onfocus

"Walmart’s moral stand lasted three months. In January, the retail giant said it would suspend all donations to the 147 lawmakers who objected to the election results. But in April, the company gave $30,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, the party organization that supports House Republicans in elections. Two-thirds of those House members voted against certifying Biden’s win."

We can’t rely on corporations to provide a system of accountability. We can still make decisions about where to spend our money and attention though.

"Third party link-shortening tools can add unnecessary steps to your processes, create accessibility issues, threaten user privacy and undermine user trust – with no benefit to you as communicators."

Yes! The risks of using 3rd party URL shorteners outweighs any perceived benefit.

A growing list of businesses I appreciate that are willing to break with the status quo to send a message. List includes REI, North Face, Patagonia, and Ben & Jerry’s. Since this was published, Verizon has said they’ll stop advertising on Facebook:

"We found an advertisement for Verizon appearing next to a video from the conspiracy group QAnon drawing on hateful and antisemitic rhetoric," the letter read, "warning that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is planning to bring on civil war with concentration camps and coffins at the ready and claiming Americans are already quarantined in militarized districts."

Appearing next to hateful conspiracy garbage is not a good look for brands.

Update: Unilever joins: Driving a Responsible Digital Ecosystem in These Polarized Times.

Field Notes really knocked this National Parks edition out of the, um, recreation enclosure. If you don't already have stacks of these nicely designed notebooks this edition would be a good place to start.

I’m impressed with these campaign brand guidelines which are fairly complex but conveyed clearly. The font is strong—I’m happy dems have moved away from serif fonts. Don’t miss the hand lettered state names.

I also enjoyed this review of the brand at Brand New: Water Under the Bridge.

Living the dream? On one hand this is a clever way to game Instagram. On the other hand, social networks are supposed to be about being social with other people so bots like this make it a less social environment. (I've also thought that hashtags in text are machine garbage that make things less human so I'm an outlier.) And businesses just blindly handing out gifts to antisocial media accounts? What? This whole article is an exquisite mess.