Excerpted from Simon Mainwaring:

“The recent protests against Monsanto over their use of GMO’s (genetically modified organisms) have taken on unprecedented proportions. According to the AP, “March Against Monsanto” protests took place in at least 52 countries and 436 cities amassing over 2 million people attacking the agribusiness giant over genetically modified foods. The movement grew from a Facebook page that called for boycotts against Monsanto-owned companies, pushing for GMO labeling and further studies of the health effects of GMOs.

Nor will this be a short-lived phenomenon. For example, a 26-year-old Los Angeles-based, freelance programmer, Ivan Pardo, has just launched a mobile app called Buycott. Once you’ve scanned an item, Buycott will show you its corporate family tree on your phone screen to see if you want to support that company’s profit by purchasing that product. One of its campaigns, Demand GMO Labeling, will scan your box of cereal and tell you if it was made by one of the 36 corporations that donated more than $150,000 to oppose the mandatory labeling of genetically modified food. And moving forward, the developers are asking shoppers to help improve their technology by inputting names of products they scan that the app doesn’t already recognize. So, based on shared values, such consumer efforts are fast becoming an ongoing, shared responsibility.

Not only do such movements demonstrate the power of technology in consumers’ hands, but also the power of the individual. Another recent example is the protest against the re-surfacing of insensitive and inappropriate remarks by the Mike Jeffries, the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch.

Jeffries set off a traditional and social media firestorm by stating: “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong (in our clothes), and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

The comments especially infuriated an 18-year-old eating disorder survivor Benjamin O’Keefe, who created a petition on Change.org that has now garnered over 70,000 signatures.

Abercrombie has made several apologies . The first apology by Jeffries was largely seen as a non-apology (he did not regret the words themselves but how they were “interpreted in a manner that has caused offense”). Further enraged, protestors posted pictures of themselves in A&F ad poses to #FitchTheHomeless, a campaign which focused on handing out Abercrombie clothing to the homeless. Such public outcry compounded the already faltering sales figures of A&F, and as part of a “too little, too late” strategy the company has also agreed to support “anti-bullying” efforts in addition to considering diversity as a potential company value.”