Yesterday, critics of the Bloomberg Global Business Forum disrupted the event’s social media coverage over the forum’s close ties to the repressive leaders of India and Saudi Arabia.
Through the Freedom Forward online campaign, thousands of people posted criticisms on Twitter of billionaire Mike Bloomberg, former president Bill Clinton, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and Bloomberg Philanthropies CEO Patti Harris for promoting and affiliating with autocratic leaders. The criticisms dominated social media coverage of the Bloomberg Global Business Forum.
The Bloomberg Global Business Forum featured keynote speaker Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, even as his government has placed Kashmir under a communications blackout and prepares concentration camps for Muslim minorities. Saudi dictator Mohammad bin Salman was a sponsor of the event via his private charity MiSK, despite the Saudi monarchy’s murder of Jamal Khashoggi, imprisonment of women’s rights activists, and mass slaughter in Yemen.