boycott Archives - Prindle Institute

August 24, 2022December 14, 2022

Avoiding Complicity & the NFL: Can Piracy Be Moral?

On Thursday, August 18th, the NFL announced that DeShaun Watson, quarterback of the Cleveland Browns, will be suspended for the first 11 games of the upcoming season. In addition, he will be fined $5 million dollars and must enter counseling. The suspension follows an at least 25 women credibly accusing Watson of sexual assault, leading to two grand jury cases in Texas, as well as 24 civil lawsuits.

Watson has repeatedly denied these allegations, stating in a press conference after his suspension was announced that although he believes he did nothing wrong, he is sorry to “everyone that was affected about the situation. There was a lot of people that was triggered.” Both grand juries declined to indict Watson, and at the time of writing all but one civil case have been settled.

As per the collective bargaining agreement with the NFLPA, the NFL Commissioner has sole authority to determine punishment. After Commissioner Roger Goodell publicly stated that the league would pursue a full season suspension and appointed former New Jersey attorney general Peter C. Harvey to hear the appeal. Yet the league, the NFLPA, and Watson’s legal team agreed on this punishment prior to Harvey hearing the appeal.

Setting this particular punishment seems cynical at best. The first game Watson will be eligible to play sees the Houston Texans, Watson’s former team, host Cleveland. This game will likely be promoted as “must-see-TV.”

Further, the NFL previously offered Watson a 12-game suspension and ten million dollar fine, which his camp rejected. Despite having all the bargaining power, the NFL apparently decided it was appropriate to reduce the punishment they initially proposed. Perhaps they sought to avoid a court case which could have drawn further attention to numerous sexual misconduct allegations against team owners.

In response to what they perceive as the NFL’s failure of moral decency, many fans are left unsure of what to do. Some Browns fans have abandoned their fandom. However, since the league is under fire, this may affect fans of any team – admittedly, supporting the NFL through my lifelong Buffalo Bills fandom feels like a source of shame.

Some fans are trying to carve out a space which lets them watch games while avoiding complicity with wrongdoing. Many highly upvoted posts in a Reddit thread discussing the suspension call for, and celebrate, pirating NFL games.

By pirating (and piracy), I mean viewing games over the internet through unlicensed means.

What does piracy accomplish? The NFL gets billions a year in revenue from TV networks. The networks are willing to pay billions because the NFL dominates ratings – in 2021, regular season games averaged over 17 million viewers, NFL games made up the entirety of the top 16 most viewed programs that year, 48 of the top 50, and 91 of the top 100. However, because pirates do not contribute to these ratings – unlicensed viewers are not counted – it’s thought that they do not help the NFL profit.

A formal version of the argument implied by these posters might look like the following. Call it the argument for piracy:

1. The NFL is morally bad.
2. One should not be complicit with morally bad organizations.
3. Pirating NFL games does not financially support the NFL.
4. Financial support is a form of complicity.
// It is not immoral to pirate NFL games.

Proponents of this argument claim that they must avoid helping the NFL profit and will pirate games to fulfill this duty. Call them “principled pirates.” The behavior of principled pirates is somewhat similar to the behavior of people engaged in boycotts – which I have previously analyzed. However, there is an important difference. Unlike the boycotter, the principled pirate still consumes the products of the organization she is condemning. And therefore the two behaviors, and their morality, are distinct.

Before considering whether the argument for piracy succeeds, we should first briefly consider the argument against piracy. Piracy is illegal, which does not immediately imply immorality. Yet piracy is commonly viewed as theft, which is usually immoral (for discussion see Beatrice Harvey’s “Can Shoplifting Be Activism“). This is because the thief takes away something that others deserve, namely, their property. Suppose you stole the cash out of my wallet. I (hopefully) earned that money through my labor or just transactions, and as a result deserve to own it. Thus, your theft violates the moral principle of desert – you take something that I deserve, despite not deserving it yourself.

The argument for piracy undercuts this analysis in two directions. First, pirates do not take something. In the case of pirating sports broadcasts, they merely access something without permission.

So piracy might be more akin to sneaking into an empty movie screening than stealing cash – the theater still has the reel, and no one’s ability to watch the movie is impeded.

Second, the argument for piracy raises questions regarding desert. The NFL, as the Watson case suggests, seems willing to engage in immoral behavior for the sake of profit. So, the money they earn is not justly deserved according to the principled pirate. Thus, we should avoid contributing to the NFL’s profits and instead ensure our money goes toward more scrupulous organizations.

Ultimately, the argument for piracy, if correct, only justifies a particular kind of fandom. Specifically, one that does not contribute financially to the NFL – no attending live games, no watching legal broadcasts of games, and no purchasing officially licensed team apparel. Further, one should avoid buying products from the NFL’s sponsors. But given their sheer number, this is a difficult task.

Yet the argument for piracy faces even greater troubles. Closely considering line 4 – that financial support is a form of complicity – makes this apparent. We might call financial support “material complicity.” This occurs when one materially contributes to a cause, action or organization. If you, say, buy a jersey, a certain amount of that money goes to the NFL. Quantifying the effect of viewership is more complicated, but theoretically operates in a similar way.

There are other forms of complicity. Suppose that I pirate a game. The next day at work, I overhear some co-workers discussing the game and join in the conversation.

By doing so, I send a message to others: despite the league’s faults, their content is worth consuming and discussing with others. In this way, I am promoting their product and contributing to their success.

Call this “social complicity.”

The argument from piracy outright ignores social complicity. Even illegal viewership, despite not benefiting the NFL directly, still promotes their interests in the long run – unless one watches the game and turns it off, never to think about it again, even piracy helps keep the sport front and center in the minds of others. And it is this primacy that makes the NFL perhaps the largest cultural juggernaut in the U.S.

Further, one might question the integrity of the principled pirate. On one hand, the principled pirate points to some moral ideal and condemns those who violate it. Simultaneously, the principled pirate is refusing to take on any burdens to promote that good with her own behavior, aside from the effort of finding streams. What she claims to value, and what her behavior indicates that she values, are at odds.

So, what motivates the argument for piracy – the moral failings of organizations like the NFL – ultimately cause the argument to fail.

Principled pirates demonstrate a lack of integrity at best and are complicit in wrongdoing at worst. If watching legally is immoral, then watching in any capacity seems wrong.

Though perhaps there is some merit to the argument for piracy. One may instead view it as a matter of harm reduction. Principled pirates are not moral saints. But complicity comes in degrees; surely the person who is both materially and socially complicit is doing something worse than someone who is merely socially complicit.

Of course, the principled pirates could do less harm overall by not watching. However, they would likely turn towards consuming other content in place of NFL games. As media ownership becomes increasingly consolidated, it is more and more difficult to find content that is not linked to some morally troubling corporate behavior. Thus, it becomes harder to avoid complicity in wrongdoing via one’s media habits; the only way to have wholly clean hands may be to stop watching, listening, and reading altogether.

March 24, 2022December 14, 2022

Considered Position: Thinking Through Sanctions – Our Own Obligations

photograph of feet on asphalt before a branching decision tree

This piece concludes a Considered Position series investigating the purpose and permissibility of economic sanctions.

In this series of posts, I want to investigate some of the ethical questions surrounding the use of sanctions. Each post will be dedicated to one important ethical question.

Part 1: Do sanctions work to change behavior?

Part 2: Do sanctions unethically target civilians?

Part 3: What obligations do we as individuals have with regard to sanctions?

In the first post, I suggested that sanctions are, on the whole, probably effective. In the second post, I suggested that sanctions, on the whole, probably do not violate the rights of innocent civilians (though I’m not totally certain about that).

The final question concerns how wide the scope of that obligation — that is, the duty to support these punitive economic measures — is.

There are two parts to this question.

First: who has responsibilities to boycott?

Do governments have an obligation to impose sanctions? Do companies have an obligation to pull out of Russia? Do sports organizations have an obligation to ban Russian athletes? Do academic journals have reason to reject papers submitted by faculty at state-sponsored Russian Universities? Do I have a responsibility to not purchase Russian-made products?

Second: who should be boycotted?

If I should boycott Russia, should I also boycott China given their treatment of the Uyghur people? Does it also apply to Saudi Arabia given their human rights abuses? Does it apply to the U.S. State of Georgia for its voting rights bill?

Who Has a Reason to Boycott?

For individuals and companies, there could be three different relations to boycotts. Boycotting could be morally prohibited, it could be morally required, or it could be morally permissible. Since it will be permissible just if it is neither prohibited nor required, let’s consider reasons it might be morally prohibited or required for individuals to boycott.

Are there any reasons to think it is morally wrong for individuals or companies to boycott?

Yes, often there are.

There are some actions which should only be done by certain agents. For example, if I see you commit a crime, I cannot lock you up in my basement. Only the state has the authority to impose criminal punishments, I do not. Similarly, many philosophers historically have maintained that only the government can legitimately wage war.

There is good reason to think that, often, we should limit ‘coercive pressure’ to centralized agents. This is because when a group of people all try to collectively punish someone, the resulting punishment is often disproportionate.

Sometimes people do really bad things, and deserve some punishment. However, when the information goes viral, they don’t just struggle to get a job, they struggle to get any job. And so the bad action can destroy someone’s life. Each individual employer thinks they are just not hiring the person for this job, but when everyone thinks that way, the person is unable to get any job at all. But sometimes a person does not deserve to be unemployable, even if they really did something quite bad. And this provides one reason for why individual people or companies should not always take ‘boycotting’ or ‘coercive sanctioning’ into their own hands.

Could such considerations apply to Russia? Possibly, but I think it’s unlikely. The invasion of a democratic nation is such a serious violation of international norms, that it is hard to imagine any form of economic isolation that would be a disproportionate response. There could well be issues if, for instance, Russian civilians begin starving. But that is a general problem with targeting civilians and is not really a specific problem of mob injustice.

Are there any reasons to think it is morally required for individuals or companies to boycott?

In general, there are two sorts of reasons one might be obligated to boycott a country or organization that is doing something unjust.

First, it might be necessary to help protect those suffering injustice. Thus, you might think that we owe it to the Ukrainian people to put as much international pressure on Russia as possible. Or, you might think we owe it to the people of Taiwan to signal as large a credible threat as possible. Here the thought would be that, collectively, such pressure can do real good in making the world a better place and protecting the rights of those being oppressed.

Second, it might be necessary to avoid complicity with injustice. Even if your refusal will not make the situation better, we often think that participation in evil can itself be evil. Thus, Google might worry that their map software could be used by invading troops. It might not make the situation any better for the Ukrainian people if Russian soldiers lacked access to Google maps; but Google might think they still have reasons to avoid associations with evil.

Of these two reasons, the first one strikes me as by far the most plausible argument. If you want to argue that academic journals should not publish papers written by those working at Russian state universities, or that gas companies should not buy Russian-produced oil, the best argument is that doing so helps send a broad and unambiguous signal that such invasions will not be tolerated now or in the future. This could, in turn, help protect rights. It is not that any one company makes a difference, but that everyone working together can send a uniquely powerful signal, and that such a signal only works if we all do our part.

It seems plausible, then, that many individuals and organizations plausibly have at least some reason to support various boycotts (especially in contexts where there is involvement by the Russian state).

Who Should be Boycotted?

Once we accept that sometimes individuals have good reason to boycott other institutions. There are tricky questions to be asked about the scope of those duties.

It seems plausible that I should boycott Russia, but what about other countries which are violating international norms? It seems clear that I should refuse to join a country club that discriminates against Black people. But do we also have reason to boycott a streaming service if we don’t like a podcast they host?

These are difficult questions, and I don’t know any easy solutions for how to sort the cases. That said, there are at least a couple of plausible principles that can help think through these things.

First, the worse the injustice, the more boycotting is justifiable. The basic reason for this is because the worse the injustice, the less likely it is that the ‘piling-on’ effect is going to result in some clearly disproportionate and unfairly punitive responses.

Second, the clearer the social norm, the more justifiable boycotting is. There are tons of unjust actions performed by governments. Invasion and war crimes are unjust, but so is the denial of religious freedom and gender parity. Nevertheless, it seems more justifiable to sanction Russia for invasion than to sanction the Maldives for its violations of religious freedom.

Partly this is because war crimes are plausibly more serious injustices. But partly it is because there are clearer norms against invasion. Invasion is less ‘generally acceptable’ and so coercive punishment seems less ‘ex post facto’ or ‘capricious’ when employed against an invading nation. There are lots of injustices in the world, and we probably don’t want to coercively punish every injustice anyone performs. Thus, to avoid maliciously targeting just those we tend to suspect or dislike, it is easier to justify boycotting those in violation of clear and broadly-accepted norms of justice.

Third, you want to watch out for inconsistency. In general, it is very dangerous to boycott, sanction, or coercively punish someone else if the main reason is just to improve your own moral image. But I think we often find ourselves tempted to boycott, less for the sake of the oppressed, and more to solidify our own moral reputations.

One way to keep an eye out for this, is to notice if your responses seem inconsistent or disproportionate. If you find yourself calling for the boycotting of Georgia for their pro-life laws, but not China for the oppression of the Uyghurs, then it should at least make you pause and wonder if your motivations are mostly about political posturing.

What Is the Wrong Lesson to Draw?

It is extremely difficult to give clear principles for when individuals should coercively respond to the bad actions of others. It is easy to get bogged down in complicated edge cases.

However, this itself can be a form of temptation. We can often bog ourselves down in edge cases in order to avoid clear moral duties. Thus, because I am not sure exactly how much money I am obligated to give to charity, I don’t end up giving any. Even though I’m quite certain that I ought to at least give some. (Those of us reading online articles about applied ethical puzzles are probably particularly susceptible to this vice.)

There are real, difficult, and complicated questions here. But just because some of the cases are difficult, does not mean all of them are. And sometimes there are clear cases that require us to stand up and sacrifice for the cause of justice.

March 3, 2022December 14, 2022

When Should You Boycott?

close-up image of Benjamin Franklin on a hundred dollar bill

Public calls to boycott companies are increasingly common. Recently, musicians and podcasters have pulled their content from Spotify, and a member of Congress urged people to cancel subscriptions, due to the company’s relationship with Joe Rogan. Republican figures in the U.S. have called for boycotts of “woke” corporations. There is a rich history of calls to boycott Starbucks, from reasons ranging to the design of holiday cups to their recent removal of employee vaccine requirements. The examples go on, but I’ll stop for the sake of brevity.

Given the frequency and intensity of calls to boycott, slowing down and analyzing this practice may be useful. My goal here is to briefly reflect on the nature and purpose of boycotts to determine criteria for when one ought to join a boycott.

My analysis here will be somewhat limited. First, I won’t directly consider international boycotts – the refusal to purchase goods that are produced in some foreign nation due to policies of that nation. Second, this analysis will only look at consumer boycotts rather than practices like diplomatic boycotts. However, what I present below may nonetheless have bearing for non-consumer boycotts.

We should start by considering the purpose of a boycott. Each boycott should have specific goals and aims. There must be a motivation that differentiates a boycott from matters of mere convenience, say, shopping at store A rather than store B because store A is around the corner while store B is on the other side of town.

One might think that a boycott serves as punishment. Namely, a punishment that consumers inflict on companies for engaging in wrongdoing. Corporations aim to make profits. So, refusing to consume their wares is a way to make them worse-off. In contrast, it hardly seems like I am trying to punish other grocers when I shop at the store closest to me.

Although some might view boycotts as a form of punishment, this does not capture the whole picture. This is apparent when we consider the idea of expected consequences. Suppose that my friends and I decide to stop buying clothes from a manufacturer who we believe uses exploitative sweatshop labor. This is a classic example of boycotting.

What consequences can we expect to follow from this choice? Well, practically none. If this clothing company is of any significant size, the choices of a few consumers will have little, if any, impact on their profits. The choices of a small collective are just proverbial drops in the bucket compared to their billions of dollars in sales each year. If a boycott is supposed to be a form of punishment, then perhaps my friends and I should abandon this boycott; we can’t hope to put a dent into their profits.

So, we’d be better served by abandoning the conception of boycotts as punishments. Instead, we might see them as a form of expression. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that spending money is a speech act. So, consumers who choose to engage in a boycott might be seen as performing a speech act in the marketplace. Vote with your dollar. Namely, their economic behavior and choices are meant to express opposition to some action, behavior, or policy of a corporation.

Viewing boycotts as a matter of expression can change our understanding of the circumstances under which we should join a boycott. Specifically, I think that we ought to join a boycott if it a) aims to express the right kind of message and b) if it has a reasonable chance of succeeding at this. A note of clarification about the later criteria is necessary, though. By “succeed” I do not mean that a boycott must bring about change. Rather, this requirement is less rigorous. When we view boycotts as being about expression, a boycott is successful simply if it sends the message. These criteria taken together give rise to at least three conditions that a boycott should meet before we ought to join it.

First, the boycott should be organized. The marketplace can be chaotic. A variety of reasons determine consumer choices. Businesses are left with raw sales figures and must determine the reasons behind any changes. Suppose many joined in on our clothing boycott. Unless our messaging is organized, the corporation may never attribute the sales decline to consumer outrage and thus our message will not be received. So, our boycott should be organized in some form, whether this is through petitions, messaging on social media, etc.

Second, the boycott must have a clear goal. For a behavior to be wrong, there must be something else that one could perform. This is one implication of a principle that philosophers call “ought implies can.” If I told you that breathing was wrong due to the chance that you might inhale and kill a small insect, you’d be right to respond incredulously – you cannot stop breathing, so breathing cannot be wrong. By having a clear goal (which it sends through its organized messaging) a boycott makes the case that the behavior of the corporation is wrong by showing the morally superior alternative.

The organization and goal requirements have an additional benefit – they may allow us to avoid frivolous boycotts. For instance, some have boycotted vodka over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite the fact that almost no vodka consumed in the U.S. is a Russian product. A more organized boycott would target specific, actually Russian-produced brands. Further a boycott with clear goals would not merely expressing outrage at a product due to its association with a particular culture – it would aim to send a message to an authoritarian regime, not condemn the people suffering under it.

Third, boycotts should send the message that a behavior is morally unacceptable, rather than merely disagreeable. This stands in contrast to actions that one merely finds displeasing or does not agree with. Unlike the previous two criteria, this is not a practical consideration. Rather, the concern involves the message we send when we join boycotts motivated solely by disagreement.

Imagine the owner of a local pizza shop made a series of posts on a personal social media account supporting a particular candidate for office. Screenshots of these posts then circulate, maybe on a sub-Reddit. Members of the community who support a different candidate begin questioning whether they should continue to order pizza from here. They should ask themselves: What message might a boycott send?

Well, the boycotters might be seen as expressing the sentiment that they refuse to support others whose political beliefs run counter to their own. This is not an incoherent position to take. However, it is antithetical to the attitudes that enable the functioning of a democratic society. To live somewhere with a free, deliberative, and collective decision-making process requires accepting that others will not always share your outlook. So, we should not engage in boycotts simply due to political disagreements. Instead, the positions and behaviors worthy of boycott should be those that cross the line from merely contentious into morally unacceptable.

Of course, the line between the political and the moral is blurry. Indeed, political ideology may determine moral beliefs. This leads to moralism in politics; the attitude that one’s political views are universal moral truths which cannot be compromised. Thus, for many, a Venn diagram of the politically disagreeable and the morally unacceptable may just be a circle.

And this could be why calls to boycott have become more common in recent years. As political disagreements become increasingly more morally charged, they are less about the merits of particular policies and more about how we should live our lives. In a capitalist society, our behavior on the marketplace is part of how we live our lives. Thus, it makes sense that our decisions about what we buy and where are increasingly shaped by our political preferences.

December 2, 2021December 14, 2022

On Booster Shot Boycotts and Participatory Democracy

photograph of lone wooden figurine holding sign

Recently, Daniel Burkett argued here at The Prindle Post that many people in the United States have a good reason to conscientiously abstain from receiving a booster-dose of the COVID-19 vaccine until others around the world have had a fair chance to get their initial shots. As Burkett explains, as is often the case with limited resources, the Global North has received a disproportionately high amount of the various vaccines recently developed to combat the global pandemic; for multiple reasons, ranging from duties of international care to utilitarian calculations of good-maximization to pragmatic concerns about potential virus mutations, Burkett contends that many of us have positive obligations to forgo our third jab. According to Burkett, “By refraining from taking the COVID-19 booster — at least until those in poorer nations have had the opportunity to receive their initial vaccine — we send a clear message to our governments that we will not partake in ill-gotten gains.”

Certainly, Burkett is right to identify the problem of global vaccine disparity for what it is: an injustice born from centuries of preferential treatment and abuse. In many ways, those of us in rich countries harbor obligations to reconsider how our privileged positions affect the citizens of poorer nations. So, I do not aim to disagree here with what I take Burkett’s main point to be: namely, that the COVID-19 vaccine (along with, to be frank, plenty of other things) should be made more readily available to people living outside the borders of the U.S., U.K., and EU.

I just think that a booster shot boycott is not, on its own, sufficient to provoke such a change.

For example, my current home state of Arkansas made headlines last summer when 80,000 doses of its vaccine stock expired before being administered. Despite the vaccine being readily available for months, Arkansas was evidencing one of the lowest state-wide vaccine rates in the country with just barely over a third of the population counting as “fully vaccinated.” According to CDC data, as of November 23rd, Arkansas (along with nine other states) has still not broken the halfway point to full-vaccination status for its nearly-three-million citizens. Despite pleas from the governor, local doctors, and the families of those affected by the disease, many people in Arkansas have simply refused to take advantage of the opportunity to protect themselves and their community from the novel coronavirus that has shaped so much of the last two years of our lives.

So, let’s imagine that someone in Arkansas grows convinced that the global vaccine supply chain is importantly unjust and therefore elects to forgo their booster shot as a form of protest: how might the state’s governor interpret such a choice? Even if large numbers of people join together and do this, without some clear kind of messaging or explanation defending their rationale for the boycott, it seems likely that the governor and other officials will simply believe that low booster-shot rates are additional symptoms of the already-clear problem of vaccine hesitancy in general — not that anyone is, say, protesting Moderna’s business practices. And I think similar interpretations would hold around the country, given the wide-ranging difficulties we’ve seen promoting vaccine uptake over the last few months.

That is to say, in order for a booster shot boycott to be effective at actually helping people in other countries receive the vaccine, it not only needs to be sufficiently large enough so as to attract the attention necessary to provoke action, but it needs to be clearly articulated in terms that will be relevant to the policy-makers who hold the power to affect the desired changes. At present, one key problem for global vaccine distribution involves the legal protections for pharmaceutical intellectual property; without considerable coordinated effort, it’s not clear how anyone’s individual choice to abstain from a third shot will make a difference on whether or not Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson choose to give up potential corporate profits for the sake of global well-being (or, conversely, for governments to force them to do so).

In short, in order for boycotts to be effective, they must operate within a robust sense of community engagement akin to how philosopher John Dewey understood participatory democracy to function in general. According to Dewey, democracies are not simply governments structured via the institution of citizens’ periodic voting, but manifest via the regular interaction of well-informed people sharing ideas, confronting problems, and encouraging each other to work together to develop solutions; as he says in his 1916 book Democracy and Education, “a democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.” Without explicitly communicating the motivations for the boycott — perhaps by organizing loudly and publicly around the kinds of institutional challenges regarding booster shot limitations levied by WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus — it’s unlikely that the potential boycott could substantively contribute to its intentions being actualized precisely because the other agents in our democracy would fail to realize the “mode of living” out of which the action stems.

And this is all bracketing the important question about the long-term efficacy of “full vaccination” status without a later booster: particularly with the still-live threat of breakthrough infections and high rates of unvaccinated individuals in local communities, the wisdom of a booster shot boycott should also be measured against its potential contribution to already-concerning winter forecasts.

In any case, while political activity can take many forms, misinterpretations of one’s political choices is always a risk that political agents face — preparing for and mitigating such possibilities is an important part of political organization. Without doing that kind of collective work, we wouldn’t be “protesting global injustice” by individually boycotting our booster shots; in fact, it’s not clear that we’d be communicating anything at all.

October 16, 2019December 14, 2022

American Social Media Support of the Hong Kong Protests

photograph of protest in NYC with many participants streaming on iphones

Since March of this year, there have been protests in Hong Kong which have gained mainstream media attention and regular coverage since they began. The protests began over a bill proposed by the Hong Kong government that would have allowed for the extradition of Hong Kong citizens to mainland China if China’s government found them guilty of some crime.

Hong Kong, a British colony until 1997, has a long history of more liberal and democratic governance than the mainland. When returned to China by the British in 1997, Hong Kongers were promised a policy of “two systems, one country.” However, many believed that this law would erode the independence of the Hong Kong government and the freedoms of its citizens. Mainland China is known for not being friendly to antagonistic voices, jailing those who dissent and censoring speech generally. While free speech is technically guaranteed by the Chinese Constitution, people can be arrested for endangering vaguely defined “state secrets” which allows for mass censorship. If a Hong Konger, used to the free speech protections afforded to a citizen of Hong Kong, dissented against the mainland government to such an extent that the Chinese government wished to arrest him for endangering state secrets, this proposed bill would allow him to be extradited to China. Essentially, the free speech of Hong Kong would become the “free speech” of China.

As these protests and confrontations between protestors and police grow more violent, Hong Kong is getting more attention from Western media and from Western social media. Many people on social media are calling for boycotts of the NBA and of Blizzard, a video game production company, for bowing to China in silencing employees supporting the Hong Kong protests. Far more are simply expressing support for the Hong Kong protests, a fact being taken advantage of by Hong Kong protestors. During the protestors’ occupation of the Hong Kong airport in August, signs like this one saying “Sorry for the inconvenience. We are fighting for the future of our home” made the rounds on social media. Importantly, the message on the sign was written in English, as are many of the signs used in the protests. While English was the official language until the 1970s, far more people know the local dialect of Chinese, Cantonese, than know English.

Clearly, the purpose of these signs being written on in English is for people to take photos of them and to spread them around on English-speaking social media rather than for other Hong Kongers or even mainland Chinese to read them. English-speaking nations and their people are typically very supportive of the sorts of liberal democratic values for which Hong Kongers are fighting. However, one has to wonder to what extent English-speakers, particularly Americans, should be spreading these Hong Kongers’ messages around.

The United States has a long history of intervention in the affairs of foreign nations. Some people believe that this period of intervention should end, that Americans and the American government should focus on domestic affairs instead of sticking their noses into the affairs of others. People point to the chaos in the Middle East, or the historic meddling of the US in Latin America to demonstrate the common proverb that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

As China would have people see it, the Hong Kong protests are an internal affair (for discussion see Tucker Sechrest’s “The Hong Kong Protests and International Obligation”). Rather than fighting for freedom, mainland Chinese people and a portion of Hong Kongers see protestors as damaging social stability. Indeed, in response to the Houston Rockets’ general manager Daryl Morey’s tweet in support of the protests, the Chinese consulate in Houston said that “anybody with conscience would support the efforts made by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to safeguard Hong Kong’s social stability.” If Americans have anything to say about the protests, China says, it should be in support of normal governmental processes working to resolve the conflict and maintain stability. Supporting the protestors, no matter one’s personal beliefs on the issue, clearly is disrupting the social order. Roads are sparse and hotel rooms are cheap as tourists decline to visit. Fights between protestors and police are regular. Typically, when the US destabilizes another country’s governmental authority, collapse and chaos follow.

At the same time, while there are clear examples of US intervention going wrong, especially when it is militaristic and government-backed, it is not clear that a bunch of Americans tweeting in support of the protests will cause the same damage. For a long time, people’s social media posts in support of this or that social issue, especially with regards to protests, were labeled examples of “slacktivism” and “virtue-signalling.” The idea is that the posts people make on social media do not foment any real social change but are selfish attempts for people to make themselves look like good people. In essence, some claim that people posting about the protests do not care enough to actually support the protestors, but are simply “making it about themselves.”

Ultimately, however, this analysis falls apart when social networks are analyzed. Research out of NYU and University of Pennsylvania shows that “occasional contributors,” that is, people who are not political activists, posting about this sort of thing constantly, are vital for information about the protests to spread. Importantly, this pattern, dependent on occasional contributors, was not found in other large scale social media discussions, such as about the Oscars or the minimum wage. Hong Kong protestors recognize this fact as, again, demonstrated by their use of English in their protests. To get real change, even a ton of protestors on a small island off the coast of China cannot act alone. Rather, Hong Kong protestors, if they want their government to be pressured need to get the attention of the powerful English-speaking nations of the world. Social media posts bubble upward with even world leaders eventually taking heed of them. Donald Trump has even suggested talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping as a result of this social media attention, he himself tweeting about it.

Whether the United States, its government or its people, should be commenting on or intervening in the domestic affairs of other nations is an open question. However, it is undeniable that the Hong Kong protestors, if they are to maintain their liberal democratic society, need the support of other nations. And, that support is greatly influenced, in nations with free speech, by the most common avenue of political speech today, social media. As is often said “the revolution will not be televised,” but, as we see today, it might be tweeted.

May 8, 2019December 14, 2022

Cancel Culture

“Cancelled” is a term that millennials have been using in the past few years to describe people whose political or social status is controversial. Celebrities, politicians, one’s peers—even one’s own mother could be cancelled if someone willed it. If a person is labeled as cancelled, they are no longer supported morally or financially by the individuals who deemed them so. It’s a cultural boycott. But is cancelling really as simple as completely cutting someone off because of their beliefs or actions? The term itself—being cancelled—presents a larger argument. What does it accomplish? Is this “cancelling culture” something that can be beneficial or is it just a social media fad?

In 2018, rapper Kanye West not only endorsed the controversial President Donald Trump, but also said that slavery was a choice in an interview with TMZ. West received a ton of backlash from the black community and some people declared Kanye West cancelled and vowed to no longer listen to his music. On one hand, canceling Kanye West can be viewed as something positive depending on one’s political stance. It questions the impact that celebrities have in a political realm and it holds celebrities responsible for their actions by placing them under scrutiny on a viral scale. But at the same time, is Kanye West really cancelled? People still listen to his music. Even after his slavery comment, his most recent album debut at the top of the Billboard chart. West has also been hosting what is now known as Sunday Service, where West and a group of singers go into a remote location and perform some of his greatest hits. Social media has been loving it, so much that Sunday Service was brought to Coachella. It’s current sentiment about West that brings into question the impact of cancelling someone.

Can West be un-cancelled if he does something that most of social media enjoys? Is cancelling someone then just based off general reactions from social media? If one person declares an individual cancelled, does that mean everyone should consider them cancelled? The obvious answer would be no, but the act of “cancelling” almost works like the transitive property. If you don’t cancel someone that everyone else does, you yourself might risk being cancelled. Can cancelling be just another way to appear hip and knowledgeable–staying up on trends and the news but challenging those who create them? If so, cancelling could simply be interpreted as social media users wanting to stay relevant and maybe even go viral. If such a situation is the case, it would only take agency away from the act of cancelling.

Although cancel culture is heavily associated with celebrities, the hierarchy of who is cancelled can become a bit more complex. Per Billboard, it was revealed that Philip Anschutz, owner of entertainment conglomerate AEG, the company that overlooks Coachella, has supported anti-LGBTQ and anti-climate change foundations. Anschutz has also shown support to the Republican party. Coachella is one of the most highly coveted events to attend for millennials, and LGBTQ rights, climate change, and liberalism rank high in their agendas. When major news outlets first began writing about Anschutz and his support for anti-LGBTQ and anti-climate change foundations back in 2017, it was also revealed that Beyoncé would be headlining Coachella as well as popular rap artists such as Kendrick Lamar. Janelle Monáe, a popular hip-hop/R&B singer who identifies as queer, has also performed at Coachella. What do we make of this? Yes, Anschutz is “cancelled,” but is Coachella? Some vowed to no longer support Coachella after learning of the foundations that Anschutz supported, but when tickets went on for sale after it was announced that Beyoncé would be headlining, they sold out in three hours. So… probably not. But is Janelle Monae “cancelled?” Kendrick Lamar? Is it even possible to “cancel” Beyoncé?

The benefits of cancelling Anschutz seem minimal when there is still mass support for Coachella. Perhaps in such a case, cancelling does seem like a social media fad because one could interpret cancelling Anschutz as a way of easing their own conscience. After all, individuals who support LGBTQ still go to Coachella. But again, cancelling could be a way for social media users to prevent themselves from being cancelled. Condemning controversial topics on social media might make one appear favorable and keep them from being shunned on social media. But maybe such an idea is a key to “cancelling” and its overall impact on the social sphere. Yes, cancelling can sometimes have a large impact in some instances. Public pressure on companies and celebrities can often influence their decisions. But sometimes, “cancelling” can be just some random social media users venting their frustration in the endless void that is the internet. Maybe once and awhile, their words go into the void and resound with another user and gain virality. But is Kanye West or whoever else is cancelled really seeing these cancelling posts? Some of them only have a few retweets, so they are unlikely to get too much traction. In addition, saying someone is cancelled can often be used a joke. The distinction, especially on social media, between a user being serious and being facetious can often be blurred. Therefore, it is difficult to ascertain the agency that cancel culture truly has. However, it does attest to the power of social media and the users who pump content into it.