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From environmental disasters to financial scandals, these corporations have left trails of destruction in their wake. Join us as we explore the most notorious companies whose unethical practices have earned them infamy! Our countdown includes corporations responsible for devastating oil spills, massive fraud, dangerous working conditions, and exploitation of both people and the planet.
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00:00At the base of the Ash Building, men and women stepped into wooden freight elevators
00:04to ascend to the Triangle Factory on the 8th and 9th floor.
00:08Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we'll be discussing corporations with the most vilified legacies or reputations.
00:14Enron employees, some carrying boxes filled with belongings, leave their downtown headquarters
00:19huddled against the cold and an uncertain future.
00:23Netflix. Never forget what they took from us.
00:25A streaming landscape that was the proverbial Wild West, delivered in conjunction with a quick and efficient DVD-by-mail
00:31service.
00:32Go to Netflix.com. Make a list of the movies you want to see. It's easy.
00:36Suddenly, millions of DVDs are flying through the mail.
00:39Netflix has certainly come a long way since their instant-view streaming titles and robust home video library.
00:44Society has ultimately adapted to being inundated with ads and enslaved to an algorithm.
00:48Elsewhere, the company has also faced criticism for the content hosted on its platform,
00:52from stand-up comedy to documentaries, yet this has done little to shake Netflix's corporate dominance.
00:56With Play Something, Netflix will drop you right into a new show or movie,
01:00and it's all based on what you've watched.
01:04It's ultimately up to the consumer to decide whether they spend their hard-earned dollar,
01:07choosing whether or not to continue chilling with Netflix or to seek different creative pastures.
01:12Walmart. What can a consumer do when the only game in town also happens to be the cheapest?
01:15The sale is amazing. Whoa! Language. This is not a sale.
01:22Walmart's everyday low prices just feel like a sale.
01:25Walmart has long focused its business model on providing the lowest prices to its consumers,
01:29and this means a lot for struggling families on a budget.
01:31Yet this approach often occurs at the expense of local homegrown businesses.
01:35Stores often struggle in the wake of a new Walmart or other superstore emerging within city limits.
01:39This hasn't been the only criticism of Walmart either.
01:41Since the company has also been singled out for its resistance to unionized labor,
01:45and for fostering a workplace environment of low wages and inequality.
01:49Trying to do something about it right now.
01:51And that's the only thing we can think of to do, and we're going to keep at it.
01:55We want Walmart to go down.
01:57Disney. The Disney company has long been an easy target for criticism,
02:00even by admitted fans of the House of Mouse.
02:02This goes beyond historical notions about Walt Disney the man,
02:05including the strikes under his watch and the problematic content that was released under his name.
02:09Walt Disney is being bombarded by all of this negativity.
02:17And it's just not something he was accustomed to.
02:20Complaints still routinely come up today about how Disney handles their legacy.
02:23From the seemingly endless glut of live-action remakes
02:26to the censorship practices of its streaming service, Disney+.
02:46The catch-22 of entertainment is that you'll never be able to please everybody all the time.
02:50Yet the Disney brand certainly seems to be adept at irritating a whole lot of people with frequency and consistency.
02:55Timu. The old saying, you get what you pay for, certainly applies to some online marketplaces, like Timu.
03:00Feels like a dream, feels like magic.
03:04Now I believe I can have it.
03:07The popular online shopping destination has nonetheless received heavy criticism in recent years
03:11that's been juxtaposed against their remarkable success.
03:14This includes accusations of designs and intellectual property being stolen
03:18and of the perceived low quality of their materials.
03:20It's at the point now where a Timu version of something is largely used by the public
03:24to describe a hack or knockoff take on the real thing.
03:27For the wedding dress we purchased,
03:29Timu again used photos from another brand which retails for $3,500.
03:36This dress, just $30.99.
03:40It certainly doesn't feel like a wedding dress.
03:43It feels like a costume.
03:44And this doesn't even scratch the surface of Timu's battles with customers seeking to protect their privacy
03:48or accusations of exploiting forced labor.
03:50TikTok.
03:51How does one regulator outright ban a social media platform that seems to have so much cultural power and influence?
03:56Here and the primary goal of this deal has been to address these long-standing national security concerns
04:02about a Chinese company by dance owning a social media app that is used by half of the country.
04:07This has been the long-standing battle between TikTok and the United States
04:10where accusations of election influencing and misinformation have dogged the platform.
04:14Beyond this, TikTok has also faced criticism for creating unfair beauty standards of creating harmful content
04:19and for actively damaging the attention spans of users, particularly young people.
04:23The addictive algorithm may have created short content stars in the mold of vines, remember them,
04:28while at the same time endangering how we view content and media in the modern day.
04:32There was some language that the White House shared about the deal back in September
04:38that basically suggested that the Trump administration and the U.S. government
04:43could be working on some of this data security and content moderation in partnership with or alongside Oracle.
04:51Amazon.
04:52Amazon has established themselves as Earth's most customer-centric company for years now,
04:56delivering the lowest bottom line in a manner similar to Walmart.
04:59Once an online bookstore, Amazon now sells just about anything you would find in a home or business
05:05and has developed a formidable formula, low prices and fast delivery.
05:10They've done this by revolutionizing the supply chain, but also by fostering a challenging culture for its employees.
05:16Amazon's commitment to production and efficiency has been achieved on the backs of their workers,
05:20yet their resistance to unionizing has made headlines over the years.
05:23In addition, the Amazon third-party seller model tends to hurt local small businesses,
05:27despite the company's claims to the contrary.
05:29These reasons and others, such as concerns over environmental waste,
05:33have consistently placed Amazon in the critical gun sites.
05:36Amazon has faced criticism for destroying millions of pounds of unused products.
05:40Google.
05:40The smartest thing Google ever did was choose its name,
05:43one that's become synonymous with searching for something on the internet.
05:46Oh, no, you're lying.
05:47Luca did not get traded.
05:48No, no, you're lying.
05:49You're lying, you're lying, you're lying, you're lying, you're lying.
05:51Hold on.
05:52What?
05:53This is despite their existing plenty of other options out there,
05:56from established competitors like Yahoo and Bing,
05:58to less data-hungry competitors like DuckDuckGo.
06:01This latter question of privacy is one that routinely comes up with regards to Google's internet dominance,
06:06of how the company's search engine delivers immediate results at the expense of our personal data.
06:10When we use Google as a search engine, we expose ourselves to extensive surveillance.
06:16We enable Google to use information that Google derives from our queries for personalized advertising.
06:24Further accusations against Google in the public space have been levied at the company's usage of AI technology,
06:29specifically with its summary result, as well as its monopolistic corporate practices.
06:33Apple.
06:34The death of Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs didn't signify the demise of his company.
06:38Far from it.
06:39Instead, we now live in a world where Apple devices and programs have ingratiated themselves into many facets of our
06:44daily lives.
06:44The ultimate Pro.
06:49iPhone 17 Pro.
06:51This is despite robust competition from companies like Microsoft and Samsung,
06:55as well as criticisms of Apple's culture of closing off their technological biosphere.
06:59This ranged from consistent need to use Apple-approved parts from one's appointment at an Apple store,
07:04to the seemingly endless flow of updates.
07:06Apple's perspective is that they want complete control over the device,
07:10from the moment that you buy it, all the way through the end of life.
07:13It's all played into what outsiders have claimed as a cult-like atmosphere of Apple devotees,
07:17who willfully ignore the company's less-than-stellar reputation with labor, taxes, and the environment.
07:22Facebook.
07:23Are you still on Facebook?
07:24We came here for the friends.
07:27And we got to know the friends of our friends.
07:29Or did the criticisms against Mark Zuckerberg's company cause you to leave the social media giant?
07:33The validity of social media itself is a conversation to be had,
07:37since this method of interaction has received so much pushback with regard to bad-faith deepfake actors and intentional misinformation.
07:43It's the Facebook ecosystem that's received the most criticism with this regard,
07:47together with Twitter for how it's affected our daily lives.
07:50The big data genie is out of the bottle.
07:54But will it change the adverts you see in your next election?
07:58And will those adverts change your mind?
08:01The relentless mining of our personal data or the psychological issues of being constantly connected on a daily basis are
08:07big concerns.
08:08We often wake up to an algorithm and stay on that algorithm all day,
08:11leading to the question, when does it end?
08:13Tesla.
08:13Separating the art from the artist is a problem that can just as easily be applied to companies such as
08:18Tesla
08:18as those involved in entertainment.
08:20And at Tesla, we are builders of physical products at scale that make life better for all.
08:26This is where many defenders of Tesla come in,
08:28when it comes to the validity of clean energy versus the company's founder, Elon Musk.
08:32It's important, however, to also note that it's not only Musk's controversial public reputation
08:36that served as the crux of Tesla criticism.
08:38There's also accusations against the company's quality control and the alleged poor construction of their products.
08:43They have been over-hyping and under-engineering these vehicles for a decade,
08:50all in an effort to prop up their trillion-dollar valuation.
08:56This is in addition to criticism of Tesla workplace culture,
08:59which has been described as one hostile to those that speak up about issues such as harassment,
09:04safety, or labor organization.
09:06Dow Chemical.
09:07There have been a number of scandals involving chemical companies over the years.
09:10So let's celebrate, it's a Dow celebration.
09:17The Union Carbide Corporation had a number of major disasters in the mid-80s,
09:22but the infamy surrounding Dow Chemical is arguably even more well-known.
09:25For starters, there's the fact that Dow developed both Napalm B and Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
09:30Toxic to humans, Vietnam estimates Agent Orange killed or maimed 400,000 people.
09:37Red Cross estimates nearly 1 million people are disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange.
09:42The aforementioned Union Carbide was also a subsidiary of Dow Chemical during the Bhopal disaster of 1984.
09:48This was when a chemical leak at an Indian pesticide plant killed over 2,000 people and injured half a
09:54million others.
09:55I am confident that the victims can be fairly and equitably compensated without a material adverse effect on the financial
10:02condition of Union Carbide Corporation.
10:04All of this was under Dow Chemical's watch, not to mention other scandals that could easily take over more entries
10:10on this list.
10:11Because Dow lets you do great things.
10:15Briex.
10:16The Briex mineral company was at the center of a huge mining scandal back in 1995,
10:20when it initially claimed to have discovered a large storage of gold in Indonesia.
10:24The company's stock prices soared, but things quickly went south when it was uncovered that this claim for Briex was
10:30false.
10:31The stockbrokers told us that this stock will do well and we can't lose.
10:39Not true.
10:41We lost everything.
10:42From there, the story felt like a violent political thriller,
10:45with stories of a supposed Briex geologist Michael de Guzman jumping out of a helicopter.
10:50Only some claim that it was actually a stolen corpse being tossed from a helicopter made to look like self
10:55-destruction.
10:56If you wanted to disappear anywhere on this planet, Indonesia would be one of the easier places to do it.
11:02That you could, for a few hundred dollars, purchase a recently deceased body.
11:06Fast forward through insider trading, lawsuits, and even armed home invasion,
11:10and you have one of the craziest series of events in Canadian corporate history.
11:14In spite of class action lawsuits, not one investor has ever been compensated.
11:20A harsh reality for thousands of ordinary people who invested their life savings in Briex.
11:27BP.
11:28The story of BP proves that some companies can inexplicably emerge out the other side
11:32of even the most dreadful environmental disasters.
11:35We're discussing, of course, the laundry list of accidents and leaks that have occurred under the watch of BP.
11:40The eruption lasted about one minute.
11:43Liquid fell to the ground, creating a large, flammable vapor cloud.
11:48There was the Texas City Refinery explosion of 2005 that killed 15 workers and injured nearly 200 others.
11:54BP was also taken to task five years later for the leaking of multiple dangerous chemicals from that same Texas
12:00City Refinery.
12:01There was no program quality verification or intensive PSM inspection conducted at that refinery.
12:07Then there was the Prudhoe Bay oil spill of 2006, which dumped over 200,000 gallons of oil into the
12:13Arctic Ocean.
12:14Wait, there's more. Deepwater Horizon, anyone?
12:16This isn't a terribly difficult calculation to perform.
12:20So for some reason they didn't perform it or they didn't know how to perform it.
12:24This was yet another oil spill that wreaked havoc on the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
12:28The legacy of Deepwater Horizon will be to show how important science is in making decisions that help society meet
12:37these challenges and keep this region vital and safe and resilient for generations.
12:42Palantir Technologies.
12:43Environmental disasters aren't the only violations associated with major international companies.
12:49Palantir Technologies is in the business of software as well as analyzing public data.
12:53The company's software has been credited with helping to find and kill Osama bin Laden.
12:58And though this has never been confirmed, Palantir certainly has not disputed it.
13:02Specifically, Palantir has come under public scrutiny thanks to their level of involvement with America's Department of Homeland Security
13:08and their alleged cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a.k.a. ICE.
13:13The company's CEO, Alex Karp, downplayed the level of involvement between Palantir and ICE, particularly with regards to deportation.
13:20I believe that there are checks and balances. I do think our legal system is way too brutal and that
13:26we need to have a discussion about that.
13:28However, Palantir was later singled out by Amnesty International in 2020 for their lack of research into human rights violations
13:35during their partnership with the agency.
13:37I have asked myself, if I were younger at college, would I be protesting me?
13:42It sounds like yes.
13:43Massey Energy.
13:44The coal industry continues to be a talking point within the United States national economy, with many troubling historical examples
13:51of misconduct.
13:52There are literally thousands of violations, 4,100 violations over six years, 60,000 days in which they were in
13:59violation, an average of about 28 violations every day.
14:03Massey Energy Company was once a mainstay in U.S. states like Kentucky and West Virginia.
14:08But this success didn't come without cost.
14:09For starters, there was the Upper Big Branch mine disaster of 2010 that cost the lives of 29 miners.
14:15The Federal Safety Report concluded, if basic safety measures had been in place, there would have been no loss of
14:22life at Upper Big Branch.
14:24This was just one example of Massey's recklessness in the coal industry, which saw the company consistently putting production successes
14:30over worker safety.
14:32What we have seen is a conspiracy to violate mine safety and health laws.
14:38A year after Upper Big Branch, Massey was fined an astonishing $10 million by the Mine Safety and Health Administration,
14:45and it was sold off soon afterwards to Alpha Natural Resources.
14:48President Obama himself, in the wake of that disaster, came out and said what happened at the Upper Big Branch
14:55mine, that fatal explosion, was a result of a failure of management and a failure of law.
15:04You're smiling at that.
15:07These days, the subject of climate change is one that's discussed on an international level.
15:12That said, ExxonMobil's decision to conduct research into the subject back in the 1970s and 80s seems, on the surface,
15:18to be a commendable idea.
15:19However, what actually was going down proved to be far more sinister.
15:22We were excellent scientists.
15:26Yes, you were.
15:27Yes, you were.
15:29So they knew.
15:31ExxonMobil actively worked to play down all of the results uncovered by their group of scientists.
15:36Researchers have called their findings of the company's internal documents a smoking gun.
15:42Exxon denies the accusations.
15:44This included intentionally spreading misinformation with regards to the severity of climate change, while also working to slow down U
15:51.S. involvement with taking a proactive stance on the crisis within the world stage.
15:55The oil giant says the issue has come up several times in recent years, and its answer always remains the
16:00same.
16:00Those who suggest we knew are wrong.
16:05Monsanto
16:06Monsanto may no longer exist as an independent company today, but its parent company, Bayer, has its own fair share
16:12of historical controversy.
16:13Bayer bought Monsanto in mid-2018 for $63 billion.
16:18It continues to insist the herbicide is safe when used as directed.
16:22But with share prices sliding almost 40% since the acquisition, the purchase came at a higher-than-expected cost.
16:29The German-based pharmaceutical giant was responsible for developing the gas chamber chemical, Zyklon B, during World War II.
16:36In more recent years, the aforementioned Monsanto was involved in numerous lawsuits over the years.
16:41Specifically, Monsanto was aligned with Dow in the development of Agent Orange and other chemicals like dioxin.
16:46Monsanto brewed up these mixtures primarily for war.
16:50Then there was the controversy with Roundup, a popular pesticide that was found to harbor carcinogenic chemicals.
16:55You can drink a whole quart of it and it won't hurt you.
16:58You want to drink some? We have some here.
17:01I'd be happy to, actually.
17:02Not really, but I know it wouldn't hurt me.
17:05The list here with Monsanto honestly goes on and on.
17:08Monsanto has effectively made a business out of poisoning people and getting away with it.
17:14FIFA
17:14We are here to announce the unsealing of charges and the arrests of individuals as part of our long-running
17:21investigation into bribery and corruption in the world of organized soccer.
17:25The controversy and scandal surrounding FIFA is one of the worst-kept secrets in the sports world.
17:30FIFA and Sepp Blatter have been under pressure before, but never quite like this.
17:35This is due to the organization's almost impressive reputation for corruption.
17:39FIFA's history with bribery finally came to a head in 2015,
17:42when 18 members of the organization were indicted for their alleged actions involving wire fraud and money laundering.
17:48$150 million in bribes were being paid to these officials, including a U.S. sportswear company that paid money to
17:58sponsor the Brazilian Soccer Federation.
18:00So there's a lot here going on, including a separate investigation now being done by the Swiss.
18:04FIFA's control over the World Cup and where it's held has always served as a source of controversy.
18:10But the 2022 games were a bit different, specifically the host country of Qatar.
18:14Their alleged abuses of migrant workers and alleged human rights violations all reflected back upon FIFA and their systemic abuses
18:21of power.
18:21While the World Cup organizing committee enjoys the lavish offices they built, these workers are still waiting to be paid.
18:29The awarding of a so-called peace prize to President Donald Trump has generated more controversy.
18:34Enron.
18:35If there's one thing that I hope we can achieve, it is to create an environment where our employees can
18:41come in here and realize their potential.
18:43The Enron scandal is one of the largest financial scandals of all time, and it both shocked and devastated everyone
18:49from Wall Street to Main Street.
18:50That's our vision. We're trying to change the world.
18:53The former energy company was front and center at a scandal that fraudulently inflated Enron's revenue stream to the tune
18:58of billions of dollars.
19:00I don't understand how upper management would allow.
19:02It's because Enron actually used the same estimates in their earning reports, which magically transformed themselves into revenue, which translates
19:12directly into higher stock prices for investors.
19:14And higher bonuses and stock option payouts for execs.
19:18Everybody wins.
19:20Indictments, evidence tampering, and prison sentences were all part of the Enron scandal, while simple employees saw 401k plans that
19:26they had counted on for their security being manipulated and mismanaged.
19:29It was a horrific reach of trust, and a truly shameful moment within the history of American business.
19:35Like most things that end terribly, it didn't start out that way.
19:38It started with a lot of people who thought they were changing the world, and over time they became victims
19:44of their own hubris, victims of their own greed.
19:46And so it's like taking so much promise and possibility and looking at it in a mirror and seeing the
19:51flip side reflected back at you.
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20:09Triangle Shirtwaist Company
20:10The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire may have occurred in 1911, but it's important that we never forget this NYC tragedy.
20:16The fire, of course, like any fire in Manhattan, could be spotted from blocks and blocks around because of the
20:23smoke.
20:25So there were big crowds.
20:28Young garment workers, many barely out of their teens, lost their lives as a result of this fire.
20:33And it didn't have to be this way.
20:34The Triangle Shirtwaist Company had the doors to stairwells locked, partially as a means of preventing unapproved break time.
20:40It's unclear whether or not a discarded cigarette or mechanical failure started the fire, but this mattered little to those
20:45who were unable to escape.
20:47And when the people on the night floor found out there was a fire, there was a panic.
20:51And they couldn't get out because one exit was locked, and the other, the crowd was pushing up against the
20:57door.
20:57And both doors, both exits were inward opening doors.
21:01Over 60 employees jumped to their deaths in efforts to break free from the fire.
21:05While Triangle's owners were indicted for manslaughter, they were acquitted, but later found guilty of wrongful death in a civil
21:11suit.
21:12If there weren't massive funerals, it would have been very easy for the city and the city officials to say,
21:17well, this is just sort of a natural disaster, it's a terrible thing, but there's nothing anyone can do about
21:22it.
21:23How much of a role do we, the consumer, have in battling unethical business practices by seemingly unstoppable corporations?
21:29Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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