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In 2020, four major publishers (Hachette, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Wiley) sued Internet Archive over its Open Library lending practices. The lawsuit was triggered by the 'National Emergency Library' during COVID-19 which removed lending limits. In March 2023, the court ruled against Internet Archive on all four fair use factors. The Second Circuit affirmed in September 2024. Over 500,000 books were removed and the 'controlled digital lending' legal theory was rejected.

Framework Computer published comprehensive hardware documentation including mainboard schematics, electrical reference designs, and 3D CAD files under open-source licenses. This enabled community development of custom modules and repair guides, and established a new standard for hardware transparency in the laptop industry.

In March 2023, Mozilla launched Mozilla.ai, a new startup within the Mozilla ecosystem with $30 million in initial investment, focused on building trustworthy AI. The initiative aimed to create open-source AI tools that are transparent, safe, and serve public interest. However, in late 2024, Mozilla.ai pivoted from open-source AI to building a commercial ad-targeting product, drawing criticism from the community.

Adobe trained its Firefly generative AI model on licensed Adobe Stock content and public domain works rather than scraping the web. The company developed Content Credentials, an industry-standard metadata system acting as a 'digital nutrition label' for AI-generated content. Adobe also implemented a creator opt-out preference allowing artists to indicate they don't want their content used for AI training, embedded via Content Credentials. Adobe began paying annual Firefly bonuses to contributing Stock artists in September 2023.

On March 20, 2023, a Samsung supplier in Vietnam experienced a methanol poisoning incident that killed one worker and hospitalized 37 others. The incident occurred at a Samsung display manufacturing supplier facility. This highlighted ongoing workplace safety issues in Samsung's supply chain, part of a broader pattern of occupational health problems that have affected thousands of workers over decades.

On March 20, 2023, a bug in the Redis open-source library used by ChatGPT caused a data leak where certain users could view the chat titles and first messages of other users' conversations. Approximately 1.2% of ChatGPT Plus subscribers (estimated 12,000+ paying users) had their chat history titles exposed, and some payment information (names, email addresses, payment details) was compromised. OpenAI shut down ChatGPT for 9 hours to fix the vulnerability, disclosed the incident promptly, and notified affected users.

Khan Academy launched Khanmigo in March 2023 as an AI-powered Socratic tutor built on OpenAI's GPT-4, reaching 1.4 million users by 2025. In May 2024, Microsoft partnered to make Khanmigo for Teachers free to all U.S. educators, with global expansion to 180+ countries by July 2024. Khan Academy committed that no student data would be used to train AI models. The tool operates as a Socratic guide, asking questions rather than giving answers, reflecting pedagogically responsible AI design.

In March 2023, Founders Fund's operations executives moved firm capital out of Silicon Valley Bank and advised portfolio companies to withdraw their deposits. This triggered a cascade of withdrawals that contributed to $42 billion being pulled from SVB in a single day, leading to the bank's collapse on March 10, 2023. The bank run caused widespread panic across the startup ecosystem and required FDIC intervention. Other venture capitalists criticized Founders Fund and Peter Thiel personally for sparking the run. While firms have a fiduciary duty to protect their investments, critics argued that the coordinated withdrawal advice was reckless and caused disproportionate harm to the broader financial ecosystem.

The Wikimedia Foundation launched Project Rewrite and the Wikipedia Needs More Women campaign to address persistent gender gaps in Wikipedia content and editorship. Only about 15% of English Wikipedia biographies were about women when efforts began. By 2024, that number had grown to over 19%, with a 26% increase in women-related content from sub-Saharan Africa between 2022-2024. The community-driven Women in Red project, supported by Foundation grants and staff, created over 130,000 biographies of women. A 2024 study found deletion nominations occur 34% faster for women's biographies than men's, highlighting ongoing systemic challenges.

Ericsson pleaded guilty and paid $206 million for violating the FCPA's anti-bribery provisions, after breaching a 2019 DPA. The original 2019 settlement totaled over $1 billion for bribery in Djibouti, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Kuwait. In 2022, the company admitted it couldn't rule out that bribes paid in Iraq between 2011-2018 ended up with the Islamic State terrorist group.

FTC banned BetterHelp from sharing health data for advertising after finding the company revealed consumers' sensitive mental health data (email addresses, IP addresses, health questionnaire responses) to Facebook, Snapchat, and other advertisers without consent. This was the first FTC action returning funds to consumers whose health data was compromised. About 800,000 people received refund notices.

Salesforce established robust DEI programs centered around Equality Groups, with more than 50% of employees and contingent workers participating as members or allies, and membership growing 20% year-over-year. The company launched a Supplier Diversity Academy, a six-month accelerator for small businesses owned by underrepresented minorities, women, veterans, disabled, or LGBTQ+ individuals. Its Warmline employee advocacy program for underrepresented groups reduced attrition by 80% since 2020 and was named a DEI Lighthouse by the World Economic Forum in 2023.

ARM China, which contributed 24.5% of ARM's $2.68B revenue in fiscal 2023, experienced a major governance crisis when CEO Allen Wu refused to share ARM China's financial results with ARM and blocked the company's planned March 2023 NYSE IPO. Wu held the company's seal, preventing ARM from firing him. Since April 2022, Wu lodged several lawsuits in Chinese courts challenging corporate governance. ARM holds only 4.8% effective interest in ARM China through a 10% stake in an intermediate entity, while Chinese parties control the majority. In October 2023, key staff left to form competing chip design startup Borui Jingxin with government backing.

In 2023, Signal Foundation president Meredith Whittaker publicly stated Signal would leave the UK market rather than comply with the Online Safety Bill's provisions that could require breaking end-to-end encryption. The UK government ultimately backed down from requiring backdoors.

The Wikimedia Foundation pursued a years-long legal challenge against the NSA's Upstream surveillance program, arguing it violated the First and Fourth Amendment rights of Wikipedia users and editors. Research had documented a measurable chilling effect on Wikipedia traffic to sensitive topics following the 2013 Snowden revelations about NSA surveillance. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case on February 21, 2023, ending the legal challenge. Despite the loss, the Foundation's sustained effort demonstrated commitment to defending user privacy against government surveillance.

In February 2023, Tesla recalled 362,000 vehicles equipped with Full Self-Driving Beta following an NHTSA safety investigation. The agency concluded the FSD system did not adequately adhere to traffic safety laws, including running stop signs, traveling through intersections during yellow lights, and not adequately responding to speed limit changes. Tesla issued an OTA software update to address the issues.

In February 2023, more than 30 employees at Tesla's Buffalo Gigafactory were fired one day after workers publicly announced their intent to unionize with Workers United. Workers alleged the firings were in retaliation for union activity. The NLRB later dismissed the retaliatory firing charge but found merit in charges regarding workplace surveillance and captive audience meetings. In April 2024, the NLRB filed a complaint alleging Tesla unlawfully implemented policies to prevent unionizing at the Buffalo plant.

In February 2023, Christine Wilson, the sole remaining Republican FTC Commissioner, announced her resignation citing Khan's 'willful disregard for the rule of law and due process.' In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Wilson criticized Khan's 'disregard of congressionally imposed limits on agency jurisdiction, her defiance of legal precedent, and her abuse of power to achieve desired outcomes.' Wilson specifically criticized Khan's decision not to recuse herself from the Meta/Within case despite having publicly argued before joining the FTC that Meta should be prevented from acquiring any other firms.

In February 2023, GitLab announced a 7% workforce reduction affecting approximately 120 employees. CEO Sid Sijbrandij attributed the decision to conservative enterprise software spending. Employee Glassdoor reviews alleged the company had been trying to push people out before the formal layoff announcement, and described management as fostering 'distrust and anxiety.'

In February 2023, the U.S. Department of Transportation opened an investigation into Neuralink over the potentially illegal movement of hazardous pathogens. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) obtained documents suggesting unsafe packaging and transport of implants removed from monkey brains that may have carried infectious diseases including antibiotic-resistant staphylococcus and herpes B virus, in violation of federal hazardous materials law. In January 2024, DOT issued a fine of $2,480 for the violations.

Despite Musk declaring child safety his 'top priority' after acquiring Twitter, independent investigations found the situation worsened. X disbanded its Trust and Safety Council (which included 12 groups advising on child exploitation), and nonprofit Thorn terminated its contract with X after the company stopped paying invoices. A February 2023 NYT investigation found CSAM was easy to find and X was slower to action reports. NBC News found in 2025 that automated accounts were flooding hashtags with child exploitation content using the same methods identified in 2023, indicating persistent failure to address the problem.

Microsoft announced a $2.1 billion investment in a cloud datacenter region in Saudi Arabia in February 2023. Human Rights Watch and 17 other human rights organizations called on Microsoft to suspend plans, citing Saudi Arabia's surveillance laws, targeting of dissidents, and use of spyware. Microsoft refused to make its human rights assessment public and proceeded with the project, completing construction in December 2024.

Dell Technologies eliminated approximately 25,000 jobs between 2023 and 2025, including a 6,650-person layoff in February 2023 (13% of workforce) and additional rounds in 2024-2025 affecting sales and engineering teams.

In February 2023, Activision Blizzard agreed to pay $35 million to settle an SEC investigation into the company's failure to properly disclose workplace misconduct information to investors. The SEC found that Activision required departing employees who signed separation agreements to notify the company if regulators contacted them, violating federal whistleblower protections. The SEC had subpoenaed documents from Kotick and senior executives, including board meeting minutes and Kotick's communications about harassment complaints.

160 migrant workers delivering for Delivery Hero's Talabat subsidiary in Qatar faced wage theft by subcontractors, with some unpaid for up to 8 months including during the 2022 World Cup. Workers who filed labor complaints were deported. One worker died in January 2023 reportedly following an accident during non-payment period. Workers employed by Infinity Delivery Services and subcontracted to Talabat.

Binance terminated an internal investigator who discovered evidence of $300 million in wash trades by Sigma Chain, a CZ-affiliated market maker, raising concerns about retaliation against whistleblowers.

Quintessential Capital Management published a 70-page report alleging potential accounting errors at Darktrace, including 'channel stuffing' and 'round-tripping' to inflate revenue. The report referenced practices similar to those that sank Autonomy, the company founded by Darktrace investor Mike Lynch. EY's independent review found only 'small number of errors and inconsistencies' not material to financial statements.

In January 2023, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman announced the company would lay off approximately 2,000 employees, representing about 7% of its total workforce. The layoffs were part of broader cost-cutting measures across the tech industry. This was followed by another round of approximately 2,500 layoffs (9% of workforce) in January 2024, representing consecutive years of major workforce reductions.

In January 2023, Snap launched its Privacy and Safety Hub (values.snap.com), a centralized resource for privacy and safety materials. The company restricted users under 18 from creating public profiles, defaulted teen accounts to friend-only communication, redesigned its Privacy Policy for clarity with plain language and summaries, and partnered with IAPP and Future Privacy Forum on privacy education tools. In 2024, Snap further updated its privacy policy to lead with user data controls for access, download, and deletion.

Between 2019 and 2023, Microsoft invested approximately $13 billion in OpenAI across multiple rounds ($1B in 2019, ~$2B in 2021, $10B in 2023), becoming its exclusive cloud provider via Azure and gaining rights to commercialize OpenAI's models. The partnership made Microsoft the dominant platform for frontier AI deployment. By October 2025, Microsoft's stake was valued at approximately $135 billion representing ~27% on a diluted basis.