Seven former employees are suing Twitter – rebranded as X – alleging that the company’s mass layoffs unfairly impacted employees with protected characteristics, including Black employees. The Lawsuits The complaints were filed in federal court in Oakland, California, after claims that Twitter violated America’s Family Medical Leave Act, the Civil Rights Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Omolade Ogunsanya is among the seven suing Twitter. According to the lawsuit seen by Rolling Stone, he alleged that his firing was “the product of unlawful race-based discrimination against Black employees.” Ogunsanya worked
Elon Musk’s X Corp., formerly Twitter Inc.— has sued a nonprofit group, The Center for Countering Digital Hate, over its report describing the extent of hate speech on the social media platform. Led by Imran Ahmed, The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) aims to protect human rights and civil liberties online The company holds platforms accountable and responsible for their business choices by highlighting their failures, educating the public, and advocating change from media and governments to protect communities. What did the report find? The CCDH report said that Twitter failed to act
Seven months after terminating the contracts of almost all its staff in Accra, Ghana, Twitter has yet to provide its African former employees with severance pay or benefits. What Happened? At the end of last year, Musk laid off employees of Twitter Africa as part of a global cost-cutting measure. The Twitter team in Ghana had just opened their first-ever physical office when the team woke up to find they had been locked out of their emails and work laptops. They were also told over email that their contracts were being
Spill, a new social platform, has recently launched in beta on iOS and has quickly gained popularity within the Black community. Its surge in users can be attributed in part to Elon Musk’s announcement to limit the number of daily tweets visible on Twitter as well as several technical mishaps in recent months. What is Spill? The platform is invite-only while in beta and has been described as a visual-first, multimedia microblogging app with an interface similar to Tumblr. The app has a live news feed and allows people to
A Black former assembly line staffer at Tesla is seeking to add almost 240 other workers to his 2017 lawsuit against the electric vehicle manufacturer which he described as a “hotbed for racist behavior.” A pattern and practice of race discrimination Marcus Vaughn, who formerly worked at Tesla’s Fremont factory in California, claims that Tesla allowed a “pattern and practice of race discrimination,” as per Bloomberg. In response to Vaughn’s initial filing, Tesla published a blog post titled “Hotbed of Misinformation. The company denied wrongdoing, stating it had investigated the allegations and fired
Tragedy struck in Senegal as a 26-year-old student, Elhaji Cisse, was killed shortly after pleading with Elon Musk for Starlink internet access amidst social unrest. Senegal has experienced widespread protests following the sentencing of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko. As tensions escalated, the government imposed restrictions on social media and messaging platforms. The restrictions limited the flow of information and communication, forcing tech-savvy citizens to use virtual private network (VPN) to connect to the wider world. Elhaji Cisse Elhaji Cisse, a 26-year-old student, was an active participant in the protests. Through
Paul Graham, a founder of Y Combinator, recently tweeted a graphic showing median household income in the US by ethnic group which has reignited discussions about race and income inequality in the US. The graphic, originally shared by @indiainpixels in 2020, is reportedly based on US Census Bureau 2013-15 data. The chart reveals that Indian, Filipino, and Taiwanese Americans had the highest median incomes, while Hispanic/Latino and African Americans had the lowest. Additionally, the chart shows that Indian, Korean, Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese Americans are more likely to have a Bachelor’s
Last week, notable tech figures, including Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and politician Andrew Yang, signed an open letter by Future of Life calling for researchers to “pause the development of any AI systems more powerful than GPT-4 for 6 months.” Commotion ensued. Some people withdrew their signatures, others were exposed as fake, and AI experts worldwide criticized the letter’s ethos, claims, and demands. Here’s what you need to know. What’s so special about GPT-4? In an interview on March 15, OpenAI’s chief scientist said “”we are now reaching
Owen Diaz, a Black former worker at Tesla’s Fremont factory, has seen his payout in a racial bias lawsuit against Tesla reduced from $15 million to $3.2 million. Yesterday, after a week-long trial, a federal jury found that Tesla failed to prevent severe racial harassment at its flagship assembly plant in Fremont, California. Tesla has been ordered to pay Owen Diaz $175,000 in damages for emotional distress and $3 million in punitive damages. From $137M to $15M In the past year alone, Tesla has faced at least ten lawsuits from
Since Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, many users have been searching for a new social networking platform they can call home. Mastodon, a social network built on open-source software, seems to be their best bet, with just over a million active users already signed up. But is it worth the hype? What is Mastodon? The events which have transpired since Elon’s takeover has sent Twitter on a tumultuous downward spiral. From the exodus (or ousting) of thousands of staff to the new Twitter Blue feature being pulled from the site in
