It appears #PPGate is off to a good start:
Representatives from Coca-Cola, Ford Motor Co. and Xerox say they’ve asked Planned Parenthood to remove their names as corporate donors to the embattled organization.
The move follows a Daily Signal report revealing the names of 41 companies that Planned Parenthood listed as donors. That list, which was featured on Planned Parenthood’s website, has since been removed.
This latest development comes in the wake of two undercover videos that showed Planned Parenthood executives talking about the sale of fetal body parts. Planned Parenthood is facing both federal and state investigations—and the possibility of losing taxpayer funding.
Notice the language used by The Daily Signal.
We Asked Companies About Their Donations to Planned Parenthood. Here’s How They Responded.
Notice that all they did was ask about their donations in light of the new revelations of Planned Parenthood being ghouls profiting off the corpses of murdered infants. And those corporations that weren’t advertisers or donors were very quick to point out they weren’t.
Now, it’s fair to ask why these tactics have been more immediately effective than the Tor boycott, and there are two reasons.
- Coke, Ford, and Xerox do NOT want to be associated with human organ trafficking. Tor Books doesn’t care if it happens to denigrate a few thousand of its customers.
- Targeting the advertisers always works better than targeting the company responsible. It’s the “Amenable Authority” problem. The Daily Signal and #PPGate would have gotten nowhere if they’d gone after Planned Parenthood directly.
The problem is that Tor Books doesn’t really have any advertisers. And the only individual at Tor who gives a damn about the customers and is theoretically in a position to do something about Gallo is Tom Doherty, but he’s got far less juice there than his title would indicate and he wasn’t willing to let PNH storm out in a huff, which is what he would have had to do to hold Gallo accountable.
So we can’t hit from outside, but only from upstairs. Which is why the only real question is how seriously Macmillan takes its code of conduct and if they’re willing to call PNH’s bluff.
But regardless, the key is persistence and patience. Sam Biddle was, and is, GG’s top target and he’s still at Gawker. Does that make #GamerGate a failure? Of course not. So, relax, and be ready to go back into action next week.