Online campaigns urging boycotts of News International have attracted varying degrees of support.
Since the sudden closure of the News of the World last week amid allegations of phone hacking by people working for the tabloid, calls for people to abandon all media owned and operated by Rupert Murdoch have sprung up on Twitter, Facebook and on some blogs.
An organisation called Avaaz, which describes itself as a “global web movement” and an online “advocacy community” has opened a petition which appeared to be gathering signatures at a tremendous rate this afternoon.
While they could not be immediately verified as genuine, the number of signatures claimed by the site shot from 32,500 to over 40,300 in about 10 minutes. The organisers were seeking to reach 100,000 signatures.
The petition reads: “The outrageous hacking incidents revealed after years of News Corporation denials and cover ups show that the Murdochs aren't fit and proper people to run a major UK broadcaster.
“We call on you to stop the [BSkyB] deal and ensure that regulators fully assess - on the basis of the public inquiries - whether the Murdochs are fit and proper people to run a broadcaster.”
The site states that “people power” has brought the BSkyB deal “to its knees” and that 160,000 letters sent were critical in getting the deal referred to the Competition Commission.
It says the hacking scandal is “our best chance in a generation to end Murdoch's reign of fear and smear over our democracy”.
Links to the Avaaz petition were being widely circulated on Twitter.
A BoycottMurdoch account on Twitter has, however, attracted just 693 followers and follows 19 accounts.
Describing itself as “for now, a place to share Murdoch news links”, it adds that it is “soon to be a full campaign”.
The account on the microblogging site links to the website address boycottmurdoch.com, which is as yet a bare page of text.
“We registered this domain a few days ago, so we don't have a proper page yet,” the text reads.
“Just in case you find this site before launch day, we've knocked up this shambolic bare-bones page in Notepad just to explain what we're up to.”
The site's owners seek to convince readers that the Murdoch tabloid news media (such as the Sun and Fox News) "propagate a false image of the world, exaggerate news stories, and spin an agenda which fits Murdoch's business interests and highly conservative political outlook".
It also claims “that Murdoch's media empire gives him an astronomically disproportionate amount of power, which is largely unaccountable” and that “this power erodes our democracy”.
It says that as people do not have the ability to “vote him out of power” they should “do the next best thing: refuse to give money to anything produced or related to the Murdoch media empire, and raise awareness so that other people do the same”.
The site says it proposes to give people “concrete plans of action” from simple boycotts and letter-writing, to demonstrations and campaign nights and “fun and interesting events to raise awareness”.
Questions are directed to the user Chris Coltrane at his Twitter account. London-based Coltrane describes himself as “a stand-up comedian and political troublemaker”. He says he has “a passion for socialism and civil liberties, feminism, skepticism and atheism, green economics, beating the Bad Guys, and making the world a better place”. And adds that he hates Rupert Murdoch.
A ‘Boycottnewsint’ Twitter account has attracted just 30 followers, but a Facebook page titled ‘Boycott News International’ had over 8,300 ‘likes’ from users as of today.
It was active with comments, with many mentioning the proposed Murdoch takeover of BSkyB.
There was also a Boycott News Corp page which had attracted just 30 ‘likes’.