Sythoir Crownix

Food Empowerment Project maintains an updated list of chocolate brands they recommend based on the following standards:

transparency about the country of origin for cocoa

if sourced from Western Africa, the workers must own the companies/be in charge of the profits from their labor (this standard is because child labor and slavery have been widely documented for decades in this area)

if sourced from Brazil, the workers must own the company and/or be in charge of the profits from their labor, or the company must be going above and beyond to support the workers and their families (this standard is because "child labor and slavery only recently have been documented in cocoa in Brazil" and they are "giving Brazilian companies that are trying to address the issue by supporting the workers and their families the benefit of the doubt.")

[Source: "Understanding Our Chocolate List" from their website]

So, Tony’s allied with Barry Callebut to get its cocoa. Barry Callebut is one of the biggest chocolate companies in the world, and it is unethical, obviously. This led to Tony’s revealing in February 2022 that 1701 child laborers were in their supply chain. Barry Callebut had over 21K at the time. Both of those numbers have risen, and Tony’s has outright admitted they don’t give a fuck about child labor laws when asked about it, content to let children to continue farming their cocoa instead of actually doing the activism they claim to do. (business-humanrights.org, feb 6 2022)

About a week ago, Tony’s joined Barry, Nestle and Ferrero in pushing against the reinstatement of important EUDR deforestation legislations. Under that regulation that they pushed against, they would’ve had to be more transparent about their supply chains for their more key ingredients - So Tony’s is lobbying against the exact thing they claim to stand for. (confectioneryproduction.com, mar 18, 2026)

Won’t restate @closet-keys’s addition, of course. That’d just be redundant and maybe annoying since, yknow, it’s already been said.

If you wanna find a better chocolate brand it’s really damn easy. There’s lists on slavefreechocolate.org of both the ethical and unethical companies. Both lists can be found here:

IM SO TIRED OF CAPTIONS AUTO-CENSORING CURSES & VIDEO CREATORS TRYING TO CIRCUMVENT THE ALGORITHM BY LEAVING PEOPLE OUT OF WHAT THEYRE ACTUALLY SAYING

IM SO TIRED OF FORCED BEDTIMES IN CARE HOMES & FORCED CELIBACY & SOBERNESS BY CAREGIVERS

It is turned on by default and id really like it to become more common for youtubers to turn it off. Its a fairly burried setting.

are we drawing the connection between worker safety and consumer safety & public health yet?

More on the health point:

"US Department of Labor proposes more than $1M fine following worker fatality at New Jersey vegetable processing facility"

This is a pretty major letdown, ngl.

“They’re not smarter or faster they’re buying up others’ lifetimes to do their chores”

I see this reaction a lot, and I gotta say, it always makes me a little sad. Whenever the conversation of exploitation of labor comes up, inevitably someone finds themselves struggling with the guilt of “It is so important to me not to contribute to exploitation but I cannot do this thing myself and need someone else to do it for me, so how do I even approach that?”

Exploitation isn’t in the hiring of a service worker. Exploitation is in the respect you show them for their ability to perform the service you need from them.

I have been on a cleaning service staff before, and also been someone who hired a cleaning service, and I can tell you for sure that a lot of cleaning crews (especially worker owned ones) absolutely LOVE their clients and are genuinely happy to be able to make their lives better. The clients they don’t like? Those are the ones who disrespect the workers.

When I was involved with a cleaning service, we had everything from little old ladies living alone to McMasions with five cars as clients, and I can assure you that whenever there was someone who clearly hired us because they were overwhelmed or unable to keep their space clean, those were the households where you put a little more elbow grease in and did a deep clean even when it wasn’t paid for, because you could see how much these people were trying and struggling, and they were always so kind and generous and often embarrassed when talking to you about the job.

I only hired a service a couple if times in my life, but whenever I did, I worked with the same people as often as I could, tipped as well as I could afford, and tried to be the kind of client I would want to have, and that’s how I often ended up with my baseboards cleaned too, or my fridge scrubbed and organized or a restorative clean done in a high use room even when that wasn’t what I had scheduled or paid for.

I’ve heard the same thing from all manner of service workers over the years. Many of us like our jobs! We enjoy the work. It’s the customers that can do a number on you.

They’ve gotta eat too.

You are putting money in their pocket. That is not a bad thing.

Listen, let me tell you, okay?

Shortly before I got laid off, I went for a pedicure at my favorite place for the first time in over two years. I’d decided to switch places because it’s a 30-mile-round-trip drive and I wanted something closer to home, but I’d been deeply disappointed by local options, so back to my original spa I went.

Over two years.

I WALKED IN THE DOOR AND THE OWNER GREETED ME BY NAME.

This is a busy place. She sees several hundred people a week.

I didn’t ask, but I’m pretty sure I know why she remembers me, and do you know what I think it is?

1) I’m polite

2) I tip well

3) on the occasions when I’ve seen someone in there decide to get racist over most of the staff being Vietnamese, I give them hell because I know the staff can’t and also I’m white so, sadly, they’re more likely to actually be embarrassed if I do it.

Am I exploiting my pedicure tech? I guess that depends on your definition of exploitation. I have terrible feet (thanks, family) and I appreciate the work of someone trained to deal with the calluses from my weird gait and the toenail that likes to grow into my foot. I make sure they know I appreciate it, both verbally and financially. Is that exploitation?

.

also like. if you’re paying the cleaning service enough to cover a decent wage for the cleaning staff’s time plus a share of the cleaning supplies and admin staff pay and whatnot (which you probably are) and you’re treating the cleaning staff like people? it is still possible to likely that the cleaning staff are being exploited. by the cleaning service.

that’s not on you. that’s on whoever is pocketing the profits that should’ve been part of the cost of labor, or pocketing the profits that should’ve been part of the cost of health and safety measures, or.

anyway write your legislators about making minimum wage a living wage with annual cost-of-living increases, and about stronger labor protections, with enough higher fines for noncompliance that paying the fines will cost employers more than it’ll cost employers to pay and protect its staff properly

but I'm hearing there's a NSFW-friendly ko-fi alternative built on atproto that's actively in the works, and being vetted by lawyers right now. as torrent-princess (OP) says, you should be able to swap out payment processors while keeping your account intact. this matters since even if stripe removes support, you'll still have a shop and all of your links intact. (ATproto is an infrastructure that bsky is built on, but is far bigger than bsky with far more opportunities.)

additionally, the Free Speech Coalition is working on a credit union specifically for adult work (including kink art) - here's the link so you can add your interest & support. Since this will be built by sex workers, there'll be far less risk of being debanked for spurious and puritanical reasons.

on a domain TLD level, there's an initiative here for a .furry domain built from the ground up by seasoned furries; it's unclear whether they'll support NSFW, but it's yet another promising turn of events for a group that's been similarly affected by censorship.

https://gofund.me/a082fb441

Right now the phone is the most dire thing in need of help, that's a past due of 374

you can browse the collection here

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