Since it started picking up a ton of new users, Instagram competitor, Vero, has been thrust into the social media spotlight, but not for any positive reasons.
For starters, the platform was having trouble accomodating the influx of people trying to create accounts, causing a heap of crashes. Those who could get in had trouble being able to post anything at all. Certainly not ideal for a company who plan on charging users a subscription fee.
In short, Vero’s schtick is advertising-free, pure social media with a chronological feed. In other words, it wants to be Instagram back when Instagram wasn’t full of advertising and algorithmic bullshit.
A noble pursuit, sure, but on top of its technical issues, it turns out the company’s CEO, Ayman Hariri, is a piece of shit. According to the Daily Beast, he’s notorious for violating labour rights.
Before picking up all this social media jazz, old mate served as the deputy chief executive officer and vice chairman of his family’s construction company, Saudi Oger, which is now defunct.
“Under Hariri’s watch over 31,000 complaints of non payment for wages were filed against the Saudi Oger,” the article reads. “The company was so negligent that in some cases the Saudi Arabian government had to step in and provide food and basic living supplies to workers spurned by the company.”
Look, I don’t know much about running a business, but I know that an important part of it is, oh, i dunno, making sure your workers have money to eat. Jesus Christ.
Shutting down in July 2017, the company left thousands of its workers unpaid. If you needed any further evidence that Vero blows, this is it.
