People think they are being clever or edgy by doing so. There is a certain smug self-righteousness about it.

They likely also suffer from the “tainted by sin” theory where any mistake or error by an individual or company requires eternal damnation (yet conveniently dont apply the same standard to themselves).

It makes for boring reading once you realize that’s about all they have to offer.

I'd say Thomas J Watsons "lets make competitor tills which work worser and so give their brand a bad name" is probably a better lead in to what IBM was, in corporate culture terms.

That, and the "Beards/No-Beards" and "Mens Shorts but only really ugly ones" dances.

Or maybe "Nobody ever got fired from IBM for being over 55 ha ha ha"

Not every company got a national medal of appreciation ("Iron Cross") directly from Hitler. It was the highest civilian honor German had to offer.

After the US declared war, all the IBM equipment leased to the Nazis was considered the property of the German subsidiary. After the war ended, it was all handed back to Watson, and all the rent the German subsidiary was able to preserve (e.g. in Switzerland) came back, too.

Not every, no. It’s brought up because IBM made the holocaust incredibly more productive. Japanese internment as well.

Very pertinent today—what do you think all the data collected about your family will be used for in the future? That’s right, what it’s been used for in the past.

No, not "literally every major corporation or government has ties to the nazis lol".

This moral relativism, whataboutisms and muddying the waters fits perfectly into this pattern https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html

Because Edwin Black wrote a book about it right around the time Silicon Valley kept lecturing people how it could do no wrong and would save the world.

Also because someone could have written a similar book about how IBM helped Stalin and the Communists but most anti-communists don't want to rehash old problems that would only hurt one of their best friends and best returning stocks.

I'm sure we can agree that no FAANG company has ever had Hitler as their client and FAANG companies are major corporations.

IG Farben and IBM stand out for their direct involvement in work camps and death camps.

Frben not just for their use of labor but also the manufacture of gas used to kill, IBM for their provision of data tools and tattoo'd tracking codes.

Many companies contribute to war efforts, fewer are closely involved with industrial scale genocide.

Absolutely. IBM sold machines and millions of punchcards to the Nazi war machine. Initially it was used for collecting familial information used to track down Jews and their extended families. Later these machines were used to directly manage concentration camps and the logistics of the war machine at large.

I don’t think Godwin’s Law applies to referencing uncontroversial historical facts about actual relationships to the literal NSDAP.

Guess what.