It’s no secret that Google is slowly suppressing offbeat content or channels on YouTube that don’t support the political and social views the company is promoting for reasons we’ll leave for conspiracy theory lists. Even our own startup YouTube channel had four of its six videos flagged for demonetization.

10 Most Absurd Things Banned On Politically Correct College Campuses

I pointed out that it was a form of soft censorship but was rebuffed with such responses as “you don’t have to comply: we just won’t pay you”. Nice one Google. As other advertising companies grew in size and we were able to switch away from Google’s ad network, things improved. However, Google owns the biggest search Engine in the world and they are now using that (along with Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter who are censoring like mad) to manipulate content: you can publish what you like, but if Google doesn’t like it, it is hidden from search results. While this behavior doesn’t break the law, it does mean that you can’t survive publishing content that goes against the narrative being promoted by Social Media giants. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see that this will lead to the dumbing down and sterilization of online content and push people to such places as the Dark Web for genuine content.

Yesterday’s QANon list by Mary Fetzer inspired me to put this list together. So, here are the ten most popular articles we published, that Google requested we suppress in one way or another.

10 Banned Controversial Album Covers
By Maggot, 291 Comments

Read The List: 10 Banned Controversial Album Covers

A great list by one of our most beloved commenters and readers Maggot. My favorite line from the list: “Today of course, I am older and wiser, and so I can offer a much more mature commentary on the artistry of this photo: Did you see the racks on those babes?!” To answer: yes, Maggot, we saw them. Even if the powers that be really didn’t want us to.

Maggot’s introduction, in part, reads: “What is “art”? Over the years there have been many record albums or CDs released with what was deemed to be controversial or offensive cover artwork. Censorship and attempts to define the limits of free speech is a subject worthy of debating, and of course “offensive” imagery is in the eye of the beholder. As such, some of these might seem rather tame by today’s standards, but nonetheless they originally elicited enough controversy, public outcry, or heavy-handed pressure from major retailers, to cause censoring actions.”

9 Things You Didn’t Know About Pornography
By Jamie Frater, 295 Comments

Read The List: Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Pornography

We should have retitled this one: “Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Pornography And Never Will If Google Gets Their Way”. Here is the introduction: “Erotica has existed since man first was able to think. A once large industry has now burst out as a giant in entertainment due to the Internet. Most people with access to the net has seen pornography either intentionally or accidentally. This list takes a look at some of the more obscure facts surrounding pornography.”

8 Details That Make History’s Worst Tragedies Even Worse
By Mark Oliver, 327 Comments

Read The List: 10 Details That Make History’s Worst Tragedies Even Worse

I’ll leave it up to you to guess which particular entry on this list really bothered Big Brother. Here is Mark’s introduction to this fascinating list: “We like to imagine that we learn from our tragedies—that when the worst moment comes, people change their ways and start working together to make things right. But sometimes, even after the catastrophe is over, the tragedy continues. People get swept up in the havoc and chaos of the moment and do things that make history’s worst moments even worse. And in the aftermath, some of our darkest moments are left with details too bleak to make it into the history books.”

7Spunky Facts About Sperm
By Petros Absalon, 387 Comments

Read The List: 10 Spunky Facts About Sperm

Oh come on! What on earth is wrong with a sciencey list about sperm? Perhaps it needed to be combined with a list about ova for the censors to allow it. Too much “white” male privilege perhaps. The introduction: “Sperm and semen are as common as men in the world. However, aside from knowing that it comes from the male genitals and is important for making babies, there are still a lot of amazing things about it that many of us don’t know. For example, during World War I, British spies had the bright idea to use semen as invisible ink. After one agent decided to store his semen in a bottle, the letters he sent using the invisible ink stank so much that his handlers were forced to send him a letter telling him that a ‘fresh operation is necessary for each letter.’”

6 Incestuous Relationships In the Bible
By Jamie Frater, 387 Comments

Read The List: Top 6 Incestuous Relationships In the Bible

How could this not be controversial? the Bible and sex together on one list! Here is the introduction I wrote for the list before Google slapped a chain on it: “Religious scholars say that God suspended the laws of incest in the early days of man in order to ensure that man spread on the earth. In the words of the commentators of the Douay Rheims Bible: “God [dispensed] with such marriages in the beginning of the world, as mankind could not otherwise be propagated.” Despite that, these tales are not all simply matters of procreation – particularly item 1. So, here is a list of 6 of the more questionable relationships in the Bible.”

10 Beloved Children’s Books Banned For Stupid Reasons

5 Incendiary Facts About Incest
By Eliza Lenz, 438 Comments

Read The List: 10 Incendiary Facts About Incest

It seems that Google really hates incest . . . perhaps it hits a little close to home for someone on their Propaganda and Censorship team. This list certain did leave some rather hot under the collar. Eliza opens thusly: “We all seem to know that incest is wrong, either through cultural conditioning or what appear to be innate evolutionary cues, yet some humans can’t seem to resist the urge to bed their relatives. In fact, since the DNA of every living human is 99.9 percent the same, it may be much more common than we think. Still, that doesn’t mean incest is a good thing. As we will see, breeding with a close relative can result in some dire consequences.”

4 Animals That Practice Homosexuality
By Andrew Blackstone, 446 Comments

Read The List: 10 Animals That Practice Homosexuality

When Hollywood decided they needed to educate us all on nature vs nurture, a number of wildly popular TV shows such as Will and Grace and Parks and Recreation dedicated entire episodes to informing us that animals—particularly penguins—are gay and it’s okay. Thank God for Hollywood saving the gays; where would we be without them? Probably still burning at the stake. Anyway, for some reason Google decided that we shouldn’t publish similar content and our list of ten gay animals was given the chop. Here’s the intro:

“Scientific research is spotting a surprising range of animals that engage in same-sex relationships. In this mind-expanding list, we will look at the “Lesbian Albatrosses” of Hawaii; male dolphins who keep boyfriends; and same-sex seagull couples who adopt young to raise together. In the animal world, big surprises always await us.”

3 Beautiful Celebrity Brunettes
By Randall, 563 Comments

Read The List: Top 25 Beautiful Celebrity Brunettes

I’m sure most readers will have seen the hit TV show from Netflix (before it lost its mojo) called Stranger Things. Believe it or not the mother from the show (Winona Ryder) was once a beautiful brunette who had men swooning (actually men didn’t swoon like they do these days—they probably grunted instead). Pictured here and number one on the list by our now-missing much loved regular, Randall. Needless to say a large number of the comments were from people disgruntled at the “sexualization” of women. They must have written Google and asked to have us cancelled, judging by the nasty ban letter we got. Here’s part of the rather long intro:

“The brunette, in history, has always been seen as the temptress, the siren; from Lilith of Hebrew mythology to Shakespeare’s ‘dark lady of the sonnets,’ the brunette has been the woman who gives men pause even while we desire her, as though we sense there’s a dangerous cleverness in her that will destroy us.”

2 Ways Pornography Shapes The World
By Chris Jenkins, 599 Comments

Read The List: 10 Ways Pornography Shapes The World

A really interesting list that has some incredibly unexpected entries. If you hated the Brunette list, this one will really drive you crazy. Here’s a bit of the intro: “Pornography is often associated with deviant behavior and sexual violence. Many people at least assume it has a negative effect on those who view it, especially young people. These individuals, then, may be surprised to hear that pornography has helped guard the Constitution, redefine art, and even keep young women safe.” Like I said, “unexpected”.

1 Shocking Cases Of Female Sexual Predators
By Damien B., 698 Comments

Read The List: 10 Shocking Cases Of Female Sexual Predators

This is a very disturbing list and no reason was given by Google for its banning. It covers a number of real life cases of predation against children by women in positions of power over them. Google has not typically had a problem with lists dealing with deviance perpetrated by men or general predatory-type lists. The intro is short. Here it is in its entirety: “When we think of sexual predators, the image that springs to mind is usually a man. However, there are many recorded cases of women committing such vile acts. Below are 10 sexual assaults in which the perpetrator was a woman.”

Top 10 Foods That Are Banned In The US

Disney just can’t catch a break in the news these days, constantly dealing with different PR disasters of their own making like the controversies surrounding their live action remake of Mulan, high profile actors speaking out against them for alleged racial biases, and even opening up their theme parks as a pandemic rips through the country. With their still relatively new streaming service finding its legs in the market, Disney appears to be trying to be extra careful to avoid controversy by offering censored and cut down versions of their films and shows. Here are ten such cases of Disney’s censorship on their new streaming platform Disney Plus.

10 Common Things That Were Once Banned

10 Splash Is Hearing No Butts About It

Starting off with probably the most well known instance of censorship on the streaming platform so far is the 1984 film Splash starring Tom Hanks and his light hearted adventures with a mermaid. In the original version of the film, there is a very brief scene where the actress Daryl Hannah is seen running naked into the ocean, her butt visible to the camera. In 1984 times, this earned the film a PG rating likely due to the fact there was no PG-13 rating that could even be applied to it yet.^[1]

In 2020 times, Disney wasn’t going to let a little cheek slide. Instead of leaving the movie as it was, Disney opted to use special effects to add about an extra foot of hair down the length of her back to cover her posterior. Not the biggest deal in the world, but it’s so poorly done, it looks like the actress has just a solid mass of dreadlocked hair covering her bottom like she pooped into it and never attempted to clean it.

9 An Entire Episode Of The Simpsons Removed

Most people can agree, anything after season 10 of the Simpsons never really happened. Season 30? Don’t be silly. While we can all look back on those first ten seasons of the Simpsons with nostalgic enjoyment, there’s one episode you just won’t find on Disney Plus, or just about any streaming platform for that matter. The episode in question is the season 3 premiere, Stark Raving Dad with a guest starring role from the king of pop himself, Michael Jackson.

Despite the controversies in Michael’s life while he was alive, the episode didn’t start getting any real heat until after an HBO documentary called Leaving Neverland about two men who claimed Michael sexually abused them as children released and set the internet ablaze with discussion. With the new allegations brought to light, the showrunners decided it would be best to remove the episode from availability online, stating they were against book burning, but felt because it was their product, they were allowed to remove things they didn’t like.^[2]

8 Toy Story 2 Joke Hits Too Close To Home

It’s truly amazing how much can change in just a decade or two. Originally released in 1999, Toy Story 2 featured a blooper reel of sorts at the end of the film of joke scenes made by the animators. One such scene was the Stinky Pete toy taking two barbies aside and telling them he could get them a part in Toy Story 3 before noticing he was on camera and ushering the girls away in a panic. An obvious allusion to the casting couch of Hollywood where many young stars were taken advantage of sexually by executives.

While it’s likely the joke was removed because it isn’t exactly acceptable in today’s society to make sex exploitation jokes in a kid’s movie, there’s actually a double whammy at play. John Lasseter, the man behind Toy Story 2 and a vast majority of Disney’s animated films in the 2000’s ended up leaving the company after real life allegations of sexual harassment were levied against him. Wouldn’t want something like that looming over your streaming service in any shape or form.^[3]

7 Lilo And Stitch Teaching Kids Bad Lessons

Surprisingly the bad lessons being taught to kids by Lilo and Stitch has absolutely nothing to do with bringing a wild rabid animal into your home and leaving it alone with your kids. The bad lesson in question is actually quite subtle if you’re not paying attention. In a scene where Lilo is being chased by her sister Nani after a bad meeting with child protective services, Lilo closes herself off in a washer to hide from her sister.

Of all the places she could have hidden the animators chose one that was actually a real danger to children watching who might get the same idea. To rectify this, the film was updated to have the washer become a cupboard, and the door she hid behind became a pizza box. It’s a weird visual choice, but clearly done to prevent any issues of claims that kids learned the idea from using their streaming service.^[4]

6 Gravity Falls Gets A Hat Censored

Not all forms of censorship will make sense to us and our American sensibilities. Take the Disney cartoon Gravity Falls for instance. A cartoon wildly popular for its use of hidden puzzles and secret symbolism scattered throughout its episodes, it seemed odd that when it came to Disney Plus, one of the most prominent symbols throughout the whole series was missing in the first season; the logo on one of the main character’s hats. To make matters weirder, the symbol was visible in the screenshots to each episode, but not in the episodes itself.

The creator of the series even chimed in on social media confused by the seemingly senseless change to the show, but there may be an explanation as to why it was edited out at least. While it hasn’t been officially explained as of writing, the show had the symbols removed in some foreign countries because of its similarities to the Nation of Islam flag, and somehow this censored foreign version found itself in the American release.^[5]

10 Politically Incorrect Vintage Cartoons

5 Santa’s Workshop Removes Scene With Stereotypes

We may look back fondly on the cartoons of the old days when we view them with rose tinted glasses of nostalgia, but a fair few of them would not hold up to the standards of today when it comes to bigotry. Usually for these older cartoons a warning will display before it plays to let viewers know that the cartoon is from a bygone era and the company didn’t stand by what was shown, but felt it important to keep it as it first appeared.^[6]

Despite showing the warning, The Santa’s Workshop cartoon from the 1930’s didn’t exactly follow it. What they did instead was cut out a scene of a stereotypical doll of a black character with large lips and exaggerated mannerisms. Most people probably wouldn’t miss this scene from the movie, but the thing that makes it notable is that shortly after the scene plays out a group of equally controversial caricatures of Asian dolls come in bowing over and over again to vaguely ethnic music.

4 Lion King Loses Its Famous “SEX” Easter Egg

Okay okay, most of us know that the infamous Easter egg in the Lion King movie didn’t actually spell out the word sex in the stars like most internet forums would have you believe in the 90’s. It actually spelled out SFX as a nod to the special effects team behind the movie. It was just our dirty minds and low quality VHS copies of the movie playing tricks on us and making us see different.

While we all know the truth now in the age of high definition and super giant TV’s, Disney wasn’t going to take any risks of the rumor persisting, instead opting to remove the letters entirely from the version of the film on their streaming service.^[7]

3 Please Don’t Bludgeon People With Rocks, Kids

In a similar vein as the Lilo and Stitch censorship, this has less to do with children possibly hurting themselves and more to do with hurting others. In the original version of the 2D animated movie the Emperor’s New Groove, one of the main characters gets upset at another character and whips a fairly large rock at them, hitting them in the back of the head. The scene is light hearted and it isn’t done in malice, but a lot of bad can come from kids throwing rocks.

In the Disney Plus version of the film, the rock has been replaced with an acorn. A certainly less lethal alternative than a stone to the back of the head, but as one reddit user pointed out, they allegedly didn’t replace the audio in the scene so it still sounds like someone getting clonked with a rock. Just don’t throw things, kids.^[8]

2 Goofy Is Too Sexy For Disney

Oh how we wish this was a joke title, but it isn’t. The 1995 Goofy Movie available on Disney Plus has been edited to reduce the sexuality of certain scenes. The two most obvious examples being when Goofy’s son Max hugs Roxanne, his love interest in the film, his face presses into her chest. For the Disney Plus version, his face is safely leaning away from her body. The second more obvious edit is when Goofy walks into a room and accidentally sees an obese woman in her underwear getting dressed.

For the Disney Plus version of the film, the woman has been digitally given long underwear to cover her body. This is a real loss for all of those Goofy fetishists on the internet, which is a real thing you are now forced to know exists.^[9]

1 Alleged Slurs Removed From That’s So Raven

Imagine how lawless children’s television was in the 2000’s that we’re only just now realizing a hit Disney show might have hit the air with one of its main characters using multiple slurs against another of the show’s characters. We say “might have” because there’s no official word on what is being said in the show, but going by clips posted online, it’s pretty hard to deny.

During a scene where multiple characters are yelling and arguing with each other, it sounds like the main character either calls her friend a “rude nigga” or a “fruity nigga” twice before the argument stops. While it is unknown if that’s what was actually officially said, the scene was edited in the Disney Plus version to show the characters from behind and the audio replaced with just indistinct yelling.

10 Family Films Banned For Stupid Reasons

Hands up, who’s got a smartphone? All 2.71 billion of you. Now keep your hands up if you know a) how it was made, b) how it gets disposed of when you’re on to your next one, and c) what it does to your health and freedom in the meantime. 

That probably only five people still have their hand up is by no means an accident; it’s good for business. Because if you had known you probably wouldn’t have got one in the first place. You certainly wouldn’t want to keep the one you have — although, for reasons we’ll get into, it may be too late for you now.

From utterly horrifying to utterly, utterly, disgustingly horrifying, here are 10 things Big Tech would rather keep a secret.

10. Smartphones are designed to fail

Although smartphones could easily last more than three years, most people dispose of them sooner. Why? It’s not, as it should be, for all the reasons here, but because of planned obsolescence. This is a business strategy comprising various techniques to ensure there’s always demand for new phones. 

These techniques include high repair costs (e.g. for screens) versus buying a new device, the scarcity of genuine parts, short warranties, and clever marketing. All of these approaches are coercive more than anything. But planned obsolescence more specifically refers to failures built into the software or hardware of your (their) device. Apple, for example, has been accused of deliberately slowing down iPhones with an “update”. They deny it, of course, but have nevertheless agreed to settle with its customers (products) for $25 per device.

9. Your smartphone diminishes your quality of life

There are two ways to use a smartphone — consciously (what researchers call the ‘Aware’ mode) and unconsciously (the ‘Unaware’ mode). Most of us will immediately recognize the difference as that between us using the technology and the technology using us. Unsurprisingly, high levels of smartphone use in the Unaware mode have been linked to diminished quality of life (measured in positive feeling, competence, and functioning).

What’s worrying about this is that smartphones aren’t a habit afflicting just a few, like smoking. It’s total. Hence the concerns for generations raised in a world where smartphones have always existed. ‘Generation Z’, for example, or ‘iGen’, differs starkly from its predecessors, the ‘Millennials’ — more starkly than Millennials from ‘Generation X’ and than any other generation has from its own predecessor.

One key difference is in how they spend their time. Since the release of the iPhone in 2007, teenagers are reportedly spending less time hanging out with friends, dating, having sex, or even sleeping — and more time feeling lonely. Instead of meeting up, teenagers tend to inhabit virtual spaces online — apps and websites. And it’s not making them happy. According to the Monitoring the Future survey, those who spend more time looking at their smartphones, and social media, are far more likely to be unhappy with their lives.

8. Smartphone apps are intentionally addictive

How many times a day do you check your smartphone? In typical addict fashion, even heavy users probably underestimate it; the average for Americans is 262 times per day. What is our fascination with these little black mirrors?

Well the truth is it’s not our fault, or even our choice. Smartphones are addictive by design. According to app developer Peter Mezyk, “the success of an app is often measured by the extent to which it introduces a new habit.” Why? Because attention pays. The more time our focus languishes on social media and other apps, the more ad revenue their creators rake in. Your mind is the product, not the customer. Former employees of Apple, Google, Facebook, and others have placed this beyond any doubt. 

In fact, there’s now an industry standard for encouraging addiction. It’s based on a model devised by Stanford psychology professor B.J. Fogg, and works by generating a stimulus around negative emotions such as boredom or loneliness. 

7. “Your” smartphone is a surveillance device

Edward Snowden famously risked his life to reveal how closely the US and other governments monitor their citizens. It’s part of the reason why VPNs are, for some of us at least, the new normal. But we still carry the snoops in our pockets. Thanks to virtually untraceable spyware, all governments now have the ability to access our smartphones without our knowledge. And it’s an ability they exploit.

It’s not just America. The Polish government has gathered data from dissenting journalists’ phones for use in smear campaigns against them; the Hungarian government has deployed spyware to monitor NGOs; Greece has used it to cover up corruption; the Spanish have used it to monitor individuals involved with the Catalan independence movement… The list goes on. And it’s hardly surprising. 

What is surprising is the ignorance of smartphone surveillance capabilities even among those most at risk. Protestors, for example, continue to carry their personal tracking devices — allowing police to identify and track them with ease.

6. Checking your smartphone ruins your eyesight and skin

Most smartphone users don’t care about their eyesight; either that or they don’t know the risks. According to the Vision Council, 80% of Americans look at their devices for more than two hours per day — and 59% have digital eye strain. Worryingly, this damage to retinal cells can lead to age-related macular degeneration, cataracts, eye cancer, and growths on the whites of the eyes. Making matters worse is people tend to blink less when looking at screens. You’ve probably felt your eyes drying out and the headaches that result.

If you think you’ve got youth on your side, beware: the opposite is true. Children’s eyes actually absorb more blue light, placing them at greater risk of diseases.

But it’s not just the eyes. High levels of artificial light also stress the skin — both indirectly, by upsetting sleep patterns, and directly, by oxidative stress. Studies have revealed that exposure to short-wavelength visible light (such as blue light), even for short periods of time, can generate cell-destabilizing molecules (reactive oxygen species) and consequently the early death of skin cells. The result is accelerated aging and wrinkles. But there is a silver lining: Given the concurrent damage to your eyesight, it may be less visible in selfies.

5. Smartphones cause debilitating mental illness

The most obvious and widespread mental harm associated with smartphone use is the stress of being constantly networked. Users feel compelled to respond to every message they get, when they get it, so as to maintain this connection. Studies show us what we already feel numerous times each day: that notifications activate the sympathetic nervous system, releasing adrenaline that in turn increases the heart rate and muscle tension. It takes 30 minutes for the body to stabilize again, and this is 30 minutes many of us never get. 

However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Other chronic problems include sleep disruption, cyberbullying, emotional dysregulation, depression, anxiety, impaired cognitive function, low self-esteem and social avoidance.

We don’t need studies to tell us these things, but surveys of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders between 1991 and 2016 show that adolescents spending less time on electronic communication were happier.

4. Smartphones are physically hurting you

We’ve already mentioned how blue light can be damaging to the eyes and skin. It gets worse. By disrupting your circadian rhythm and diminishing sleep quality, it can also contribute to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. The manual labvor involved in using a smartphone (unnatural repetitive hand and neck movements) could also lead to trapeziometacarpal osteoarthritis and neck strain. In fact, the force of strain on the neck is 40 pounds at a 30-degree tilt and 60 pounds at 60 degrees — the equivalent of having a child sitting on the back of your neck every time you look down at your phone.

But it’s not just the blue light; it’s also the exposure to radiofrequency-modulated electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs). Spending just 50 minutes on a cell phone call has been found to increase brain glucose metabolism in the region of the brain closest to the antenna. And while it’s not clear what harms this might cause (including to young people’s developing brains), RF-EMF emissions are linked to cancer, and phone use to increased risk of brain tumors. Even on a day-to-day basis, since RF-EMF frequencies sometimes correspond to those in neuronal tissue, it’s feared they could interfere with cognition. Even tiny interferences could have a butterfly effect. It has also been shown that EMFs can penetrate cells and interact with mitochondrial DNA, ultimately destroying through oxidative stress. At the very least, it could lead to electromagnetic hypersensitivity.

And while it’s easy to forget while looking at your smartphone, we still share this world with other creatures — many of whom have been negatively affected by the spike in EMF radiation. There’s heaps of evidence for harms caused to ants, birds, frogs, bees, rodents, plants, and other wildlife. Bees, for example, when exposed to cell phone EMFs for just 10 minutes per day for ten days, don’t return to their hives. This is because they rely on the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate.

3. Smartphones are assembled in sweatshops

Workers’ (and human) rights abuses at FOXCONN in China, where Apple and Sony get their phones made, are relatively well known — and entirely unresolved. Workers are still paid less than they need to get by, even on overtime hours (which are often not paid as a punishment for not meeting quotas). They’re also exposed to toxins without protection and lied to and abused by their managers (who, for example, have promised double pay to ramp up production but only paid standard in the end). If they want to resign, they have to ask permission, and permission is often denied. They are, in other words, slaves. So it’s no wonder suicide is common there.

But it’s not just FOXCONN or Apple or Sony. All smartphones rely on cheap labor. Another example is Samsung’s sweatshops in Vietnam, where among the mostly female workforce miscarriages are a routine and expected occurrence. Most of their time, even while pregnant, is spent standing causing dizziness and fainting. The toxic fumes don’t help, or the haphazard mix of day-shifts and nights. Even “free time” is painful, since factory dormitories intentionally keep mothers separate from their families.

2. Children die mining cobalt for batteries

More than half the world’s cobalt supply, which smartphone manufacturers depend on for the batteries, comes from hand-dug mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Euphemistically known as ‘artisanal mines’ (ASM), these places are hell on earth.

The true extent of the horror isn’t clear because most of it gets covered up. But what we do know paints a chilling picture. Tens of thousands of children as young as seven years old, all on less than $2 per day, work up to 12 hours a day carrying heavy loads, breathing toxic dust, and contracting skin diseases underground. Accidents are common, resulting in loss of limbs and life, with many bodies left buried in the rubble.

And while the big brands claim to be against child labor, the truth is they’d be smaller without it. So it’s no surprise that, according to Amnesty, they’re not even investigating suppliers. After all, since few smartphone users in the developed world really care, there’s very little pressure to do so. The problem is now so entrenched that “ethical” smartphone alternatives like Fairphone find it impossible to separate ASM-supplied cobalt from other sources. 

1. Smartphones are ravaging the planet

Although your smartphone activity might feel relatively carbon neutral — at least between charges from a power outlet — the data centers required to process all the information involved consume masses of energy. Phone towers too. In the US alone, 4G uses 31 million megawatt-hours of electricity per year, which is enough to power 2.6 million households. 5G is expected to use triple this amount. 

Beyond this, there’s the even bigger impact of manufacture and especially mining. Mining (not just for cobalt but for all the materials invovled, including gold and silver) accounts for as much as 95% of your smartphone’s total carbon footprint during its lifetime… which isn’t very long.

Once you’re done with it, it continues to wreak havoc on the planet. Discarded electronics (or ‘e-waste’) reached a mass of 43 million tons in 2016 alone — equivalent to 4,500 Eiffel Towers. But it’s out of sight, out of mind for most Americans. The hellscapes of e-waste dumps are far away in the developing world, in China, Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ghana, and other countries where regulations are lacking.