- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
You must log in or # to comment.
Can we collectively decide not to respect American intellectual property laws to really hit the tech sector where it hurts? We don’t get that many physical goods over here but most of our software is American owned. I advocate for not paying American tech companies anymore.
We need our own tech stack, that is at least verifyable. It’s due time to kick out the American tech giants from government projects etc.
With America possibly becoming the new Russia it is just not safe to rely on Microsoft, Apple, Aws etc.
We need an Europan open source stack.
EU regulations that can be triggered in response to tariffs include an option to make that completely legal
Edit because I’m getting asked for a source: EU Anti Coercion Instrument that got passed in 2021 and came into effect in December 2023: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ%3AL_202302675
Specifically Annex I, paragraph 7:
ANNEX I
Union response measures pursuant to Article 8
[…]
- The imposition of restrictions on the protection of intellectual property rights or their commercial exploitation, in relation to rightholders that are nationals of the third country concerned, which may amount, as necessary, to the non-performance of applicable international obligations with respect to trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights.
This applies to copyright and patents, but not trademarks as far as I know.
That would be amazing! It would actually have some teeth
This sounds really interesting, do you have a link or anything I could look for in a quick search to learn more?
Search for Anti-Coercion Instrument, the one that came into effect in December 2023
If you want to learn how to do successful boycott campaigns, you should look for the BDS Movement, that has worked to spread awareness to boycott companies affiliated with the illegal Israeli occupation and genocide against Palestinians.
And no surprise, you will find many US companies in there. Also it should come as no surprise, that the US wants to outlaw even talking about boycotts in many states, as well as corrupt European politicians like in Germany attacking the notion of boycotting companies involved with brutal crimes against humanity.
We need to join efforts in reducing the economic power of Imperialism, whichever shape it takes.
Awesome. I hadn’t heard of this.
Quick look at their website shows they’ve actually achieved some pretty great things.
This is a great example. You can’t just stop buying everything. Boycotting specific companies with specific demands is the way.
Sodastream? What did they do?
Looks like they had some facilities on palestinian land.
It’s an Israel-based company https://www.cjpme.org/fs_244
“Calls for Europe to stop eating garbage food like Americans.” Sounds like a good idea to me.
We have our own garbage food. If you don’t go to McDonald’s or Burger King, you can go to Hesburger or whatever else your region has. Admittedly still inspired by American garbage food, but profits European companies.
Hesburger? Interesting, I’ll have to look that up, haven’t heard of it.
Finland and Baltics mostly. It’s the biggest chain here in Estonia by locations (unless you count gas stations), but probably 2nd in popularity because McDonald’s seems more popular. Idk if they put crack on their fries or what, but it’s just not comparable.
Close, copious amounts of sugar
I’m American (embarrassed to say that right now) and came to visit this site to get off Reddit. Even we are exploring non-US options.
Welcome and have fun! Glad to see you over on this side :)
Anyone else in northern Europe noticing that all the US products are the shitty ones you never buy anyway? I think the only American stuff I ever buy is steam games. No food. I was already boycotting Starbucks and MacDonalds over Palestine.
Good and the Orange Shitstain wants the EU to import more US made goods. Canada should cut the electric power flowing to the USA when the US tariffs commence.
American here: genuinely, go for it. If you want to be even more highly targeted, you can also take a page out of Canada’s book: they’re encouraging people to target things that are produced in red states specifically, in addition to a general push for a boycott. Bourbon (from Kentucky), for instance.
Most grocery stores now highlight Canadian goods next to the price tag on the shelf
As an American here, I think I might join them. Start buying more Canadian goods.
Like their whiskey!
That was my first thought. I want to find one that is smaller and distributed near me.
I might start with Crown Royal. At least the owning company is British (they also own my favorite American whiskey.)
Hah, same.
Edit: I’m on mobile and can’t tell if this uploaded blurry or not (looks kinda rough to me). Here’s the source.
Not sure this is correct though. Of course all these companies are multinationals, but not all of these are American companies. For example Unilever is British and Nestle is Swiss (have not checked them all).
However Nestlé has a whole host of reasons for their own boycott, straight evil stuff they are directly responsible for.
Right, I think it’s maybe representing the 20 highest grossing food brands in the US, whether they’re US companies or not.
It was low res. Thanks for the link. It was high res there 😊
great! as an American please keep it up. the only thing these assholes understand is money. support us by NOT supporting us!
Each day now, I don’t buy a Tesla or an iPhone or a New York Penthouse.
That must be difficult, you’re going through a lot and I’m here if you need someone to talk to.
Petition your governments to drop IP laws for US tech companies like Doctorow is encouraging. If the US isn’t going to honor trade agreements, hit us right in our gold plated scrotum.
While tens of thousands of people have joined Facebook groups in Sweden and Denmark calling for no longer buying American, Norwegian company Haltbakk Bunkers has announced that it will stop supplying US military vessels with fuel.
This first US company they (and everyone) needs to boycott is Meta.
That’s true, but first we need to reach enough people to get the movement going. In the meantime they should just turn on their adblockers.
I’m in Canada and Facebook is huge for my business. We get more bang out of a free social media post than paying for advertisements anywhere.
I fricking HATE IT.
On a personal level, I almost never use facebook. I refuse to put it on my phone and really only use it not to post stuff for the business - which I do through a 3rd party social media app.
Don’t feel bad for using it for your business.
As you said, a free post is better than paid ads somewhere else. And you don’t use it personally, that’s the great part. Moreover, you use lemmy. Kudos to you
“All it takes for evil to succeed, is good people to say, “it’s just business.”” - Janet Leahy, Michael Reisz
FB is huge in Canada for personal stuff too, me and my friends do not post meal pic or vacation or things like this, but damn marketplace and some hobbies group are strong there. Just the “Made in Canada” FB group grew from 50’000 members to 1.1 million in less than a month.
FB can be easily replaced with Lemmy, it’s just a question of age/generation I guess
Unsure about that in terms of business pages but I suppose you can if you try hard enough: side bar for standard info, posts for events and communication. The only thing it lacks is the followers portion that acts as soft advertisement, e.g. if your friend follows something, you can see it.
no not really, its a totally different thing. you cant follow people here, nobody here uses their real name, and you can’t limit visibility of content to just friends. marketplace is also not a thing, and that feature is not just yet another community
I said that a Facebook group is like a Lemmy community, not that Lemmy can replace Facebook. You got friendica for that (never used it though) For marketplace replacement, Flohmarkt is coming
Aren’t there actually tiktok alternatives I’m the Fediverse, rather than suggesting something that’s use case is different?
I meant FB groups, they are jusr like Lemmy communities: it’s a question of a topic + a group of people
Norway walked that back.
Norway says it will keep supplying fuel to US navy after company calls for boycott
It was a private company that decided not to provide their refueling services to the American Navy, not the Norwegian government. What the government is saying is that they will not be not doing the same that Haltbakk Bunkers is doing. But this company stays firm. The practical effects will probably be minimal, since they are an important but rather small actor in the sector. But as a Norwegian, I am proud of them! (And not so much of my government).
It’s gas the way they used the word ‘shitshow’ in their press release.
Fucking cowards. “Free world” my ass
Add Google to that.
Fuck Coca-Cola drink Irn Bru!
Made in Scotland from GIRDERS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irn-Bru
lol
“Originally selling it as Iron Brew, the drink’s makers, A.G. Barr, were forced to change the name of the drink in 1946 following a change in the law that stipulated that the marketing of products be “literally true”. As the drink did not contain much iron, nor was it brewed”
“The brand also has its own tartan”
I sell this in my store in Canada.
I would love an Irn Bru sugar version. I don’t like the taste of Aspartame
Irn Bru 1901 is that - and it’s caffeine free. The only irn bru I’ll drink now.
I would if I could
I would’ve agreed with you a decade or two ago, but they changed the recipe.
I fully support this movement, but I expect it’s mainly an echo bubble and will remain as such. Leave the fediverse and subreddits and most people won’t even care.
The Canadian one has really taken off. Its not just on Lemmy. Im seeing more Canadian products on the checkout line than ever before and Ive even started seeing rotting American produce at our local store.
Everyone I talk to irl is limiting their US product purchases. Canadians are pissed.
Huh, would have thought American produce is too full of preservatives to rot
Oh I do believe in this one! My response was rather eurocentric, I realize that now. The Canadians are even more hurt as it stands right now, and their response is incredible.
Perhaps I’ll see a greater response in my own community when the pointless tariffs also hit EU. Currently people are plenty pissed about US aligning themselves with Russia. It won’t take too much to ignite it further.
I do hope that I’m proven wrong, and that the boycott US movement is doing better than I thought 🙂
It is really taking hold. Honestly, we are not far from it becoming social stigma to buy American. Showing up with a Starbuck’s cup will get noticed.
My gf (who is not on the fedivere or any social media) came to me the other day and wanted to stop buying U.S products. Not that we really did before. Spendrups make better soft drinks than Coca-Cola and Pepsi anyway.
Spendrups is a licensed Coca Cola factory. Make sure to check for any such shenanigans before buying Spendrups.
Same, my wife and girlfriend told me about it before I found out here. Seems to be spreading on TikTok.
Are your wife and girlfriend on good terms? 😏👉💦
I’m trying to think, apart from technology, what do I buy from American brands?
- American food doesn’t really come here except fast food franchises which I don’t frequent anyway.
- Nobody has an American car.
- My car’s electric anyway, so no American oil companies fueling it.
- Clothes are probably all from Asia anyway.
- I don’t subscribe to any streaming services.
- I’ll order 5 or 6 things from Amazon a year. So that’s easy to stop.
Sure there might be the odd brand that is unknowingly American, but I’m left asking “What does America export?” because I can’t think of much in my life.
This sounds great. But if you didn’t buy anything in the first place there’s also zero effect of boycotting. Then the movement can of course succeed quite easily, but at no net gain.
I feel like you tried to dodge the elephant in the room: the tech. The hardest part to get rid of is the technology, and in particularly the tech stack. Social media, servers, windows, outlook… The dependency is real at all levels, and I’ve yet to hear of any company trying to escape. This is also where I believe the boycott will fail at an consumer level, people will keep using META, stream from Netflix, order from Amazon etc. Since people are still using these, so will our companies and politicians.
There’s Chips from companies like intel and Software like Windows from Microsoft and Mac from Apple. Then there’s digital infrastructure like Amazon and social media, or even credit cards can come from the US.
It’s also not just buying software that supports the US but using it can too, because they can use their data for advertising and other goals. So you should move to open source alternatives for software that Europe doesn’t have any good alternative for (eg. Linux instead of Windows) or find a European alternative.
I already use Linux though. Don’t even drive and my bike is British. Most of the stuff we buy is German as we shop at Aldi.
A lot of supermarket food brands are American. You might be surprised if you start looking. Both my deodorant and toothpaste is from Unilever, for instance.
Unilever is English/Dutch so I don’t think they’re a concern.
Unilever is UK based and was UK/Dutch before that. Does it being a multinational make it American enough for you?
American cars are niche, but somewhat popular where I live. There’s 3 companies specializing in selling and servicing American cars here in Estonia that I can think of right away, but probably more in total. But the new American car sales aren’t very good because they’re all so massive and expensive, the only target audience is people who like to show off AND have a lot of cash (or a lot of them are company cars tbh, you can register a big ass pick-up truck as an N1 cargo van and spend less tax if you use it for personal purposes, compared to using an M1 passenger car for personal purposes. Somehow. I don’t remember the specifics).
I’d absolutely be buying myself a GMC Yukon Denali or maybe a Lincoln Navigator if 1) I was living in America with the wide ass roads and big parking spots, and everyone else driving big trucks too, 2) It had a V8 diesel available instead of the V8 petrol engine and 3) I had way too much money to spend.
Not to discount your perspective, but I think it’s important to also acknowledge the close connection that you have.
My spouse is much more tuned in to things like this than many of their peers, not necessarily because they have more interest, but because we have a close relationship and so we share stuff a lot.
Oh that’s great though. I really do hope that I’m proven wrong 😊
Wouldn’t say that, after Gaza people are quite used to boycott certain wares.
I know a lot of people irl which already don’t buy coke or eat McDonald’s anymore
I’ve spent a fair bit of time in Denmark, small population with fewer news sources makes thing spread VERY quickly. Not to mention, they are very patriotic. I’ll ask some Danish friends about it and report back.
Same link is on the front page of reddit.com
As an American I support this action.
Bro, me too, fuck everything about trump, and right now, fuck us. I’m not buying shit unless I have to. Except from local shops.
I’ve felt this way since Mango Mussolini’s first term.
Same, the only language Trump Co. speak is money, gotta hit em where it hurts.
I feel bad that as consumers at best we label all under Trump’s banner, at worst we don’t have the ability to punish only the red states like government tariffs can do
Stay strong
Unfortunately there’s hardly any American product I use here in Malaysia, so I can’t make any sort of impact.
The only American things I use are various software applications I need for work (and no, as an employee I can’t simply switch to FOSS).
