Wondery is Amazon’s podcast network, home to slick, addictive storytelling and hit shows. Behind the glossy production, every download and ad slot drives revenue to one of the most exploitative corporations in the world. It’s another way for Amazon to own cultural space while funding union busting, worker abuse, surveillance tech, and its contracts that enable apartheid and war crimes.
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.