Vichy Associates

Before 2025, working for Big Tech could be seen as a lapse in judgment. To anyone paying attention, it was clear that those companies were wrecking the digital economy, holding innovation back, and destroying our information environment. But it is nothing new that otherwise good people find ways to blind themselves.

In 2025, choosing to collaborate with the Trump regime is a choice.

Our argument is simple: collaborating with the regime should carry a cost. Getting rich from supporting misery should carry a cost. These people should live through the same disgrace as Vichy France before them.

So in dealing with people who work for Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, or any company belonging to the likes of Elon Musk or Peter Thiel we invite you to make their decision felt with the shame it deserves. For instance:

• do not publish their articles;
• do not invite them to your conferences;
• do not attend theirs or go to their talks;
• do not repost or like their social media or share their writing;
• unfollow them;
• refuse to appoint them to respected positions in open projects such as maintainer, chair, or editor;
• openly question their lack of ethics;
• don't accept their funding;
• don't hire them without at least a credible explanation as to why they spent time there;
• flag their participation with the #vichy hashtag;
• to the extent that you can, don't use their products;
• generally give them the cold shoulder and make it clear what you think of their choices; and
• share this page.

These are exceedingly light reprimands when compared with the harm they get paid to carry out. The point is not tit-for-tat. The point is to make it clear that bad, openly antisocial decisions are not acceptable and that we will not pretend that their political choices are innocuous. It may be that some light social pressure will accomplish what conscience could not.