Kindle turned Amazon into the gatekeeper of digital reading. Every download, subscription, and page turn happens inside Amazon’s ecosystem, locking readers into a platform built on worker abuse, union busting, and predatory control over publishers. What began as a way to carry books in your pocket now serves one of the most exploitative and politically complicit corporations in the world.
Amazon is rated High Impact because its harms are systemic and interlocking.
Environmental Harm: Delivery fleets, aviation cargo, and data centers generate massive emissions and plastic waste, while public pledges mask lobbying against climate regulation.
Human Rights Violations: Workers face surveillance, injury-level quotas, and unsafe delivery speeds. Migrant workers in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere face wage theft and coercion.
Military & Conflict Complicity: AWS is central to surveillance states. Project Nimbus embeds Amazon in Israel’s occupation and war crimes, supplying AI and data services to its military and government.
The result: consumer spending that powers a machine which entrenches inequality, accelerates climate collapse, and sustains state violence worldwide.
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