Why is the Sims community boycotting Curseforge?
I've seen a lot of posts going around calling on Simmers to stop using Curseforge, a modding platform that enables creators to monetize their downloads, with plenty of outrage directed toward modders and CC-makers who are still on the platform. But I've also seen a lot of people who are confused about why there are calls for a boycott.
Curseforge is owned by Overwolf, a company that is donating money to the IDF in support of its ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.
In late October/early November, Overwolf posted a graphic on their social media asking followers to "defend our defenders" by contributing financially to a fundraising drive for the IDF. They were met with backlash and quickly took the graphic down, replacing it with one that used language about raising money for "those affected by the violence in Gaza" (my phrasing may be inexact) but the money is still going to the IDF and not to any agency actually supporting civilians or doing humanitarian work.
You can see the original graphic on this change.org petition, which provides some additional context.
If you are using Curseforge in any way -- by hosting your content there or downloading from it -- you are giving money to a company that is raising funds for an ongoing military campaign against a civilian population.
This is why people are calling for a boycott. If you are a modder or CC maker for the Sims, you should remove all of your content from the website and redirect people to other DL sources. If you are a consumer of mods and CC, you should stop clicking curseforge links and send (polite!) messages to modders and CC makers to urge them to pull their content from the site.
ETA: Here's another link with more images of the original Overwolf Tweet!
So Curseforge/Overwatch put out a statement about this, addressed specifically to simmers.
Even if we decide to take them 100% at face value (which I don't think we should) and accept their claim that none of their corprate revenue goes to "defend our defenders," (their original claim) and only to help "terror-affected families" with housing...is any of this funding going to support the hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians? I'd say people living in refugee camps because their homes were bombed to matchsticks because some of their neighbors were maybe allegedly supposedly aligned in some vague with Hamas are pretty "terror-affected." Are they eligible to receive any of this aid, or just Israelis?
There's no word on the website, but considering that the other major donor listed on equal footing with Overwolf is the Israeli Leadership Forum, which states on its English-language "About Us" page that it is a platform for those who consider "the advancement of Israeli society....as their mission," it seems fair to say that this group and donation drive have broadly settler-colonialist aims.
So. My original post was not 100% accurate in all the details, I'm willing to own that. Mea culpa, I'm a random guy on the internet who tried to make a post to summarize a lot of discussion that had been happening in a lot of different places, and I didn't do any investigative journalism to verify those claims (see above: random guy n the internet).
I still think that boycotting Overwolf and their products is a good, simple step to oppose Zionism. Using Curseforge (and other Overwolf products) still fuels the bottom line of a Zionism organization which aligns itself with other Zionism organizations. Vote with your feet and don't use these products.
If they're releasing corporate statements to try to dispel concerns over a consumer boycott, it means it's working.
p.s. Do not harass people. I think my original post was pretty clear in terms of calls to action, but I'll say it explicitly: sending hateful messages, spamming people's inboxes, etc. is not an effective tactic here. Polite communication to register your objections, followed by withdrawing your financial support is a much better strategy for effecting change.
