Criticizing gold and diamond mining isn't uncommon. A popular example coming to mind is the "Dirty Money" Netflix documentary series (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11947154/). The existence of "Blood diamonds" is also a pretty commonly known fact.
> But somehow these days everyone likes to think that they know that rare earth metals are "the devil".
Many years ago people also thought smoking is healthy and asbestos are a great material to use in construction.
