Many Calls for Starbucks Boycott on TikTok, This is the Country of Origin

Since the outbreak of the Israeli-Hamas war on October 7, 2023, there have been numerous calls for boycotts against pro-Israel companies.

One of the targets of this boycott is Starbucks, the American coffeehouse chain.

This is evident in the widespread use of the hashtag #boycottstarbucks on the social media platform TikTok.

Based on data from the TikTok Creative Center, in the last month (November 7 - December 6, 2023), there were approximately 9,000 video uploads using this hashtag, which have been viewed around 90 million times globally.

TikTok also measures the intensity of hashtag usage geographically using a special index score.

An index score of 200 means hashtag usage in a country is twice the global average. A score of 300 means three times higher, and so on.

Using this system, the hashtag #boycottstarbucks originated most frequently from Bahrain, with an index score of 594.

This means that the use of the Starbucks boycott hashtag in this Middle Eastern country is 5.94 times higher than the global average.

Other countries with significant hashtag usage include Canada, the US, Malaysia, and Qatar, with index scores as shown in the graph.

The calls for a Starbucks boycott are driven by various factors, including disagreements between the company's union and management.

In October 2023, shortly after the Israeli-Hamas war began, a social media account on X named Starbucks Workers United posted tweets stating "Solidarity with Palestine!" and "Once again, free Palestine."

However, Starbucks management stated that these tweets were not from their official union. Management also referred to the support for Palestine as "misinformation."

"We strongly disagree with the views of the group claiming to be Starbucks Workers United," Starbucks management said in a press release (October 17, 2023).

"That group does not represent Starbucks Coffee Company and does not represent the views, positions, or beliefs of our company," Starbucks management added.

Although Starbucks did not explicitly express support for Israel, this led many to perceive the company as being on the Zionist side.