harassment
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A fifth of startup founders think sexism reports are 'overblown'
Despite the pervasive issue of sexism and harassment in Silicon Valley gaining prominence in recent times, it seems the industry still has a long way to go in acknowledging the problem. A survey by venture firm First Round Capital polled 800 startup founders and found that 19 percent of respondents (that's nearly a fifth) believe sexual harassment in tech has been "overblown" by the media, while 40 percent say the issue is "more significant than the media is reporting". Meanwhile, 53 percent say they, or someone they know, has personally experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.
Tesla: Racial harassment lawsuit is a 'hotbed of misinformation'
Tonight Tesla responded to a report of another lawsuit where a former worker, Marcus Vaughn, said he suffered from racial harassment at the company's Fremont, CA assembly line. In a blog post titled "Hotbed of Misinformation," Tesla calls its response (firing three people who worked on or near his team) a "fair and just response to the facts that we learned." It also disputed Vaughn's account on several points, including whether he complained to Elon Musk about the harassment, and claiming he wasn't fired, but that his contract with a temp agency was not renewed.
Tesla hit with another lawsuit claiming a racist work environment (updated)
Tesla is the subject of another lawsuit regarding racism in the workplace, Bloomberg reports. An employee has filed a suit against the company saying that Tesla's production floor is a "hotbed for racist behavior," and that over 100 employees have experienced racial harassment. In the complaint, which was filed today, they said, "Although Tesla stands out as a groundbreaking company at the forefront of the electric car revolution, its standard operating procedure at the Tesla factory is pre-Civil Rights era race discrimination."
Twitter bans Trump adviser Roger Stone for threatening CNN staff
Twitter is no stranger to taking down high-profile users' accounts when it believes they've crossed the line, but its latest takedown is arguably the biggest yet. The social network has suspended former Trump adviser Roger Stone after he hurled threats at multiple CNN personalities. When CNN reported that Robert Mueller had filed his first indictments in the Russia investigation, Stone flew off the handle... to put it mildly. In addition to throwing insults, he insisted that Don Lemon should be "confronted, humiliated, mocked and punished," while Jake Tapper should be "very severely punished." Whether or not Stone was promoting violence, it's clear Twitter didn't want to risk people using this as a pretext for more direct threats.
New Tesla lawsuit accuses company of LGBT discrimination
Tesla has just been hit with its second discrimination lawsuit in as many days. Just yesterday, the company was sued for racial harassment in its factories. A few months back, its diversity panel uncovered a slew of sexism. Now The Guardian reports that another employee is suing the automaker for anti-LGBT taunts.
Internal Twitter email explains its new plans to fight abuse
Twitter promised stricter rules for abuse and hate in the wake of a boycott, but what will those rules entail, exactly? It's a bit clearer after today. Wired has obtained email providing early details on new policies, and they're mostly good news -- although they probably won't satisfy some people. Most notably, it's planning to crack down against all groups that "have historically used violence as a means to advance their cause" rather than focusing primarily on terrorism. It'll also take action against tweets that glorify violence, not just direct threats. There's no guarantee that this will lead to bans and suspensions against hate groups (Twitter is still hashing out the details), but that's what the early language implies.
Jack Dorsey responds to #WomenBoycottTwitter: New rules incoming
Last night #WomenBoycottTwitter spread among many high profile accounts that stood in solidarity with "victims of hate and harassment Twitter fails to support." The boycott itself wasn't without controversy and spawned responses including a push to highlight and appreciate women of color on the platform under the hashtag #WOCAffirmation. While many weren't sure it would have any impact, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responded with a thread promising that after a day spent focusing on "making some critical decisions...We decided to take a more aggressive stance in our rules and how we enforce them." Changes that he says are coming in the next few weeks include "New rules around: unwanted sexual advances, non-consensual nudity, hate symbols, violent groups, and tweets that glorifies violence." Of course, we've heard these kinds of statements from Twitter before, and critics may note it only plans to deal with "violent" groups and overt symbols of hate. Will that be enough to make any real difference in the experiences so many people report on Twitter? Unfortunately, we're still waiting to find out.
Amazon postpones Prime Video showcase after suspending studio head
More and more companies are dealing with the the poor behavior of their executives. According to a report at Variety, Amazon is cancelling a scheduled Prime Video showcase in Europe next week that was reportedly headlined by Roy Price, disgraced chief of Amazon Studios. Both decisions come in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein debacle, which has raised a ton of important awareness of the rampant sexual harassment perpetrated by powerful men in the entertainment industry.
Twitter proved its priorities are screwed up with just 280 characters
Yesterday, Twitter announced that it would experiment with doubling the character limit in tweets, making the jump from 140 to 280 characters. And, as expected, it didn't take long for people on the internet to start critiquing the move, which is available only to a "small group" for now. Most of the feedback so far seems to be negative, and some are saying it's further evidence of Twitter's reluctance to confront larger issues. Instead of focusing on creating better tools for reporting harassment or acting faster to remove abusive content, the company is rolling out a feature that the majority of its users simply didn't ask for.
'Pharma bro' Shkreli ordered to jail over internet harassment
Martin Shkreli is learning the hard way that his eagerness to harass others has consequences beyond social networking bans. Judge Kiyo Matsumoto has ordered the price-gouging (and most recently, securities fraud convict) "pharma bro" CEO to jail over the Facebook post he wrote offering $5,000 to whoever could get him a strand of Hillary Clinton's hair. Shkreli and his lawyer maintained that the post was satire protected by free speech, but Judge Matsumoto didn't buy it. This was "solicitation of assault," she said in her decision, adding that it wasn't funny to effectively issue a threat.
Twitter says its safety updates are stamping out abuse
It's safe to say Twitter had an awful 2016. Yet amidst all its turmoil, its abuse problem trumped all others. To make matters worse, the company's convoluted approach to cleaning up its site left even its most ardent users bemused. Then, at the onset of this year, Twitter promised a more proactive stance. A slew of updates followed, including a bunch of muting and filtering tools. Now, at the halfway stage of 2017, it claims the changes are working.
Rob Kardashian’s revenge porn is social media’s latest headache
Members of the Kardashian-Jenner family, like Kanye West's wife, Kim, and model Kendall, didn't become famous by being afraid of the spotlight. Heck, their reality TV show, Keeping up with the Kardashians, centers around every move they make in their personal and business lives. But that celebrity status arguably requires some degree of responsibility. And that's something Rob Kardashian failed to exercise when he posted explicit photos and videos of his ex-girlfriend Blac Chyna on social media last week.
Online harassment keeps getting worse, study shows
Harassment is sadly an increasing inevitability on the internet with a new study showing that 41 percent of adults saying they've it experienced personally and 73 percent saying they've seen it happen to someone else. According to the Pew Research Center study, the most common form of online harassment is offensive name-calling, which has been personally experienced by 51 percent of men aged 18-24. Men in this age group were also more likely to have been purposefully embarrassed and physically threatened.
In astronomy, women of color face the most discrimination
There's tons of evidence that women face a gender bias in the STEM fields. Last May, one report found that Facebook rejects female-authored code more often than code written by men. A female engineer who featured prominently in a recruiting advertisement faced a backlash for her gender alone. Even US governors are taking up the fight to get more girls interested in science and engineering because it's crucial to the field and the national economy. Unfortunately, a study by Girls Who Code found that the gender gap in computing is getting worse. The bad news continues with results from a new study that show women of color working in the astronomical and planetary fields experience "the highest rates of negative workplace experiences, including harassment and assault."
Twitter left high-profile revenge porn live for 30 minutes
A verified Twitter user with 7.33 million followers shared nude photos of his ex-girlfriend, seemingly without her permission and as a form of public shaming -- and the images remained live on the site for 30 minutes, Business Insider reports. The images were shared by Rob Kardashian, first on Instagram and later on Twitter, where they were viewable for half an hour before disappearing. It's unclear whether Kardashian removed the images himself or if Twitter stepped in. His Twitter account is active and tweets related to the images are still live.
Facebook helps you prevent the spread of revenge porn
Revenge porn is difficult to fight. Even if you successfully get the photos pulled, it's all too easy for someone with local copies to upload them again. Facebook thinks it can help. The social network is launching tools designed to keep revenge porn offline and prevent an already bad situation from getting worse. You can report photos shared without permission, of course, and Facebook will both remove them and (typically) disable the accounts that posted them. However, the most important part is what follows next: Facebook uses photo matching to prevent people from sharing the shots again, including on Instagram and Messenger. You won't have to constantly police Facebook to make sure the images stay down.
Police make first arrest in Facebook Live sexual assault case
Law enforcement is taking sweeping action following a horrific sexual assault streamed on Facebook Live. Chicago police report that they've made the first arrest in the case, bringing a 14-year-old boy into custody. There will be more arrests soon, according to the CPD, including a 15-year-old who's next in line. Details of the case are mostly under wraps beyond a connection between the victim and one of her attackers (their age prevents disclosing some of the facts). However, it's already clear that the livestream wasn't the end to the internet-based trauma -- in fact, it's still ongoing.
Uber CEO linked to escort bar visit that resulted in an HR complaint
In case you were counting, it has been more than a month since Uber CEO Travis Kalanick announced an investigation into claims of sexual harassment and discrimination within his company. Tonight The Information reports that in 2014, Kalanick senior VP of business Emil Michael and several other employees visited an "escort-karaoke bar." Within minutes of that article being published, another report from Arizona revealed that one of the company's self-driving cars has been involved in an accident. In a story recounted by Gabi Holzwarth, a professional violinist and business development manager who was dating Kalanick at the time, four other men in the group picked out their favorites from a group of numbered women and proceeded downstairs to sing karaoke. Holzwarth and Kalanick left the rest of the group behind after about 45 minutes. A female Uber manager in the group was "visibly unhappy," quickly left and made a report to HR about it a year later.
Marine Corps guidelines now ban online sexual harassment
The US Marine Corps has already started to crack down on soldiers sharing nude photos of women soldiers through internet groups, but it now has a better way of tackling this behavior. The military branch has published updated guidelines that explicitly forbid various forms of online sexual harassment, including "indecent viewing, visual recording, or broadcasting." Marines represent the Corps and their units "at all times," and that includes when they post on social networks.
The Engadget Podcast Ep 30: I Can Change
After surviving The Great AWS Outage of 2017, managing editor Dana Wollman and senior editor Devindra Hardawar rejoin host Terrence O'Brien to debate some of the biggest tech stories of the week. First they'll pit YouTube's live TV offering against its competitors, then talk through Twitter's new tools for fighting online harassment. Plus they'll address the latest controversy surrounding Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and discuss whether or not it's time for him to resign. Then they'll turn their attention to Nintendo's Switch, Zelda and where the console still needs to improve. They'll also briefly recount their own history with Nintendo's machines and gaming in general. Plus Terrence threatens to fight Devindra for his Switch
