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Incidents and actions from tracked entities.

YouTube demonetized Russell Brand's channel in 2023 following sexual assault allegations. Neal Mohan justified the decision to protect YouTube's ecosystem. However, critics viewed it as a harsh measure since no criminal charges were filed, raising concerns about censorship and fairness in applying platform policies without due process.

Lyft launched Women+ Connect in September 2023, offering women and nonbinary drivers option to prioritize matches with nearby women and nonbinary riders. Feature tested in 50+ markets before nationwide rollout in March 2024. By March 2024, powered more than 10 million rides. Over 7 million eligible riders turned on feature. Over half of eligible women and nonbinary drivers opted in. As of July 2024, signed-up drivers matched with women and nonbinary riders about 66% of time, up from around 50% at launch. Designed in partnership with It's On Us sexual assault prevention campaign, National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives, and National Sheriff's Association Traffic Safety Committee. Industry-leading safety feature addressing real safety concerns for women and nonbinary community members.

In September 2023, Elon Musk publicly claimed 'No monkey has died as a result of a Neuralink implant' and that the company only used 'terminal monkeys close to death already.' However, records obtained by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and WIRED revealed 12 previously healthy Rhesus macaques were euthanized due to implant complications. Health records showed no evidence the monkeys were terminally ill. The PCRM filed an SEC complaint over these materially misleading statements.

The EEOC charged that since 2015, Black employees at Tesla's Fremont factory endured racial abuse, including N-word variations, 'monkey,' and 'boy.' Employees encountered swastikas, threats, and nooses on desks, bathroom stalls, elevators, and even new vehicles on the production line. Case heading to mediation in early 2026.

Anthropic published the first Responsible Scaling Policy (RSP) in September 2023, creating the first AI Safety Levels (ASL) framework modeled on biosafety standards. As CEO, Amodei personally spent 10-20% of his time for 3 months writing multiple drafts from scratch. The policy is overseen by Anthropic's Long Term Benefit Trust with no financial stake.

$18.0M

After seven years of litigation, HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise settled age discrimination class action for $18 million in September 2023. Lawsuit alleged CEO Meg Whitman directed company-wide policy starting around 2012 to transform workforce by pushing out older employees and aggressively hiring younger ones. In August 2013, HP's HR department issued guidelines requiring 75% of new hires be 'graduate' or 'early career' employees. Internal documents maligned older employees as 'traditionalist' and 'rule breakers.' Whitman expressed desire to change age makeup from a 'diamond' to 'quite flat diamond' with 'lots of young people coming in right out of college.' Between July 2012 and February 2017, there were 29 age discrimination complaints against HP in California alone. Court granted collective action status in April 2021.

In September 2023, Snap introduced new safety features for 13-17 year olds including stronger friending protections requiring mutual connections, in-app warnings when teens receive messages from blocked/reported users or users from unexpected regions, location-sharing reminders, and expanded parental controls via Family Center. Snap also launched Safety Snapshot episodes on sextortion and grooming reviewed by NCMEC, and reported that Trust and Safety teams had more than doubled since 2020.

On 31 August 2023, UK's Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) issued a disclosure against Wise Payments Limited for breaching Russia sanctions regulations. On 30 June 2022, the day after a person was added to the UK Sanctions List, a company employee made a £250 cash withdrawal from a Wise business account using a company debit card in the Designated Person's name. This was the first instance of OFSI using its disclosure powers. Wise self-reported the breach on 20 July 2022 but no fine was imposed due to the moderate severity.

The Fairphone 5, launched in 2023, earned a perfect 10/10 repairability score from iFixit. The device features a fully modular design with user-replaceable battery, screen, camera, speaker, and USB-C port. Fairphone committed to 8 years of software updates and 10 years of spare parts availability, the longest support commitment in the smartphone industry.

Patrick Collison was the first investor in California Forever/Flannery Associates, which secretly acquired 50,000+ acres in Solano County for ~$900 million to build a new city. The project drew controversy for its 'five-year stealth campaign,' aggressive tactics including a $510 million lawsuit against local landowners in 2023 for alleged price-fixing, and proximity to Travis Air Force Base which prompted FBI and Air Force investigations. Local mayor said the project 'devastated our area' and 'broken up ranching families who've worked the earth for five generations.'

Between 2018 and 2023, California Forever's subsidiary Flannery Associates secretly purchased over 50,000 acres of farmland in Solano County for approximately $900 million, becoming the county's largest private landowner. From 2019 to 2023, the company told county officials it only intended to use the land for agricultural purposes including olive farming and long-term farmer leases. The true plan - building a new city of up to 400,000 people - was only revealed when the New York Times exposed the scheme in August 2023. The land's proximity to Travis Air Force Base triggered an Air Force Foreign Investment Risk Review investigation and FBI/CFIUS referrals from Congress.

From 2017 to 2023, Sramek led California Forever's strategy to secretly acquire over 50,000 acres of Solano County farmland through subsidiary Flannery Associates. He personally assured county officials the land would be used for agricultural purposes including olive farming and long-term farmer leases, while planning to build a new city of up to 400,000 people. The deception was only revealed when the New York Times exposed the scheme in August 2023. U.S. Representative John Garamendi described the community as 'very angry - by the secrecy, by the duplicity, by the attack on family farmers.'

In August 2023, the DOJ sued SpaceX for violating the Immigration and Nationality Act by routinely discouraging and refusing to hire asylees and refugees from September 2018 through May 2022. SpaceX falsely claimed export control laws barred hiring non-citizens and green card holders, screening applicants by citizenship status. Out of nearly 10,000 hires, only one asylee was hired - four months after the DOJ investigation began. The case was dismissed in February 2025 after the Trump administration took office, with Musk calling it 'lawfare.'

In August 2023, Checkout.com terminated its relationship with Binance, once its largest customer handling $2 billion in monthly transactions in 2021. CEO Guillaume Pousaz sent letters on August 9 and 11 citing concerns over 'regulators actions and orders in relevant jurisdictions' and AML, sanctions, and compliance controls. The decision came months after the SEC filed 13 charges against Binance. Binance threatened legal action but did not pursue it.

In August 2023, HashiCorp relicensed Terraform, Vault, Consul, and other products from the Mozilla Public License (open source) to the Business Source License (not open source). The move prompted the creation of OpenTofu, a community fork. Mitchell Hashimoto was an individual contributor at the time, not in a leadership role making this decision.

On August 10, 2023, HashiCorp changed the license for Terraform, Vault, and 6 other projects from Mozilla Public License (open source) to Business Source License (BSL), which restricts commercial use for 4 years. The change sparked immediate backlash: 33,000+ developers starred an Open Terraform Manifesto, 140+ companies pledged support for a fork, and on September 20, 2023, the Linux Foundation accepted OpenTofu as an official project. In April 2024, HashiCorp sent OpenTofu a cease-and-desist letter claiming code misuse.

Coinbase launched the Base mainnet on August 9, 2023, an Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain built on the open-source OP Stack in collaboration with Optimism. In October 2023, Base open-sourced its code repositories, smart contracts, and web properties (base.org, docs.base.org, bridge.base.org) to increase transparency and allow public contributions. Base grew to become the largest Layer 2 network by total value locked. Coinbase also offered up to $1M in bug bounties through HackerOne and outlined a decentralization roadmap including fault proofs and diverse client software for censorship resistance.

In August 2023, CEO Guillaume Pousaz mandated three office days per week. When employees raised concerns about childcare and appointments, Pousaz reportedly said 'we all have kids and doctor's appointments, but you have to come three days' and 'if you don't like it, leave' multiple times. Glassdoor reviews in 2024 averaged 2.3 stars (vs industry average 3.6), with 57% disapproval of the RTO policy. Employees described being 'treated like children' and alleged the company 'thrives on racism, sexism and bullies.'

Despite CEO John Legere's promise that the Sprint merger would be 'jobs-positive from Day One,' T-Mobile conducted mass layoffs. In 2020, thousands of Sprint employees were laid off including nearly 400 in one call. In 2023, another 5,000 jobs (7% of workforce) were eliminated. Three years after the merger, T-Mobile employed 9,000 fewer people than the combined pre-merger workforce.

In August 2023, China Labor Watch released investigation findings on Foxconn's Chengdu facility manufacturing Amazon Echo and Kindle devices. Workers reported mandatory overtime exceeding legal limits (80+ hours/month vs 36-hour legal cap), wages withheld for months, inadequate safety equipment, and dismissal threats for refusing overtime. Amazon audits had repeatedly missed these violations.

Thoughtworks laid off approximately 500 employees (4% of workforce) in March 2023, then 600-700 more (5-6%) in August 2023, and a further ~500 in July 2024. Employees reported leadership was opaque with zero transparency and mixed messages, having previously assured staff that layoffs were 'absolutely not on the table' while requiring furlough weeks. Stock fell 26% on the August announcement. The company expected $75-85M in annualized cost savings. Employees reported the layoffs created an 'awful environment' with anxiety before each earnings call.

In August 2023, Apple backed California's SB 244 right-to-repair bill, marking a major policy shift from its previous opposition. Apple stated it would support the bill 'so long as it continues to provide protections for customers and innovators,' citing requirements that protect user safety, security, and manufacturer intellectual property. This represented the first time Apple publicly supported state-level right-to-repair legislation.

$1.6M

In August 2023, DoorDash agreed to pay $1.6 million to workers after violating Seattle's sick and safe time policy for the second time in two years. DoorDash failed to establish a system for eligible workers to request and use paid time, did not provide timely compensation for using allotted time, and did not give workers monthly notice of their paid and safe time balances. This was the second violation in two years, indicating a pattern of non-compliance with basic worker protections.

In August 2023, data from 2.6 million Duolingo users was released publicly after an API vulnerability allowed scraping of user information. The exposed data included real names, login names, email addresses (not meant to be public), languages learned, XP points, and learning progress. The vulnerability was first exploited in January 2023 when data was offered for sale for $1,500. Despite a researcher publicly disclosing the API flaw in March 2023, the API remained accessible. Duolingo called it 'a scrape' rather than a breach.

$151.4M

In 2023, Nikesh Arora's total compensation from Palo Alto Networks was $151.4 million, up 1,355% from the previous year, making him the fourth highest paid CEO in the U.S. that year. This created a CEO-to-median worker pay ratio of 735-to-1 for the company. His compensation was $58 million in 2024 and $99.74 million in 2025, with the ratio declining to 269-to-1 in 2024 but remaining among the highest in the tech sector.

Bengio testified before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, arguing for government interventions including regulation and research investments to mitigate potentially catastrophic outcomes from future AI advances. He stated that regulation and liability could reduce the probability of a rogue AI by a factor of a hundred, and called for mandatory registration of frontier AI systems costing hundreds of millions to train.

$46.0M

Sea Limited faced a class action lawsuit alleging materially false and misleading statements regarding its Garena (gaming) and Shopee (e-commerce) business segments. The initial complaint was filed July 2023. A $46 million settlement was reached, with court hearing scheduled for July 1, 2025. The company also conducted multiple layoff rounds in 2022-2023, cutting 3% of Shopee Indonesia staff and withdrawing from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, France, and India.