The first presentation, Boycott Connect, proposed an app that would allow its users to find
out which brands or big corporations were using immoral practices to create or
test their products. Once the consumer
knows the brands to avoid they can boycott these companies in hopes of sending
a message that they will lose business if they do not change their ways.
It
seems to be a big issue these days that companies, especially the larger ones,
will cut corners to get their products onto shelves faster. These corners that they are cutting involve immoral
practices that they try to cover up so that consumers will not judge them for
it. They know that if all of their
methods of to test and create their products were entirely public they would
lose so much of their business. One of these
practices that no company wants to be public is testing on animals. This testing method is especially popular in
the make-up industry. The results of
testing the make-up on animals can be unsightly and cruel. Many people simply do not think about it and
buy the make-up anyway. They do not want
to think about the animals being harmed to simply put a new shade on a
shelf. While everyone may not be aware of
that, many choose to be ignorant of the fact.
While I do not use make-up, I think this app telling those who do the
companies that do and do not test on animals could help them fight the
problem.
Another group of
corporations that have questionable ethics are the cocoa industries as
mentioned in class. Apparently there
have been reports of companies paying people using slave labor to obtain cocoa
beans. After hearing that the company reported
for doing this was Nestle, I was so shocked since that is one of the biggest
chocolate companies. I was not aware of
this prior to the presentation, and it shocks me that stuff like this is not
common knowledge. It made me feel guilty for any time that I had
eaten their chocolate. While they may
claim to have found other methods of obtaining the cocoa beans or they are
searching for another way, we can never be sure; since they only have to pay a
fine for being caught doing such despicable acts, and now they will most likely
just do a better job of covering their tracks.
Overall I think this
app would be a great way to “stick it to the man” in a sense. If it spread and became very popular then it
would force companies to change their ways, and would help the average person
to make a difference in the world.
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