Tens of thousands of Twitter users this morning blocked hundreds of accounts associated with major brands like Nike, Pepsi and Uber in an effort to pressure the embattled social media platform into permanently banning controversial far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, according to AdWeek.
Shannon Coulter, who in 2016 co-founded the consumer boycott organization #GrabYourWallet, told Adweek that more than 71,000 Twitter users have automatically blocked accounts associated with nearly 500 major companies, along with more than 200 of those companies’ consumer-facing brands.
The mass blocking of the brands is intended to limit the reach of the companies’ advertising, which is often through promoted tweets that appear on users’ timelines. Some of the brands affected by the blocking effort include McDonald’s, Red Bull, Starbucks, IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, Visa and Capital One.
“What makes Twitter so valuable is that it can monetize its users’ time and attention,” Coulter said. “The idea is for us to take that away until Twitter enforces their terms of service.”
Coulter said she hopes the mass blocking effort applies enough pressure on the social media platform that it will permanently remove Jones’ account.
“The goal is to get Twitter to show Alex Jones the door,” she said.
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