Anyone who is buying vanity domains, nevermind tech companies, is giving the British government far more money every year through taxes, even in the US. And divestment from the .io TLD is not, as far as I can see anywhere in the Chagossian advocacy links they provided, cited as part of their activism, so doing it doesn't send a message to anyone.
If the Chagossian people are not making the argument for divestment, why is the author?
In another blog post the same author equates Apple taking out ads on Twitter, to Apple doing anti-LGBT+ advocacy, and I think there's an important parallel to this post:
It's one thing to hold views like
- "Twitter is anti-LGBT+ and I won't use them"
- "Britain is settler-colonialist, and I won't support them"
But taking those viewpoints, which are very much NOT the common view by most people, and then using them to accuse said people of being pro-settler-colonial or anti-LGBT+, is not a workable or even helpful position.
If all the tech companies divest of their .io domain names right now, what will that gain the Chagossian people? If we're being honest, absolutely nothing. Hell, if the companies don't all issue press releases as they do it, I doubt even the Chagossians themselves would think it had anything to do with them.
Maybe I'm just getting tired of activism that seems content to revel in its own... mindfulness, we'll call it- without actually trying to change anything, but it feels like the author would have been hard-pressed to choose a position to advocate that has LESS chance of helping the Chagossian people without just being totally unrelated.