A video: “When Tech Companies Are Caught Lying”

Everyone lies. When it’s personally convenient to obscure the truth, it’s only natural. But, when an average person lies, it might affect a few people. When big companies lie, the consequences affect millions if not billions. Sometimes, these lies are small such as Apple allegedly inflating Apple Watch calorie metrics. Others, however, can be a lot more consequential like Yahoo failing to disclose that they had a massive data breach that affected a billion people. And let’s not forget about the FTX fiasco last year that cost everyday investors billions. Fortunately, most corporate lies aren’t quite as consequential but they’re not exactly great either. This video compiles a list of the most notable examples in the recent history of big tech companies being caught in their lies and the long-term effects of their lack of honesty.

Here are key timestamps linked to significant moments in the video:

1. 00:30 – White lies vs. destructive corporate lies

2. 01:03 – Google tracks users even with settings off

3. 02:43 – Yahoo’s delayed disclosure of two major data breaches

4. 04:21 – Amazon using third-party seller data against them

5. 06:02 – Facebook inflates video engagement metrics

6. 07:15 – Twitter misrepresents impressions as views

7. 08:21 – Netflix lowers threshold for what counts as a “view”

8. 09:26 – Apple Watch overestimates calorie counts

9. 11:02 – Microsoft’s misleading storage on Surface tablets

10. 12:09 – Intel’s hidden Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities