Big Tech boycotts tend to be short-lived

Even some of the most intense boycotts hardly impacted Big Tech giants beyond a single news cycle.

Facebook’s boycott by major advertisers in June of 2020 certainly sucked up a lot of press attention, but it barely impacted the tech giant’s revenue, and most advertisers returned to the platform after a month. The public and the media, according to Google trends data, quickly moved on.

YouTube faced a serious advertiser boycott in 2017, but months later said that most advertisers had returned to the company. The company’s ad business continues to balloon, in part because — like Facebook — it’s not reliant on blue-chip advertisers for the majority of its revenue. (Mainstream brands usually face the most pressure to boycott tech firms in the wake of scandal.)

Netflix saw a brief spike in subscription cancellations following backlash to the debut of a French film called “Cuties,” but the following quarter, Netflix’s subscriber additions spiked again.