But while the motivations may be similar, the Internet distorts the traditional dynamics of the boycott in two important ways.

For one, the choice to refuse to buy sweatshop-produced goods influences demand: people avoiding giving an unethical actor money for their products. In contrast, the boycott of attention influences supply: People refuse to give platforms the raw material that they can in turn sell to advertisers for money.

This fact matters because it places the protestor on the wrong side of the Internet business equation, where advertisers are far outnumbered by the number of ldquo;eyeballs” they bid for. The loss of an average user matters such a minuscule amount financially that the importance of the boycott narrows to being symbolic and personal, rather than striking directly at a bottom line.

Secondly, making attention the unit of valuable, measurable inventory makes the nature of a boycott complicated in a way that doesn’t come up when refusing to hand over hard currency for a product.

For example, one might never engage with racist activity on a platform like Reddit, and might indeed even use the same platform to protest against this kind of activity. However, the very fact of being a user increases the overall stock of attention commanded by a site, which in turn provides real money to the very forum that facilitates the behavior some users otherwise oppose. In contrast to a world where a boycott only requires that an individual stop buying from a given company, an attention boycott forecloses nearly any activity having to do with the site being challenged.

So, what does it mean to be a conscientious consumer in such an economy? Is it even sensible to try to surmount these challenges?

Two recent high-profile examples show the shape of an emerging notion of what we might call ethical attention. More than simply symbolic gestures, the refusal to link or click actually expresses a deeper vision of the role norms play in the evolution of the Internet, and more importantly, new ethical expectations for individuals and platforms on the web.

* * *

First, a representative example. Last month, the editorial team of Gawker made the choice to publish a story which exposed the alleged attempt by a CFO of a prominent magazine company to hire a gay porn star for sex. Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept chimed in soon after to pick apart the justifications that Gawker’s editorial leadership provided for the decision to publish.

Greenwald’s piece also provides an explicit refusal to provide any links to the controversial post. As he wrote simply, “I don’t want to reward them or contribute in any way to this disgrace by linking to it: Google it if you must.”

This is just one prominent example, rather than something entirely new. Many others followed a similar path in refusing to link to the Gawker story. Refusals to link come up relatively frequently, and in all sorts of other contexts, too.