I’ve heard stories about vendors and people advertising products in social and support groups and forums using woke-washing to try to bully people into promoting products. If someone is telling people it’s “harming community” to choose not to promote some product, it might be woke-washing. It really doesn’t even matter if the products are sketchy or if they’re ordinary useful products. Support groups and advocacy organizations that are legitimate should not involve guilt-trips or high pressure sales tactics, especially not around selling products. I’ve also heard stories about group admins who oust anyone who complains about the practices of vendor marketing within the group. If this is happening in a “community” or group you’re in, you might actually be dealing with an MLM or something like that. At any rate, nobody should have to put up with groups that exist primarily to sell member eyeballs to vendors and marketers. It’s hard to avoid sketchy stuff on the internet, but we all deserve spaces where people don’t play fast and loose with people’s information, and that are not constantly rocked by risky shift.
It’s okay to say no thanks to product cults.