you have any issues with it

I would say the point of the project, right now, is to identify the worst-of-the-worst most offensive woke companies. I'm talking about ones so woke, that even political centrists and liberals would find some of their statements offensive. Once 5 or 10 of these are identified, we raise a huge noise on every conservative website about how they should be boycotted, and include the inflammatory statements or questionable behaviors the companies have engaged in.

It has to be a fairly short list, like 5 or 10 max, because the average person can't remember that many companies. Focusing our efforts on a few will make the results more apparent, and if done correctly, we could also sway people in the middle. I think Nike would be one of the best choices due to their anti-American behavior as well as the fact that they use Chinese sweatshops.

Of course there will be a full list as well for people who are more dedicated and want to boycott all of them. It could be ranked so people could see the most important vs least important to boycott.

I can't write out a full response tonight but maybe tomorrow or later this week. Thank you again for doing this, you're an all-star.

Btw there is a fellow on Ruqqus working on something similar, you may want to check out their thread here: https://ruqqus.com/post/182h/in-order-to-cancel-cancel-culture

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The wiki should be active and open. Please let me know if you have any issues with it

Looks like it works! I started a little index page and a page for The Great Boycott, where I copied the table so far.

[–]Aureus[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Awesome! I added a few alternatives. I'm noticing that the best recommendations for alternatives are just to buy local though.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I added a few alternatives.

Thank you! It ... feels really nice to have some alternatives in there, actually. Relieving somehow. I didn't know about Patriot Mobile. +1 for people working together sometimes.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's just the list from the breitbart link, slightly reordered. I think maybe they added the $$ amts and the donation locations later maybe? I don't remember those being there when I'd seen that article before, but maybe I'm mis-remembering.

[–]wormbloat 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I've boycotted every single one of those my whole life so theres not much to do, except Apple. Find me another laptop with a great trackpad and I certainly will. I dont even like my new macbook pro with the gay USB-C and I'm fine running linux. But honestly what is so bad about Apple anyway? They seem to be one of the more tame tech companies regarding privacy, censorship and general wokedness

[–]Aureus[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You can always buy pre-owned Apple products, and if you already have a lot you don't have to stop using them or anything.

Everything on the list is a strong recommendation, but if using a certain product provides you with more value than you provide the company, go for it. Research on the boycott list is ongoing as well.

[–]yellow_algebra_31 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Has a complete list been made somewhere else? I saw this elsewhere but I don't know what it's from.

[–]Aureus[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Check out the links in my post, I'll also link them here:

https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2020/06/11/corporate-donations-to-social-justice/

https://conservativeus.com/the-full-list-here-are-the-269-companies-who-are-supporting-blm-antifa-riots/

There are definitely other good lists as well. Let me know if you'd want to help with this boycott project!

[–]yellow_algebra_31 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Yeah, I saw the links in your OP before but I hadn't seen an ordered list before, that's what was so interesting to me about the jpeg I linked. It seemed like an ordered list was in the works here on the sub wiki so if the work's completed elsewhere it might be worth linking. I linked this jpeg on the wiki. I wish I knew what project it was from but I only happened upon that jpeg.

I replied a while back that I thought the first, highest-impact thing I could do was to change where I'm banking, and after seeing this ordered list I feel vindicated in that. I've learned some about how to do that and started exploring other options but I haven't completed that step yet.

I'm not sure how high priority this project is for you right now but I thought I may as well ask since it seemed like an ordered list was the next step for the project as you were thinking of it about a month ago (idk if things have changed since then). It seems like the majority of the donations have come from only Bank of America so something that targeted even just only them might have an effect, and there are a lot of choices for banks. IIRC Bank of America has also previously come under question during the Occupy Wallstreet stuff for investing in companies people thought were engaging in unethical practices. I don't know if they changed their practices in response at that time.

It's your project, and I don't know whether or not this is the highest priority activity right now. If other stuff is higher priority right now then that's probably where the focus should stay right now. But I remembered this project when I saw that list and I haven't been keeping up with stuff here as much lately, so I figured I may as well ask.

ETA: Looks like Bank of America's donations did not go to BLM specifically.

[–]Aureus[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I wish I knew what project it was from but I only happened upon that jpeg.

I looked it up and it seems to be from this site. At least the text and the chart match. Unfortunately it doesn't provide more information than is already included in the image you linked.

I'm not sure how high priority this project is for you right now but I thought I may as well ask since it seemed like an ordered list was the next step for the project as you were thinking of it about a month ago (idk if things have changed since then).

It definitely is. I've been somewhat scattered the last few weeks due to everything going on, but thank you for reminding me about the boycott. I'm still interested in going forward with the project, just considering the best way to approach it.

The easiest thing to do right now would be to compile a very short list (around 10) of "absolutely must boycott" companies, the worst-of-the-worst. A short list would be a lot easier to spread around and memorize for the average person. I think the list I have in the OP is a good start, but maybe some companies are worse than those.

[–]yellow_algebra_31 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You found it! ... I guess you looked for the text? I tried doing a reverse image search but I didn't find anything.

I didn't realize the companies listed in OP were already the worst-of-the-worst. There's a lot of news I miss so I don't really know what different companies have done.