In Sweden, several Facebook groups calling for the boycott of US products have gained a significant number of followers quickly.
(...)
Kohinoor said she had been criticised for creating the movement's group on Facebook, which is owned by American technology conglomerate Meta.

"We have no better alternative," the group's creator said. "This is about getting people together and creating a movement. I think you have to gradually change as the alternatives come." — uk.news.yahoo.com/swedes-launc…

Falling at the first fence.

Not that it matters; Sweden has a population about the same as the London area - arguably less.

But it does highlight how dependent we all are on US products - governments use Facebook and Twitter - or other US alternatives - but do not make the moves to encourage or force national/regional alternatives.

This means that the USA can cripple the internet in the countries, by ordering the companies to close access to these countries.

This already exists with some US sites refusing access to EU users because of EU data protection laws. These site, though, are usually "local" sites, such as local newspapers who don't want the hassles of being international. This isn't anything new btw.

Thus the USA, under Biden, did Russia a favour - by pulling out USA companies and so on. Russia has learnt to adapt. Other countries, observing this process, now understand how vulnerable they are through their dependence on the USA (and elsewhere).

Lastly, the EU has only now realised it with regard to defence, but, like the boycotteers on Facebook, fell down at the first fence - they will have still have to buy their arms and munitions a.s.o. from the USA because they failed in their duty to keep their defence industries.

This is one of the aspects of socialism that is forgotten - sovereignity. All the socialist countries had their own industries, some, such as Cuba, with dependence on the USSR. This where countries such as China and Rssia got their foundational strength.

The socialist countries that moved into the western sphere saw their economy taken over by the USA - a continuation of the old "open door" policy. Britain and Germany experienced it after WW1 without a wimper - because it did not cause significant unemployment. On the contrary in some cases it created employment - Ford in Germany was a new company. General Motors bought Opel, just as it did Vauxhall in Britain. This all happened in the 1920s - silent concessions, through two types of defeat - military or debt. There were many more investments/takeovers, too numerous to mention here, but all pointing to the same problem.

Ukraine, as we all know, is not independent and never will be now. Both it and Poland had a chance of being neutral and independent due to their geographic position, just as Finland enjoyed - I lived there in the early 1970s. They could have profited from neutrality in many ways. Poland didn't stand a chance - it's leadership moved their country from one dependency to another without any independence in between.

In the end, EU has followed the UK in giving up any pretence of independence under Biden and then came the big shock - though it was always there to see with eyes wide open.

Good - so now a boycott group can't even get over the first fence in their boycott without falling on the faces because of their dependencies.

They haven't even heard of Diaspora*, of course.