Is there a website and keeps track of what bad stuff big tech is responsible for?

LemmyHead@lemmy.ml to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 89 points –

I'm talking for example about Apple relying on child labor in China for cheap labour, being directly responsible for suicides in the factories of their Chinese partners, them sabotaging their clients phones to make them slower.

Not only limited to apply but also others like Facebook, Google,... Ideally the information should be presented in a simple and easy to get format.

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The problem is that this would need to be proven. We all know it happens, but if anyone makes that website they need 100% proof or they’re going to be sued.

Or the site could just link to/archive articles and other sources that make the accusations, and not make any of them directly.

The real problem would be finding a beefy enough server to actually host it. "Big tech" has a hand in an immense amount of evil.

Man, people are still referencing that terrible 2016 iPhone 6 battery performance update that was in the wild for 6 weeks.

You call it battery performance update just as Apple stated, others call it deliberately slowing down their phone.

slowing down their phone [to prevent it from literally shutting down due to overdrawing an old battery]

To be fair, they didn't actually say that what the others called it was smart or correct, just that they did call it that. But given nuance can be deduced from people's words, I think we can both assume that the person you're engaging with isn't playing with a full deck of cards...

It's like people still hating on Sony for their music division's CD rootkit scandal from... 2005 I think?

And people hating on nestle for capitalizing on pregnant mothers - like we exist to give them money, why can't we start acting like it

I think it's safe to assume that basically every major company tech or not is or has been involved in something bad

But it's not helpful if these things are not transparent to the consumers on the longterm. Such transparency can help make informed decisions

I think the problem is that it's not generally as clear cut as "company does bad thing". Your example is that apple relies on child labour, but apple doesn't directly employ children (probably) it was one of their suppliers, or one of their suppliers suppliers. So who actually knew, did employees at apple know and did they attempt to put a stop to it? Was the entirety of apple aware or just one rogue employee? Did their supplier even manufacture apple products using child labour or was it products for a different company? Basically what I'm getting at is that it's a nuanced topic and if you are to paint it with a broad stroke of "companies that have done something bad" then you can put almost every company on that list.

Honestly I think the important distinction is it doesnt even matter in the slightest. They profited off it, and therefore are partly responsible. (and realistically they're a trillion dollar company, if they cared they would know what practices were taking place)

I do agree every company would be on that list, but I believe in a much less dismissive perspective than you

I'm not necessarily being dismissive, I just think that by those standards the list already exists and it's just a list of every company one existence

Doesn't Wikipedia generally list this stuff under Controversy?

That would be under controversy for apple but OP wants something the other way around where each company is listed

Re: the Apple labor thing - If you want a list of people who have been exposed to child labor issues, a good shorthand is just to search for a list of Foxconn’s clients.

Sadly, it’s just about every major tech company under the sun. Not just Apple. It’s Sony, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Nintendo, Dell, Levano, HP, Cisco, Intel, Moto, etc.

And even if they are not a direct client of Foxconn, Foxconn makes electrical components that can be found in literally every PC made in the last decade. So there is no way around that company.

If you only look for bad, you’re guarantee to find it.

If you look for good, you might find a crumb from sometime back in the 80's (unfortunately the company was victim of a hostile takeover for their blasphemy)

These are click bait bad, not well read into bad. “Cheap Chinese labor” is not inherently bad unless you’re for isolationism. Apple, nor any western company is directly responsible for suicides. Jobs at Foxconn were considered one of the better ones relative to the rest of the country, and workers live on site in dorms u like what you’d find in the west. The suicide rate was lower than all 50 US states. Apple only slowed down phones whose batteries were degraded so much that they couldn’t handle the power draw. The alternative was having the phone crash and reboot. They screwed up by not announcing it clearer.