A fine line between activist and bully
The difference between voicing an opinion and silencing others is increasingly being lost, writes Bronwyn Nortje
There is an increasingly fine line between social activism and bullying. This is especially true in social media, where new activist-led campaigns seem to pop up every week. The one that caught my attention this week was the Stop Funding Hate campaign. According to its Facebook page, Stop Funding Hate aims to "take on the divisive hate campaigns of The Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Express by persuading advertisers to pull their support". The logic behind the campaign is that anti-immigrant and pro-Brexit headlines in these publications fuel hate crimes against minorities in the UK. In executing its campaign, Stop Funding Hate has taken to social media to urge people to put pressure on large retailers such as John Lewis, Waitrose and Aldi to pull their advertising from these publications and to stop selling them in their stores. Some in the campaign have also called for people to boycott these retailers so long as they advertise in these publications and sell them in their stores. On th...
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