Tech

Bias, subtweets, and kids: Key takeaways from Big Tech’s latest outing on the Hill

Enlarge / There was no fancy Hill hearing room for this all-virtual event, so Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey dialed in from… a kitchen. (credit: Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images) A trio of major tech CEOs—Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey—once again went before Congress this week to explain their […]

Tech

Google tells harassment victims to take “medical leave,” report finds

Enlarge / Sunset, over the Google empire. (credit: 400tmax | Getty Images) A new report alleges that Google employees who report experiencing gender or racial harassment or discrimination routinely get told to take “medical leave” and seek mental health treatment—only to be shoved aside when they try to come back. Nearly a dozen current and […]

Tech

Google, Facebook tell SCOTUS it should be harder for you to sue them

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images / Aurich Lawson) Suing technology firms when they mess up is already hard, especially over privacy violations. Now, Facebook, Google, and the trade groups representing all the big tech firms are asking the Supreme Court to make it even harder for class actions to pursue cases against them. Facebook, Google, and […]

Tech

Google settles federal gender and race discrimination charges for $3.8M

Enlarge (credit: Sean Gallup | Getty Images) Google has agreed to a $3.8 million settlement with federal regulators to settle allegations that it both underpaid women software engineers and unfairly passed over women and Asian candidates for software engineering roles. The settlement breaks down into three pools, the US Department of Labor announced Monday. As […]

Tech

YouTube suspends Trump’s account, disables comments “indefinitely”

Enlarge (credit: YouTube / Getty / Aurich Lawson) YouTube, following in the path of very nearly every other social media platform, is suspending President Donald Trump’s channel due to concerns that he will use it to foment additional violence in the coming days. “After review, and in light of concerns about the ongoing potential for […]

Tech

Google employees kick off union membership drive for 120,000 workers

Enlarge / Exterior view of a Googleplex building, the corporate headquarters of Google and parent company Alphabet, May 2018. (credit: Getty Images | zphotos) More than 225 workers at Google have formally launched a companywide union membership drive, following an increasing drive toward organization inside the company over the past several years. All 120,000 people […]