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A concern about Samsung
Aug. 20th, 2016 09:02 amA confession: I own Samsung products.
My two most-recently purchased cellphones - both second-hand - as well as a monitor currently attached to my MacBook Pro, were all made for Samsung to put their brand name on.
So there's a direct personal connection to this Toronto Star article on worker safety at their plants in South Korea.
First off, I object to the idea that trade secrets - real or alleged by the company involved - are worth employees' lives in this sort of context.
Second, there's a sense of blood on my hands as a customer and user of their products. Because of the secrecy practiced as described in the article, because of my lack of effort to research workers' conditions (for any reason/excuse), because of my lack of ability to afford anything more ethically made...
...and I've recently learned that there's cell-phones more ethically made to be had. Or so I hope. Further investigation would be helpful in order to reassure a lot of potential customers, I suspect. Fairphone looks like it has promise. If I do manage to get one, though, it too will likely have to be second-hand, at least for now.
And if Fairphone's success is achieved and well-earned, maybe the competition will get the right hint from that.
Meantime, I have to live with and use what I've bought as it was made. And if anyone suggests that I should just shut up (and stay complicit) or walk away from technology altogether, they can just stuff themselves.
My two most-recently purchased cellphones - both second-hand - as well as a monitor currently attached to my MacBook Pro, were all made for Samsung to put their brand name on.
So there's a direct personal connection to this Toronto Star article on worker safety at their plants in South Korea.
First off, I object to the idea that trade secrets - real or alleged by the company involved - are worth employees' lives in this sort of context.
Second, there's a sense of blood on my hands as a customer and user of their products. Because of the secrecy practiced as described in the article, because of my lack of effort to research workers' conditions (for any reason/excuse), because of my lack of ability to afford anything more ethically made...
...and I've recently learned that there's cell-phones more ethically made to be had. Or so I hope. Further investigation would be helpful in order to reassure a lot of potential customers, I suspect. Fairphone looks like it has promise. If I do manage to get one, though, it too will likely have to be second-hand, at least for now.
And if Fairphone's success is achieved and well-earned, maybe the competition will get the right hint from that.
Meantime, I have to live with and use what I've bought as it was made. And if anyone suggests that I should just shut up (and stay complicit) or walk away from technology altogether, they can just stuff themselves.
