From Alphabet Inc’s Google to Netflix Inc, prominent US companies are battling Internet boycott calls over their perceived political leanings in a polarizing election season that has exposed them to what researchers call “brand disinformation.”
The online campaigns — which falsely claim that Netflix and Google are funding or favoring Democratic presidential nominee US Vice President Kamala Harris, ahead of the November election — illustrate how brands are vulnerable to political falsehoods that can expose them to financial perils.
Those calling for a boycott include fake accounts on X, researchers said.
Photo: Reuters
The site is owned by Elon Musk, who has endorsed former US president Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, and appears to exert an outsized influence on voters through the platform, which has become a hotbed of disinformation.
The recent boycott calls targeting Netflix, which also spread on TikTok and Instagram, were triggered by false claims of a US$7 million donation from the streaming service to Harris’ campaign, Agence France-Presse fact-checkers reported.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings contributed to Harris’ campaign, but the company said it was a “personal donation.”
Still, calls to “cancel Netflix” flooded social media sites, with many users falsely claiming the company was indirectly funding the Harris campaign. Some shared screenshots of their canceled subscriptions.
Nearly one-quarter of the boycott calls on X were traced to fake profiles, which have consistently expressed support for Trump through the past year, the disinformation security company Cyabra said.
“Brand disinformation campaigns in today’s polarized climate have far-reaching impacts beyond just corporate reputation,” Cyabra CEO Dan Brahmy said.
“The Netflix case demonstrates how rapidly these campaigns spread, potentially reaching hundreds of millions” and shows how “disinformation can manipulate public opinion and consumer behavior,” he said.
As the hotly contested election nears, “brands must be vigilant,” Brahmy said.
Similar boycott calls targeted Google after unfounded claims that it censors election-related content and manipulates search engine results in favor of Harris.
Cyabra identified hundreds of fake profiles on X — many with a recent history of pro-Trump content — that have called for a boycott of the tech giant while promoting another search engine.
Musk, who has repeatedly criticized Google, played a “significant role in amplifying negative content” against the company, Cyabra said in a report.
“Wow, Google has a search ban on President Donald Trump! Election interference?” Musk wrote in an evidence-free post late last month.
Google did not respond when asked about the allegations or the effect of the boycott calls.
Earlier this month, a survey by the business ratings and online reviews platform Sitejabber showed that 30 percent of respondents had boycotted a brand over political reasons in the past 12 months, while 41 percent said they prefer that companies keep their “political positions private.”
“Brands face a delicate balancing act this election year,” Sitejabber CEO Michael Lai said. “While staying apolitical may seem safe, it’s important for businesses to understand that even neutrality can be interpreted as a position.”
A survey by market research firm Certus Insights showed that people were divided over whether corporations should engage in partisan politics, with more than half the respondents saying companies should refrain from doing so.
Other surveys suggest that people consider it the brand’s fault if its advertising appears next to polarizing, false or defamatory content.
Such concerns have prompted many advertisers to abandon X, which has scaled back content moderation and restored once-banned accounts known to peddle disinformation or hate following Musk’s 2022 acquisition of the platform.
Some also left in light of Musk’s own controversial musings on the site.
Earlier this month, X sued an advertising group and several large corporations, accusing them of causing billions of dollars of losses by “illegally” boycotting his site.
“Disinformation creates chaos and distrust. Brands normally benefit from a well-informed society,” said Claire Atkin, cofounder and chief executive of the anti-disinformation watchdog Check My Ads.
“On the Internet, advertisers have let tech companies take their ads away from the news and straight into the arms of bad actors. Now, unfortunately, we are all experiencing the consequences,” she said.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
PARTNERSHIPS: TSMC said it has been working with multiple memorychip makers for more than two years to provide a full spectrum of solutions to address AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry. “We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit
RSS