this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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Nestle? Spectrum? Some random company nobody knows about?

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[–] luthis@lemmy.nz 217 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (11 children)

Bayer. They knowingly sold HIV infected blood to Latin America after the blood was rejected in Europe. This still blows my mind. Some corporate waste of oxygen actually decided to do this. It wasn't an accident. That guy needs to get stabbed with ~~thousands~~ ten fucking thousand ~~of~~ AIDS needles.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/may/23/aids.suzannegoldenberg

[–] andy_wijaya_med@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago

The fuck man

[–] CorInABox@kbin.social 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

And the Essure permanent birth control device, causing persistent pain, bleeding and other health problems to thousands of women. Withdrawn from the US market before the Netflix documentary released

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jul/25/the-bleeding-edge-netflix-documentary-medical-devices

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[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They also bought Monsanto and, if anything, ramped up the evil from THAT murderous shitshow!

Why am I suddenly thinking about Norm Macdonald and Hitler? 😉

[–] cwagner@lemmy.cwagner.me 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because by 1944 they used around 4500 forced labourers (foreigners, POWs) in dangerous condition. Oh, and they apparently bought 170 female prisoners, who then all died during some experiment:

A Bayer employee wrote to Rudolf Höss, the Auschwitz commandant: "The transport of 150 women arrived in good condition. However, we were unable to obtain conclusive results because they died during the experiments. We would kindly request that you send us another group of women to the same number and at the same price."

-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer#World_War_II_and_the_Holocaust

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I was actually thinking of Norm Macdonald's catchphrase "the more I hear about that Hitler fellow, the less I like him!" but yeah, that's heinous as fuck too 😬

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[–] dedale@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Did a little bit of digging on that one, before being bought by Bayer, the Cutter biological division was responsible for another pharmaceutical disaster. They accidentally (?) sold 120 000 doses of polio vaccines containing the live polio virus.

[–] andrew@midwest.social 11 points 1 year ago

They also acquired and still run the business previously done by Monsanto known for things like agent orange and eliminating corn biodiversity. Their legal department is also infamous for bankrupting small farmers.

[–] tryagain@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago

Jesus. Straight to the top

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[–] JoeClu@lemmy.world 98 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Dutch East India Company - The original corporate raiders.

MASS ATROCITIES!

[–] jossbo@lemmy.ml 45 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They are the Bug Bad Evil in my pirate themed DnD campaign. Or a proxy of them at least. What better justification for becoming a pirate than them? To quote a real pirate captain from the 1700, "They rob the poor under cover of law, we plunder the rich under the cover of our own courage."

[–] greatwhitebuffalo41@slrpnk.net 12 points 1 year ago

That's a 10/10 quote

[–] Antiques@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

And no. 2 is The British East India Company

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[–] mohKohn@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

came here to say this. though if American slave traders had actually been a unified corporation I'd be pointing at them.

[–] livus@kbin.social 75 points 1 year ago

Ok so Nestle for child murder, Bayer for AIDs blood, Union Carbide for Bhopal disaster and its parent Dow Chemical for Agent Orange (Monsanto too).

IBM for helping the Nazis with concentration camps and Degesch for Zyclon B. United Fruit Company and Dutch & British East India Companies for colonization, also everyone that was shipping rubber out of the Belgian Congo.

Everyone who makes landmines, cluster bombs, etc.

I think when this question is asked in 100 years Palantir is going to feature.

[–] jocanib@lemmy.world 63 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] kersploosh@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

This is the answer, hands down.

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[–] small44@lemmy.world 55 points 1 year ago (1 children)

United Fruit Company because they manipulated several countries in Central America and helped the CIA overthrowing the democratically elected government in Guatemala

[–] optissima@possumpat.io 13 points 1 year ago

20th century East India Company.

[–] FlyLikeAMouse@feddit.uk 54 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 54 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So many to choose from...

DuPont Chemical?

Wells Fargo?

Wal-Mart?

Coca-Cola?

My pick would be Bank of America for their illegal foreclosure practices which have ruined many families' lives, and especially for their role in the subprime mortgage crisis which destabilized the entire global economy and which we are still trying to recover from. Everyone on the entire planet was impacted by the Great Recession.

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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[–] AnarchoYeasty@beehaw.org 40 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Chiquita bananas. They literally stole entire south/central American countries and used death squads and the CIA to enslave the workers and kill them when they asked for such unreasonable demands like being paid in actual currency

[–] Idefinitelydonotknow@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Banana Republic is a term coined for all the countries where this company operated.

[–] JGrffn@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

As someone who lives in a banana republic that now has banana republic stores in its malls, this is a perplexing and sort of insulting end result, and I don't understand how the name of the store ever took off

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[–] Bennieboj@kbin.social 39 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nestlé is responsible for misleading African mothers into thinking formula is better than their own breast milk. They lied to expectant mothers just to sell formula.

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[–] ZuriMuri@discuss.tchncs.de 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Google

They made private data the „new gold“ which it is today long before social media started exploiting it. Changing their motto /code of conduct „Don’t be evil“ into „Do the right thing“ (for our shareholders) didn’t benefit their reputation either…

[–] hardypart@feddit.de 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Changing their motto /code of conduct „Don’t be evil“ into „Do the right thing“ (for our shareholders) didn’t benefit their reputation either…

It's still in their code of conduct, though.

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Only as a joke.

[–] dobeltip@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] SHITPOSTING_ACCOUNT@feddit.de 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm sure there are worse, and it's not one company, but the companies that provide malware to dictatorships are pretty bad, and western countries are sheltering them/not doing much about them.

Examples:

[–] BaldProphet@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Saudi Aramco or ExxonMobil

[–] orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 5 points 1 year ago

Fun fact. Saudi Aramco got hit with malware that took down basically their entire computer system. The hackers then demanded $50m in ransom.

The virus was used for cyberwarfare[4] against national oil companies including Saudi Arabia's Saudi Aramco and Qatar's RasGas.[5][2][6] A group named "Cutting Sword of Justice" claimed responsibility for an attack on 30,000 Saudi Aramco workstations, causing the company to spend more than a week restoring their services.[7]

[–] argv_minus_one@beehaw.org 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's the problem, really. Numerous companies do unspeakable evil, which makes it very difficult to name and shame any one of them.

[–] Ajen@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Right. Corporations aren't the problem, they're just a symptom of the real problem. Even though they're evil, they're just a product of their environment. The "good" corporations aren't profitable and go out of business.

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[–] Karlos_Cantana@sopuli.xyz 13 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Dave's Electronics at 4th & Elm

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[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can't believe you even put Spectrum in the same tier as Nestle lol.

[–] MrSlicer@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

One let babies starve for profit, the other has shitty internet service /customer service. Seems equal /s.

[–] ProtonBadger@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago

I'm guessing it would some of the big companies of colonial times, like the British East or Dutch India Companies.

[–] rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago

Hard to pick a favorite from the long list.

[–] Countmacula@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Johnson&Johnson

swindled does a few episodes about them. It’s FUCKING INFURIATING the shit they got away with.

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[–] Mandy@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago

A lot of good choices here already so ill throw blackrock into the ring

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