Put on your tinfoil hat and get ready for some truly wild business conspiracies! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the most intriguing theories about specific companies and their business affairs.
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00:00 Apple to pay as much as $500 million to settle charges.
00:04 It purposely slowed older iPhones so customers would opt to buy a new one.
00:09 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most intriguing theories
00:14 about specific companies and their business affairs.
00:16 Sweeter, bolder, better.
00:20 You're insane.
00:21 Number 10, Nestle is privatizing the world's water resources.
00:27 For years, Nestle, the world's largest food and beverage company, has bottled Michigan's
00:31 water for next to nothing and sold it at great profit.
00:34 A company takes control of the world's water supply, creates a monopoly, and sells the
00:38 water for exorbitant prices.
00:40 Sounds like the plot of a devious James Bond villain.
00:43 In fact, they did pretty much just that in Quantum of Solace.
00:46 It's also the heart of a Nestle conspiracy theory, with some believing that the company
00:50 is buying up the world's water for their own greedy purposes.
00:53 The company has faced numerous controversies surrounding its bottling practices, and according
00:57 to Earth Island, they made over $5 billion from the sale of bottled water in 2018.
01:02 The state just approved a new permit that would nearly double the amount that one global
01:06 food giant is allowed to bottle and sell each year.
01:10 Meanwhile, some residents say their water levels are dropping as never before.
01:14 According to the conspiracy theorists, it's only a matter of time before the groundwater
01:18 becomes theirs, and then we're all in trouble.
01:21 They are taking the water that should not be owned by anybody.
01:25 Water is essential to life.
01:27 Nobody can own it.
01:28 Number 9.
01:29 Procter and Gamble supports the Church of Satan
01:31 It's a beautiful day here at the state capitol.
01:34 Great day to be a Satanist.
01:35 We're gonna go to hell!
01:36 I believe it, and I'm very excited about it.
01:40 Those alive in the 80s and 90s will remember well the satanic panic that gripped the nation
01:45 in a fever of paranoia.
01:46 Put simply, the devil was everywhere, and everything from metal music to dungeons and
01:50 dragons was accused of impressing children with satanic beliefs.
02:03 Even Procter and Gamble was in league with the devil.
02:05 In March of 1980, an article was published in the Minneapolis Tribune arguing that the
02:09 company's logo contained satanic imagery.
02:11 P&G vehemently denied the claim and even fought back by filing several lawsuits.
02:16 The rumor grew so widespread that even the Church of Satan got involved and publicly
02:21 denied that Procter and Gamble was associated with them.
02:24 But that's just what they want you to think.
02:26 Hail Satan!
02:27 Hail Satan!
02:28 Hail Satan!
02:29 Number 8.
02:30 New World Order/The Great Reset
02:32 The Great Reset is a welcome recognition that this human tragedy must be a wake-up call.
02:37 It is imperative that we reimagine, rebuild, redesign, reinvigorate, and rebalance our
02:44 world.
02:45 Is it composed of independent but interconnected governments, or is it controlled by a secret
02:49 cabal of elites who are pulling all the strings?
02:51 Some people believe it's the latter, and if you ask them, those puppet masters are
02:55 veering us toward a New World Order.
03:04 The Great Reset initiative earned particular attention in 2020 when the World Economic
03:08 Forum suggested a financial and societal rebuild in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
03:13 Some think that the WEF had nefarious purposes, suggesting that the proposed reset was a means
03:17 to take complete control.
03:19 Some even take the theory further, stating that the WEF will collapse the world's economy,
03:23 sending everyone into destitution while implanting them with microchips via mandatory vaccines.
03:34 Number 7.
03:35 McDonald's Funds the IRA
03:38 Some companies are hit with wild, and just maybe, fun conspiracy theories.
03:42 Others are accused of funding terrorism.
03:44 You never know what you're going to get.
03:45 A conspiracy theory from the 1980s posited that McDonald's was secretly funding the
03:49 Provisional Irish Republican Army, a paramilitary force responsible for killing over 1,700 people,
03:56 including hundreds of civilians.
03:57 But despite the dark nature of the theory, its source is actually quite lighthearted.
04:01 It was eventually traced to a CNN talk show in which the company was praised for its funding
04:05 of individual retirement accounts.
04:07 Some of them mistook financial IRAs for the IRA, and the rest is history.
04:21 Number 6.
04:22 Amazon is spying on us
04:34 With new technology comes new conspiracy theories.
04:37 As home automation becomes increasingly normalized, people grow increasingly concerned that these
04:41 companies are listening in.
04:43 At the forefront of this theory is Amazon and their virtual assistant, Alexa.
04:57 Alexa has been the target of some genuine privacy concerns and grander conspiracy theories,
05:01 with some believing that Amazon is recording our private conversations and selling the
05:05 information to third parties.
05:09 Basically, there's a spy in everyone's home, and it's sitting right on their bedside
05:14 table.
05:15 Fortunately, that's not how Alexa works.
05:17 Yes, it is always listening, but that's only to hear the command.
05:20 It doesn't activate and record until it hears the specific wake word.
05:23 Fear not and talk freely.
05:25 Alexa is not eavesdropping on you.
05:28 Number 5.
05:29 Joe Biden protected Burisma
05:41 A holding company based out of Ukraine, Burisma controlled the country's natural gas market
05:45 until its dissolution in 2023.
05:47 The company has a direct link to Hunter Biden, who joined the board in 2014.
05:52 This partnership became an integral focus of Donald Trump's re-election campaign,
05:55 as they hoped to discredit Hunter's father, Joe Biden, in the public eye.
05:59 Trump's team spread misinformation, claiming that Joe Biden protected Hunter by preventing
06:03 a corruption investigation into Burisma.
06:14 The story was widely disseminated, but completely unfounded.
06:17 Following numerous investigations, officials found no evidence of a cover-up, and impeachment
06:21 proceedings against Trump were immediately launched.
06:24 Number 4.
06:25 Big Tech Controls Elections
06:31 It's no secret that Facebook is interfering in politics.
06:34 Whether it's the widespread spreading of misinformation, see the Biden story, or personalized
06:38 political ads, there is some degree of manipulation going on.
06:52 Some even suggest that Google has a blatant anti-conservative stance, and that it actively
06:56 suppresses conservative outlets.
06:58 But a more nefarious theory exists, and that's that Big Tech, specifically Google and Facebook,
07:03 are actively interfering in global elections.
07:06 This is perhaps best represented by the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal, which saw personal
07:11 data being stolen and analyzed for the purpose of political advertising.
07:27 Just how far does the manipulation go?
07:30 Number 3.
07:31 Deepwater Horizon Was Destroyed By Environmentalists
07:40 Some conspiracy theories just don't make a whole lot of sense, and this is one of them.
07:44 On April 20, 2010, the oil rig Deepwater Horizon suffered a massive blowout, resulting in a
07:50 devastating fire that destroyed the rig and killed 11 people.
07:53 It was also a catastrophic environmental disaster, spilling over 200 million gallons of oil into
07:58 the Gulf of Mexico.
08:10 According to political commentator Rush Limbaugh, this explosion was not an accident, but a
08:14 planned event orchestrated by environmental wackos to prevent further ocean drilling.
08:19 Naturally, this theory has no basis in reality, and the idea of environmentalists destroying
08:23 a rig and spilling oil into the water is just mind-bogglingly absurd.
08:29 Number 2.
08:30 Apple Intentionally Slows Older iPhones
08:42 It's a tale as old as time.
08:43 Well, as old as Apple.
08:45 The company intentionally slows older iPhones to the point that they are no longer usable
08:50 and need to be replaced.
08:51 And while it's true that Apple has slowed phones in the past, the truth of this has
08:54 been widely misconstrued.
08:56 Basically, as the software gets updated, older phones can't keep up with the demand and
09:00 the battery suffers.
09:07 So Apple throttled the older phones in an attempt to stabilize their performance.
09:11 They didn't do it to kill the phones.
09:13 Unfortunately, this is just the nature of technology.
09:16 Things get outdated and they eventually need to be replaced.
09:18 The slowing of the phones was an attempted fix, not a grand conspiracy around planned
09:22 obsolescence.
09:23 I still know people who will not upgrade their phone because they think that Apple is doing
09:27 this.
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09:43 Number 1.
09:45 New Coke Was Made To Drive Demand Of Classic Coke
09:54 And here we come to the granddaddy of corporate conspiracy theories.
09:57 Back in the early 80s, the Coca-Cola company was losing market share and their classic
10:01 Coke was going the way of the dinosaur.
10:03 In a desperate attempt to remain relevant, they retooled the formulation and released
10:07 New Coke.
10:13 It was an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions and classic Coke was reintroduced just three
10:18 months later to enormous fanfare, not to mention profits.
10:21 People were immediately suspicious, believing that Coke had intentionally released a bad
10:25 product to increase demand and sales for their classic beverage.
10:29 This theory was so pronounced that it even caught the attention of company president
10:32 Donald Keogh, who playfully quipped, "We're not that smart."
10:36 Do you buy into any of these theories?
10:38 Let us know in the comments below.
10:53 Thanks for watching.
11:03 (upbeat music)