Why are people threatening to boycott Spark NZ?
A social media interaction between Spark NZ and a prominent transgender activist has led to threats of boycotting the company.
Over the weekend, the telco’s reply to a post from trans activist Shaneel Lal on the new social media platform Threads ruffled the feathers of some of its customers.
Lal’s post read: “Dear Threaders, Can we agree that we won’t tolerate TERFs on Threads. They’ve made the lives of trans people living hell on almost all platforms. Let’s not allow their hatred to poison this app too. Requested with love.”
To which Spark NZ replied: “Yes PLEASE, wholeheartedly co-signed” accompanied by two emojis including the transgender flag.
This week, trans activist Shaneel Lal called for the new Threads social media platform to be purged of TERFS and for reason known only to Jesus, Spark jumped in and fistpumped the desire to purge Threads of people who disagree with Shaneel.
Punters recoiled at Spark’s bewildering desire to censor opinions they don’t like and threatened a boycott of Spark which saw Shaneel double down and demand the same position from Vodaphone and 2 Degrees, who again, bewilderingly agreed with Lal to purge Threads of opinions they don’t like.
Let’s be very, very, very clear why you should be aghast at Spark, 2 Degrees and Vodaphone for their pledge to purge Threads of opinion they don’t like.
Shaneel Lal is free to call for whatever counter productive nonsense they like, this is a liberal progressive democracy and we still have free speech, but what Vodaphone, Spark and 2 Degrees have all agreed to here is not supporting the Trans Community, they have all agreed to purging any opinions Lal deems unacceptable from the new social media app Threads.
Supporting the right for Trans people to enjoy the same agency as any fellow citizen is one thing, supporting a cancel culture purge of anyone Lal disagrees with on a brand new social media app is fucking completely another!
Some punk kid is running the social media account for these telecommunications giants and they have full heartedly supported Lal’s call to purge a brand new social media platform for a woke bonfire.
That Spark, 2 Degrees and Vodaphone all jumped at the chance to censor people based on nothing more than a Trans activist who already has a complex history of strangling free speech off after the Posie Parker fiasco is alarming to see.
Shouldn’t there be some inquiry into how the Telecommunications Giants are privately suppressing opinions they don’t like or agree with on their networks because you are supposed to send my messages from point A to point B, you are not supposed to tell me what those messages say, I decide what my voice says, not 2 Degrees, Spark or bloody Vodaphone!
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media