Digital technology is often seen as ‘immaterial’ and ‘smart’, defining a new industrial and social paradigm.
Yet digital gadgets are produced within an ‘old-fashioned’ highly exploitative regime that has been likened to slavery, whilst the industry creates massive environmental destruction and makes a major contribution to climate change.
Watch Jack Linchuan Qiu, author of Goodbye iSlave, describe the conditions in Chinese electronics factories, such as Foxconn, which were brought to international attention by a wave of worker suicides in 2010.
And watch Nina Isabella Moeller, of Manchester University, discuss the environmental impacts of digital technology and its role in causing conflicts.
Part 1:
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