But do such calls for boycotts always work? In a 2014 study (bit.ly/3egV9dM) on the intention of Generation Y members – millennials – to purchase fast food products after negative social media communication and boycott campaigns against them, researchers of the Universiti Utara Malaysia showed that boycott campaigns didn’t have a significant relationship to their intention to buy or not buy these products. This may partially explain why recent boycott calls on Pepsi (for donating to the Texas Republican Party), and Walmart (for insisting that their stores in Quebec, Canada, would require shoppers without proof of Covid vaccination to be escorted to a pharmacy by a Walmart worker), for instance, didn’t succeed.
But everything is not FMCG products. A variety of sensitive issues – from nepotism to nationalism and many things in between – drive calls for boycott. The dynamics of cancel culture on social media, in general, can be explained by mathematical models of epidemics or rumors. There are ‘susceptibles’ – those ready to be ‘infected’.
A few individuals initiate a campaign on social media. And more and more susceptibles get ‘infected’ and become ‘infectious’ with the boycott call spreading. The number of susceptibles for movies like Lal Singh Chaddha, Raksha Bandhan, and The Kashmir Files were likely to be different as they faced calls for an outright ban.
So, can such a boycott call on social media be combatted at all? In countries in Europe like France, a call to boycott through social networks is illegal. Interestingly, people have even boycotted social media via social media.
In September 2020, ahead of the US presidential election, celebrity for being a celebrity Kim Kardashian joined a slew of Hollydo-gooders pledging to boycott Facebook and Instagram for 24 hours as a part of the #StopHateforProfit campaign – supported by an ‘ad pause’ where up to 1,200 organisations including Unilever, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and Levi’s halted their media spend for a month. Then, there was a nationwide boycott call in November 2021 to protest against Facebook’s failure to address the destructive role it apparently plays in life in the US, instigating users from anti-vaxxers to Capitol Hill rioters.
In Britain, the focus has been mostly anti-racism. In April 2019, top Premier League players backed the Professional Footballers’ Association’s (PFA) #Enough campaign to boycott social media for 24 hours in a stand against racism, which, according to PFA, was the ‘first step in a longer campaign to tackle racism in football’. Then, in April-May 2021, football leagues, clubs and players in Britain carried out a four-day boycott of social media, in protest against the discriminatory and relentless online abuse aimed at players.
Many proclaimed that such boycotts ‘never work’. But this exercise in Britain did make a substantial impact. It emphasised that social media companies must do more to police their platforms and protect their users from abuse. It certainly worked because the boycott was complemented by political action and avoided being merely performative.
Understandably, a section in entertainment and other industries feels disturbed and, perhaps, a bit vulnerable to repeated boycott calls on social media. Requesting, pleading, or showing anger may not work in such situations. Taapsee Pannu, star of the recently released Doobaara – a film that many netizens have also called for a boycott because it’s directed by ‘antinational’ Anurag Kashyap – last month said that the ‘boycott’ trend on social media is a ‘joke’ that undermines movie viewers. But people calling for such boycotts aren’t the kind who’d be up for debates.
Recently, British F1 driver Lewis Hamilton ‘blackened’ (read: changed the background to black) his Twitter in support of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Last year, former Arsenal great and French footballer Thierry Henry deleted his Twitter account, stating that he would forego all social media until there is some accountability for the hate that these platforms allow users to post and spread. Can a Sachin Tendulkar or an Amitabh Bachchan do the same? That could certainly give some perspective – and teeth – to the spree of boycott calls in India.