Linus Tech Tips admits personal responsibility for exploitation of Congo
Nowadays, issues such as environmental awareness and human rights are fortunately coming to the forefront. Many technology companies, including Notebookcheck, are aware of the impact that consumer technology has on the environment and the situation of workers, including children, mining raw materials in the Republic of the Congo and other countries.
Only recently, Linus Tech Tips has been accused of being personally responsible for the situation of Congolese children in cobalt and lithium mines, and of having blood on his hands:
Surprisingly, Linus' first reaction was not to disagree, but to show his awareness of the situation in the Congo and the impact of consumer technology on the environment. However, he immediately asked the English teacher who made the accusation, how he would do better if he ran a media company himself.
Linus pointed out that in this day and age, you need a minimum level of consumer technology, such as clothing and a laptop, to work. Another point was, that the critical post was made on a Chromebook, which is also not entirely geared towards sustainability and human rights.
Linus' makes an important statement by saying as a "tech influencer" he does not want to sell as many products as possible indiscriminately and glorify consumerism, but rather recommend products that meet the individual needs of users. This is also the basic philosophy and reason why Notebookcheck was founded, as there was far too little information about this 20 years ago. This minimises consumer technology cycles, as bad purchases (hopefully) become rarer and products are tested for robustness and upgradeability. We have also recently introduced an environmental rating for the laptops, tablets and smartphones we test, which is constantly being improved to better categorise tech products in this regard.
Linus also mentions that they recommend the Framework Laptop as a sustainable tech product, as well as their popular Scrapyard Wars series, which is all about putting together powerful systems from cheap, used goods. Notebookcheck also recommends used, refurbished tech, provided it still has real value to many users, and the high view count on these articles confirms the general interest in them.
In conclusion, we can all make positive changes in the world in small steps and we are all involved, as long as we don't run around naked in the woods. However, it is important to use this kind of criticism to remind ourselves of the ills in the world that are linked to our consumption and to become more and more aware of our responsibilities. This article was written on a 12-year-old Lenovo ThinkPad T430s.
