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Summary: The AstroTurfing and the Googlebombing campaigns of large corporations would have us believe that genuine activists are toxic and malicious people, whereas corporations exist to save the world from evil people; don't fall for those Public Relations tactics (a gross inversion of narrative)

FOR quite a few years people have warned abut the hypocrisy of mega-corporations in the field of technology, arguing that they combat racism when they in fact profit from racism. Clyde W. Ford has mentioned this in relation to IBM, which he knows very well, and also Google [1, 2]. Even employees of those companies increasingly become aware that their salaries are paid by institutional racism. Some resign. Some don't. Some just want to pay the mortgage.

Racism is a real and persistent issue, but it won't be tackled by corporations that profit from racism. This past week Microsoft did a great deal of veiled racism to distract from its incompetence. The sad thing is that by hijacking popular movements against racism and sexism (Mozilla Corporation does this all the time, even yesterday) those corporations harm the grassroots efforts. They help portray the activists as corporate shills while at the same time berating and demonising real grassroots/community-led efforts.

The video above deals with this difficult subject. It's considered difficult because of the risk of being taken out of context. In the video I mostly discuss issues we've long covered in Techrights and I also show the Googlebombing efforts undertaken by those most culpable. Shame on IBM, shame on Google (also for taking money from Bill Gates for reputation laundering, which he desperately craves and needs), and shame on Microsoft for attacking software freedom while bribing the Linux Foundation for openwashing and greenwashing. ⬆