McBLOG: Turfing out woke companies

TURFING OUT WOKE COMPANIES

It was an interesting week last week. It all began on Saturday morning 2 weekends ago when I simply posted a tweet – and it went viral – and became one of the top rating topics of discussion for almost 4 days on social media. Let’s check it out.

So Saturday morning 8^th July was like any other Saturday. Checking some social media – and responding where necessary. And somebody sent me an image of an exchange that had happened on the new social media platform Threads – which has been set up by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to compete with Elon Musk’s twitter.

Trans activist Shaneel Lal who is well known for posting highly inflammatory and caustic messages on social media and who was one of the key activists that whipped up the frenzy against Posie Parker both before she arrived in the country and then on that shocking day at Albert Park – and calling a national MP he didn’t like a f’in c – yes an f’in c – oh and received the KiwiBank Young Person of the Year for his efforts, posted this

Can we agree that we won’t tolerate TERFS on Threads.

Shut them down. They should be banned. Shut up TERFs. Now this was immediately responded with by the official SparkNZ account with

Yes please wholeheartedly co-signed. Prayer emoji. Trans emoji.

I’m not sure how into prayer Spark are. But there was no need for them to respond. They weren’t asked their opinion. They weren’t tagged. They just jumped in and joined the pile-on on women who believe in biology.

But anyway, I was surprised that Spark would be so keen to alienate a large portion of customer base by aligning with Shaneel Lal and secondly, alienate most women who believe in biology and who reject the notion that a man can be a woman just by self-identifying as one.

So I went to my Twitter account knowing that far more people are on that platform than this new Threads one – and said

Hey @SparkNZ  Could you just confirm that this is your official stance. Many families who are currently your customers would like to know.

That immediately went viral as more and more people asked Spark also what their view was.

They replied fairly quickly with this

We stand by our response. We will continue to support the rights of trans and non-binary people and we’re not interested in discussing this further.

The problem for Spark was that most NZers WANTED to talk about it.

Now Spark did direct message me with this statement (which then became their standard response to anyone who complained to them).

We know our comment has created a lot of debate, so let us be clear about where we stand. We want to ensure that the online world is a more inclusive space for all people, regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other factor. We recognize there are wide-ranging views on how to create safe spaces in both the online and offline worlds, but all we wanted to convey was our support for inclusivity. We hope this provides more context.

Note the word – inclusivity. Yes – apparently blocking the views of women who believe in biology is inclusive. Go figure

I replied with this

Hi there

Thanks for the correspondence.

The term TERF is a deliberately provocative and derogatory term thrown at women who believe that only biological women can be women (trans exclusionary radical feminist). It’s deliberately insulting to most women, and to men like me who believe that a man cannot be a woman, no matter how hard he tries.

But what is more insulting is that you’ve specifically supported a call to ban a large sector of the population. And the call coming from someone who is extremely toxic and hateful in their posts.

I would highly (and respectfully) recommend that you delete the supportive tweet as shown above, and remove your support from the call being made by Lal to reject TERFs.

Thanks for your consideration.

PS We are long time Spark customers – but that is currently under review. That’s not a threat. It’s just how strongly many people feel about the tone deafness of Spark’s response.

Kind regards

Now while this was going on, Shaneel was on a roll and was asking other telcos what they thought.

And ONE NZ which were previously Vodafone also got on board

We don’t want TERFs either. Not welcome here. We stand with you spakrnz – and anyone else brave enough to call them out.

And also 2Degrees supported the other telcos. So this was pack mentality. And leaves consumers with very few options.

This is the modern conversion therapy happening in our culture. It’s woke corporations forcing you to embrace radical sexuality and gender theory and especially the trans movement. You must comply. You must agree.

Now because of the violence we had seen at Albert Park aimed at someone speaking up for women’s rights, and against elderly women, and just the general mayhem that embarrassed us all as a nation – for 3 days and because Spark were so willing to support and align themselves with this messaging, the pushback began – including memes like this one from Speak up for women.

And this one – of course referring to the woman who was violently assaulted by radical activists fighting against so-called TERFS

Remember this is what we saw at Albert Park by the people Spark and ONE NZ were supporting.

And it seemed like many people had had enough of woke companies pushing radical sexuality and gender ideology as part of their service or their product. And there were a lot of accounts being closed. Including one of mine.

Remember this was an event that Vodafone now ONE NZ held at a so-called Pride event. So it’s not just Spark.

Come Monday, there’s obviously been some soul searching at Spark especially because maybe a whole lot of accounts have been closed or a whole of complaints have been received

So at 10.30am on Monday, this tweet comes out

We know there has been a lot of debate over the weekend, and we would like to provide more clarity on where we stand. We believe the internet should be an inclusive place (except for TERFs and people who don’t support our gender ideology). We have a long history of supporting women (except for TERFs and people who don’t support our gender ideology). We recognise there are wide ranging views – we’ll respect each person’s right to their own views (except for TERFs and people who don’t support our gender ideology). We know our original posts did not reflect this well….

Oh no – Spark – your posts reflected it very well. And the fact that “sorry” seems to be the hardest word for you to say proves what you really think. Diversity and inclusion apply – only if it agrees with you. And Shaneel. And the new woke religion that all must bow down to.

You can duck and dive for cover and pretend to be inclusive but the fact you won’t renounce what you’ve said about TERFS and your undying support for radical activists like Lal show where you’re really at.

You can see from their undying support for Auckland “pride”

And their support for being gender inclusive and filling in forms with woman man non-binary takatapui, enter my own gender etc – being beyond binary!

Ah yes you may have seen Spark’s favourite activist amongst all that!

What was most interesting in this whole issue is the deafening silence of the media to a story that has tended on Twitter for 2 days. Why is that? Because they’d have to acknowledge that the majority of NZers see “TERF” as a highly derogatory term used by radical activists.

Eventually they did cover the issue but gave very favourable coverage to the trans activists and failed to examine the issue of the use of the word TERF and the legitimate concerns about transing our children. The NZ herald report by reporter Rachel Maher was embarrassingly bias – of course defending their activist columnist Shaneel Lal. He can do no wrong.

As one twitterer said – quite succinctly – this is all they had to do. But sorry seems to be the hardest word to say.

Is the response to Spark and ONE NZ going to be the same as what we saw with BudLight and Target and Disney in the US? Only time will tell. Part of the problem is finding alternatives to woke companies who want to lecture you with their views of sexuality and gender ideology, climate alarmism and critical theory

We are thinking of possibilities though – and that’s why we’re working on a website called WokeUp.nz which will highlight companies who want to lecture you when you simply want to purchase things. There’s quite a list of companies – but an informed consumer is a good consumer.

I think what I learnt from this Spark and ONE NZ thing is that NZers have had enough of having woke values rammed down their throat and they’re starting to push back. As BudLight have found out, and even Target and Disney to a certain extent, there’s only so much companies can lecture consumers before the consumers decide to turf THEM out and stop buying from them

And that’s what Spark customers seem to be doing. We’ll watch this with interest.

You have purchasing power and the ability to push back on this tidalwave of wokeness and lecturing. We’d encourage you to use it.