20 Beloved Companies With Seriously Shady Histories

Bayer did WHAT?!?!
20 Beloved Companies With Seriously Shady Histories

We all like to think of ourselves as rugged individuals, but everyone has their brand loyalties. Admit it: Pepsi and Coke taste different, and you like one better. There’s a go-to store you visit when you run out of underwear. You made a choice when you bought your phone that affected future purchasing decisions down to enabling or preventing you from reading the brother-in-law’s crazy book from Severance, dammit. Dammit!

But your favorite brand is still a soul-sucking, money-grubbing, evil corporation, because they all are. Even the most beloved brands have enough skeletons in their closets to put Home Depot out of business, probably including Home Depot. That’s why user beta_nerd asked r/AskReddit, “What’s a company that’s viewed pretty positively today but has a dark, DARK history?”

CarlSpencer 4y ago BAYER (aspirin) supplied the Zylon gas used by the NAZIs in their gas chambers.
TserTaAbmet 4y ago Back when New York Life Insurance was Nautical Mutual, they provided policies on slaves to slave owners.
4y ago Edited 4y ago Apparently Apple. They were knowingly using child labour for about 3 years along with using people in concentration camps in China to manufacture their parts
Train_go_moo 4y ago IBM sold the Nazis punch card computers to keep track of every person in concentration camps. The computers also kept the trains running on time.
4y ago Edited 4y ago PETA, euthanizes more animals than it saves. Even healthy ones just because they have no owners and to save PETA money. Yes the one you donate to is actually using the money on euthenization shots and pocketing the other 50%.
jrakosi 4y ago Dole (the fruit company) organized the overthrow of the indigenous government on Hawaii so it could join the USA
ALinLOSANGELES 4y ago The Dow Chemical Co. manufactured napalm from 1964-69 for American armed forces to drop on North Vietnam villages. Today, the company is being praised for providing free hand sanitizer to hospitals.
SistaSaline 4y ago Disney. Hands down. We associate it with childhood memories but Walt Disney was racist as shit and the earliest Disney cartoons featured very racist depictions of black people.
ramos1969 4y ago DeBeers diamonds. They've distanced themselves from the blood diamond trade recently by claiming 'conflict-free' mining and starting programs focused on local entrepreneurship, but the scars across Africa remain today. Millions have been killed.
CurvyNB 4y ago Edited 4y ago Coca-Cola hired hitmen from the AUC (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia) to kill 10 union leaders in Columbia. This occurred as recently from 1990 to 2002. BP also has dirt on them for funding the AUC, just as a side note. Thanks to their excellent PR firms, it's been kept under wraps pretty well.
easyOlucky0free 4y ago Celestial Seasonings tea was founded by a dude who was part of a SUPER racist cult that believed in aliens. Like so racist he actually DOES care if youre red yellow green blue or purple
J-J-Ricebot 4y ago ABN AMRO (in the NL) is currently just another boring bank, but it has a bit of a dodgy history. The main legal ancestor of this bank is the NHM (Nederlandsche Handelsmaatschappij). The NHM was the main trading company (monopolist) in the 1800s in Dutch East-India (Indonesia). The Indonesians were forced to use a 5th of their land for whatever crop the NL authorities deemed necessary. The NHM transported and sold these crops, and made a profit this way.
RonSwanson04 4y ago Chiquita. They once funded rebels in a South American country to overthrow the government, in order to have land to build banana plantations. Banana plantations are famously laborious places. If you've ever heard the song come mister tally man, tally me banana, that's what it is about.
MELLMAO 4y ago H&M is now recognized and beloved as a sustainable, eco-friendly company with great worker rights but they used to be really corrupt and would use underpaid workers in 3rd world countries who worked in horrible and dangerous conditions, they also used to use horrible cheap materials that would cause massive pollution and wouldn't be able to be recycled....oh wait, they still do that, my bad you guys!
CountCockrotula 4y ago I feel like it's known but not talked about, but Krupp pretty much played all sides in most major wars over the last few centuries, then were EXTREMELY BOLD BOYS during World War Two, decided people had forgotten about that around 1951, they were right, and now they make pretty much everything that's big and steel. No, we can't lay the blame directly on all the companies that со operated with the nazis, but we can sure as fuck point to Krupp and say 'you made this possible, you used slaves to do it, and by the way
fire_brand 4y ago Hudson's Bay Company, or the Bay, has a pretty dark history. Responsible for a lot of the early settlement of Canada and theft of Native lands to fuel their beaver fur trade. They ravaged aboriginal populations, stole their lands and fought wars here all in the name of trade. A lot of early north american colonization was done by HBC. There's a lot of information out there that details this time. Some of it is pretty difficult to read, how they treated the aboriginal people.
Sensitive_Lynx_5849 4y ago Boy, my time to shine has come. One december day in 2017, when I was between schools and doing odd jobs, I was doing a sort of promotional thing for a company called Degusa. They're a German company, who today specializes in Gold and other precious metals. Essentially, me and the others occupied several positions in Zurich's main station to hand out chocolates and flyers to passersby. Well, the day goes on, I go home, and tell my dad about what I did today, as you do. Не goes on to explain how that company was in
oohyeahchuckachong 4y ago Edited 4y ago Continental Tires. Stock for Mercedes and other luxury cars. They tested their durability by making WW2 camp prisoners walk in shoes made with their rubber soles upward to 30 miles each day. Many collapsed and died from dehydration and from being malnourished already.
-Haeralis- 4y ago Oneida. Today, it is company that mainly manufactures and sells silverware, dinnerware and cookwear but it actually started out as a Christian community founded by John Humphrey Noyes that eventually turned into nothing less than a cult that believed in the establishment of a kingdom of God on Earth. Among the darker aspects of the cult was the practicing of pedophilia, Eugenics and incest. Noyes believed he could actually breed a superior specimen of humanity by having a child with his own niece.
Trickydick24 4y ago Volkswagen. I think we all know why

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