Free the People Pummels Apple Over Woke Eco Video

Apple stands at the forefront of the green revolution.

That’s the message a new video featuring Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer shouts from the rooftops.

The five-minute clip finds Spencer, playing Mother Nature, getting a progress report from Apple executives on its environmental promises. So far, so great, we learn from Spencer and co. The clip doesn’t mention any tech innovations or new Apple products. 

It’s all about the green.

The tech behemoth didn’t want people to weigh in on the video. The company turned off the YouTube comments section.

Many did just that on other tech platforms.

40 years ago, Apple made ads about standing up to Big Brother. Now they're groveling before Mother Nature. Pathetic https://t.co/uYQwYZi9Uh

— Robert Kroese (@robkroese) September 14, 2023

Free the People weighed in on the matter by bringing up the most notorious allegations against the tech behemoth. The company allegedly relies on child labor to produce some of its products. And it’s not a nasty Internet rumor.

Apple’s cobalt batteries are built on the backs of child labor in mines, causing severe physical harm to children and violating international standards of human rights.

Business Insider shares more:

Apple learned in 2013 that Suyin Electronics, a China-based company that (at the time) made parts for its MacBooks, was employing underage workers, and despite telling Suyin to address the issue or risk losing business, Apple discovered additional workers as young as 14 years old during an audit just three months later.

But rather than immediately cutting ties with Suyin for violating its supply chain ethics policies — which prohibit child labor and which Apple claims are the “highest standards” — Apple continued to rely on the company for more than three years, according to The Information.

Apple vows to use 100 percent recycled cobalt starting in 2025.

For now, Free the People is weighing in on the company’s woke bona fides. The group behind the Comedy Is Murder series tweaked the existing video to hilarious effect.

At Apple, we are deeply committed to fighting climate change with child labor. Today Mother Nature stopped by to check on our progress.

The video expertly inserts Comedy Is Murder players like Lou Perez into the existing Apple clip.

“Apple’s child labor has a very small carbon footprint, and their actual footprints are really small, too, because they’re children,” one faux Apple worker says, smiling.

“I want you to do more of this,” Spencer’s Mother Nature says in response.

The satire is just getting started.

“The kids don’t work as fast as they should,” Perez’s fake character explains to Mother Nature. “[They have] tiny hands, and they’re super lazy.”

Next, Perez promises to employ child trafficking techniques to get even more children into the work production loop.

“Say the word, and I am heading to the orphanage,” he says.

The video, Free the People notes, was shot on an iPhone.