Recently, Apple announced that during a check-up on their overseas factories they found a number of factories using child labor. Rather than try to hide this unsavory discovery, Apple decided to admit to the public that yes, a 10 year old probably helped make the very MacBook Pro you’re using right now. At first glance, this action seemed like the socially responsible thing to do. Let the public know, remind them that this is not something the company condones, and assure them that this is not Apple’s fault, not at all. Damn those sneaky production centers. This course of action has produced commentators like the one quoted here:

Please name any other tech company that is actually working to ensure that the working conditions in the factories where these components are made are at least tolerable and the workers are not exploited? Please list what Nokia or Palm or HTC are doing to ensure the parts that go into their phones are not fabricated by exploited workers or child labourers?

Really? Just like anyone else, I too want to believe that companies are adopting these so-called “corporate social responsibility” measures for the good of the world. But when it really comes down to it, why does a corporation spend the extra time and money to go through these steps? It’s all about the bottom line, baby. The media is ready to pounce on any company with Ecuadorian factories that hire five-year olds or managers who lock-in employees overnight. Customers become defiant, refuse to buy products from these evil evil corporate monsters, and then what? Profitability drops, investors become worried and disgruntled, and executives run around scrambling to come up with a half-decent damage control plan.

Although this specific example only looks at Apple (and yes, I do use a Macbook Pro), they’re not alone in this practice. Most companies, no matter how much they try to deny it, practice CSR to make customers happy. If customers are happy, then they’ll continue to support the company and buy more products and pay for more services, which means mo’ money. It is so easy for a consumer to simply exit if he or she doesn’t like the current options, so it is in the best interest of a company to use CSR as a component of its competitive strategy. After all, if everyone else is doing it, there’s really no other option. And if no one else in the industry does it, well hey, the first mover has a lot more to gain than to lose.

Here’s what Fake Steve has to say about this issue, since no piece of Apple news is complete without him.

It’s almost comforting to know that even in this uncertain job market, you can’t have it as bad as this fool who’s dug his own grave at the age of 21.

Enter Jeffrey Chiang.

The entire story is over here at Dealbreakers, so I’ll just give you the quick and dirty. Jeffrey Chiang is the prime example of what to do if you want to see your potential career go up in flames after dousing it with a hefty amount of gasoline. So Jeffrey Chiang was interviewing for Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he was asked if he had received any other offers so far. He claimed that he was currently in his second round of interviews for Morgan Stanley. Lucky for Jeffrey, a BoA-ML associate had a buddy over at Morgan Stanley, whom he contacted about Jeffrey’s prospects. Apparently, he only had a phone interview with Morgan Stanley, at which time he claimed to have gotten an offer from BoA-ML. He was even so nice as to forward the “offer” over to Morgan Stanley, which was then forwarded to the associate at BoA-ML. After performing a bit of recon and finding out that the letter was a fake, the story was forwarded to the rest of Wall Street and has found its way onto the rest of the internet.

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As the reign of social media grows every day and extends into previously uncharted territories, more and more people are becoming solely reliant on such tools for many aspects of their lives. For example, even healthcare has begun branching out into the hip social media arena – Obama hosts virtual town halls regarding his healthcare plans and health information websites are popping up all over the place.

According to this article, social media is “revolutionizing your doctor visits.” I won’t argue that websites haven’t made our lives easier in terms of finding out if you have symptoms of H1N1 or researching which specialized hospitals are best for what. However, there is still a long way to go until healthcare becomes “revolutionized” vis-a-vis social media. It seems that a significant number of people are expecting to find great doctors in the same manner we find nomnom-licious restaurants on Yelp. This isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Why? While the crowd who scours the internet looking for the best underground cafes and undiscovered treasures certainly can contribute to the social media-lizing of healthcare, there is a significant chunk of people, people who are the majority players in the healthcare community, who don’t.

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Here we are, on the eve of the grand UC Faculty Walkout that will be taking place across all the UC campuses tomorrow. I have to admit, when I first learned about the walkout I thought, “What’s the point?” Sure, once upon a time Berkeley was the epicenter of student action and protests, circa the Free Speech Movement era. However, all that has remained is the FSM cafe, where static black and white photographs of Mario Salvio and the rest of the fighters look down upon us from the walls. Every year, we have protestors at some point – UC service workers, etc.- but honestly, no one really pays them any mind. Some may object to this observation, but come on, we know it’s true.

As the countdown to the walkout gets shorter and shorter, I realized that this time things may actually be different. Instead of the normal grumbling from students about the “suckiness of the UC system,” we have a solidarity among students, faculty, and alumni alike that hasn’t been seen in years. There has been a series of faculty lectures on the walkout and budget cuts throughout the system. In particular, this video of Professor Ananya Roy is definitely worth watching:.

There’s more information about the Berkeley walkout over here. But now, it’s time for me to get some shut-eye for optimal Sproul-crowding performance tomorrow, of course.

About, oh, 1000x worse. Okay, so we’re used to China and their constant censorship of US darlings like Google Apps, Youtube, whatnot and what have you. By now, it’s actually alarming if one of our social media sites isn’t being censored by the Great Firewall (let’s call that the GFW from now on, a la the lovely Twitter hashtag #FuckGFW).

Apparently, AT&T has decided to block 4chan. 4chan. Let’s say that again – 4chan. Of all the sites they could have censored, 4chan? Really? Really? Did they not see what 4chan did with TIME’s 100 Most Influential People list? And TIME didn’t even do anything to them. AT&T’s got some real cajones if they’re willing to take on the wrath of 4chan, which of course, comes bundled with the army of anon. You just don’t mess with 4chan, unless you want your homepage to start displaying 2girls1cup or meatspin- and that’s only the start of it.

As per TechCrunch:

AT&T has just opened perhaps the most vindictive, messy can of worms it could have possibly found. Blocking any site seems like a breach of user trust, but the decision to block 4chan in particular just seems stupid. Expect the web equivalent of rioting if this doesn’t change soon. – Jason Kincaid

The troops have already begun rallying here and on Encyclopedia Dramatica. I don’t know about you, but I’m stocking up on my popcorn. Unless 4chan decides to blow up AT&T’s servers, in which I will be /wrist, because sadly, my service provider is AT&T.

From Encyclopaedia Dramatica:

This isn’t like going to war with Anontalk, or Scientology, or some website, it’s AT& fucking T. There will be no lulz in this war.
This time the internet IS serious business.

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