Activity

Apple's battery supply chain has been linked to cobalt from small-scale Congolese mines using child labor. A 2016 Washington Post investigation traced cobalt from harsh mining conditions to Chinese supplier Congo DongFang International Mining (Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt), which supplied battery makers producing batteries for iPhones. Apple acknowledged approximately 20% of its cobalt came from Huayou Cobalt. In 2019, human rights group International Rights Advocates filed a class-action lawsuit representing 14 Congolese children killed or maimed in cobalt mining. In December 2024, the Democratic Republic of Congo filed criminal complaints against Apple in France and Belgium for using 'conflict minerals,' alleging Apple ignored warnings from lawyers in April 2024.

Khosla sits on the board of Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), the climate fund initiated by Bill Gates. He has invested in frontier climate technologies including Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Realta Fusion (fusion energy), Quaise and Mazama Energy (superhot geothermal), Fortera (low-carbon cement), and Spiritus (direct air capture). He is personally carbon-neutral through TerraPass and Carbonfund offsets and aims to be carbon-negative.

In 2020, Cisco Talos discovered multiple vulnerabilities in NZXT CAM's WinRing0x64 driver that could allow attackers to escalate privileges and access sensitive information on users' systems. Cisco Talos coordinated disclosure with NZXT and software updates were released to address the vulnerabilities.

EVGA became widely recognized in the PC hardware community for exceptional customer service, including phone hold times averaging under 2 minutes, a straightforward RMA process, and a Limited Lifetime Warranty on GPUs. The company maintained warranty support for existing products even after announcing its exit from the GPU market in September 2022.

Jack Dorsey announced in December 2019 that Twitter would fund an independent team (Bluesky) to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media. Twitter provided $13 million in initial funding. The project aimed to give users more control over their data and reduce centralized platform power. Bluesky developed the AT Protocol and launched as an independent social network.

In December 2019, Uber published its first-ever US Safety Report disclosing 5,981 reports of sexual assault across 2017 and 2018, including 464 reports of rape. The report also documented 107 crash fatalities and 19 fatal physical assaults. While Uber framed the report as a transparency milestone developed with the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, critics noted Uber only counted the five most severe categories of its 21-category system. Sealed court records later revealed over 400,000 reports of sexual assault or misconduct during a similar period when broader categories were included.

In 2019, The Guardian reported TikTok's moderation practices resulted in removal of content positive toward LGBTQ+ people in countries including Turkey, such as same-sex couples holding hands. In December 2019, TikTok admitted it deliberately reduced the viral potential of videos made by LGBTQ+ users, claiming the goal was to 'reduce bullying' in comments. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute also found content from LGBTQ+ creators was systematically suppressed. While TikTok later updated its policies, the practice demonstrated algorithmic discrimination against marginalized communities under the guise of user protection.

In December 2019, Vision Fund employees described the workplace environment as characterized by sycophancy and harassment. According to three regular participants in calls with Masayoshi Son, he would alternate unpredictably between being 'charming and effusively complimentary' and 'enraged, berating presenters and demanding a perpetually shifting yet unfailingly detailed set of metrics.' Employees reported never knowing where Son would land on the 'charm-rage axis,' creating an environment of fear and toxicity focused on placating the mercurial CEO rather than sound investment practices.

Kotaku published an investigation in December 2019 based on 14 former employees describing a 'culture of fear' under CEO Min-Liang Tan. Allegations include yelling, throwing objects, threatening employees, demanding unreasonable overtime, and hostile behavior. In a 2014 incident, Tan reportedly fired a marketing employee hours after expressing anger. Tan denied throwing objects but admitted to making figurative threats.

In 2019, Cloudflare launched a free CSAM (child sexual abuse material) scanning tool available to all customers regardless of plan level. The tool works with NCMEC (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) to detect and report CSAM. By 2025, the tool was expanded globally, no longer requiring NCMEC credentials, making it accessible to any Cloudflare user worldwide.

On November 25, 2019, Berners-Lee launched the Contract for the Web - a global action plan with 76 clauses and 9 core principles for how governments, companies, and citizens should protect the open web. Over 160 organizations signed including Microsoft, Google, EFF, DuckDuckGo, and Reddit, as well as governments of Germany, France, and Ghana. It has been compared to a Universal Declaration of Human Rights for the digital age.

On November 25, 2019, Transport for London refused to renew Uber's license to operate in the city, citing a 'pattern of failures' including a change to Uber's systems that allowed unauthorized drivers to upload their photos to other driver accounts. This resulted in at least 14,000 trips being taken by drivers who were not the authorized account holder, creating serious safety risks. TfL also found dismissed or suspended drivers had been able to create new accounts and continue driving. This was the second time TfL revoked Uber's license, having first done so in September 2017 before a successful appeal.

In November 2019, WeWork laid off 2,400 employees, representing 19% of its total workforce of 12,500. The mass layoffs came after the company's failed IPO attempt and mounting financial losses. Employees who had been promised bonuses and raises never received them, while the company had spent over $60 million on a Gulfstream G650 private jet for the CEO. Many employees held stock options that became effectively worthless after the valuation collapse from $47 billion to approximately $10 billion.

Brave ships with Shields enabled by default, blocking third-party ads, trackers, cross-site cookies, fingerprinting, and bounce tracking out of the box. Independent testing by EFF's Cover Your Tracks project gives Brave a 'strong protection' rating, and PrivacyTests.org consistently ranks Brave highest among major browsers for out-of-box tracker blocking. Brave randomizes browser fingerprints to prevent cross-site tracking, a feature unique among mainstream browsers.

In November 2019, DHH posted a viral thread exposing that the Apple Card algorithm gave him a credit limit 20x higher than his wife's despite her having a longer credit history and higher credit score. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak confirmed similar disparity. The New York State Department of Financial Services launched an investigation into Goldman Sachs and the Apple Card program as a result.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed an FTC complaint alleging HireVue's AI-powered video interview system used facial analysis to screen job candidates in ways that were unfair, deceptive, and biased.

In November 2019, Adobe co-founded the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) alongside The New York Times and Twitter to establish an industry standard for content provenance metadata. The initiative promotes Content Credentials, defined by the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA). By January 2026, the CAI had grown to over 6,000 members including BBC, Microsoft, Nikon, Qualcomm, and The Washington Post. In 2024, Adobe launched a free Content Authenticity web app allowing creators to add verifiable attribution details and opt-out of generative AI training.

Sir Philip Hulme and his wife Janet have donated over £110,000 to the UK Conservative Party, including £100,000 during the 2019 general election campaign and £10,000 to Conservative MP Nick Herbert in 2013.

In 2019, Wojcicki donated $200,000 to the Team Trees initiative, a collaborative project between YouTubers and the Arbor Day Foundation to plant 20 million trees.

In October 2019, GitLab decided to block new hires from China and Russia for Site Reliability Engineer and Support Engineer roles that handle customer data, citing enterprise customer concerns about espionage. Internal employees publicly opposed the move as discriminatory. Director of global risk Candice Ciresi called it incompatible with GitLab's values, and IT admin Keith Snape called it 'distressing' discrimination.

In October 2019, despite presiding over a failed IPO that destroyed tens of billions in valuation and led to thousands of layoffs, former CEO Adam Neumann received close to $1.7 billion from SoftBank to resign from WeWork's board and sever ties with the company. The package included $970 million for his remaining shares, a $185 million consulting fee, and a $500 million credit to repay personal loans from JPMorgan Chase. This occurred while laid-off employees lost stock options that had become worthless, highlighting an extreme disparity in outcomes between executive leadership and rank-and-file workers.

When forced out as WeWork CEO in 2019, Adam Neumann received a reported $1.7 billion exit package from SoftBank including $185M in consulting fees, nearly $1B in stock sales, and a $500M credit line. Meanwhile WeWork laid off approximately 2,400 employees. The company eventually filed for bankruptcy in November 2023 with $18.6B in debt.

In October 2019, Apple removed the Quartz news app from App Stores in Hong Kong and mainland China. Quartz had been providing extensive coverage of Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests, including live updates and investigative reporting. Apple did not provide a detailed public explanation, citing only that the app violated local content regulations. The removal prevented Hong Kong residents from accessing independent journalism during a critical political moment.

On October 9, 2019, Apple removed HKmap.live from the App Store, an app that crowdsourced real-time police locations during Hong Kong pro-democracy protests. Apple initially approved the app, then removed it after China Daily (state media) published an editorial accusing Apple of 'facilitating illegal behavior' and threatening consequences. Apple claimed the app was used to 'ambush police,' a claim protest organizers disputed, noting it was used for safety. The removal was widely seen as capitulation to Beijing.

Amazon's Ring subsidiary partnered with over 2,600 police departments, giving law enforcement the ability to request doorbell camera footage from users without warrants. Ring admitted to providing footage to police without owner consent at least 11 times in early 2022 during 'emergencies.' Sen. Markey's investigation found Ring had egregiously lax privacy and civil rights protections, with employees in Ukraine having unfettered access to live camera feeds. Over 30 civil rights organizations demanded the partnerships end, citing racial profiling and overpolicing risks. Ring discontinued its police Request for Assistance tool in January 2024.

In 2019, Intel settled with the U.S. Department of Labor for $5 million over allegations of systematic pay discrimination against female, African American, and Hispanic employees. The DOL investigation, which began with a routine compliance review in March 2017 examining 2016-2017 pay data, found pay disparities. At least $3.5 million was allocated for back wages and interest, with $1.5 million for ongoing pay-equity adjustments over five years for U.S. engineering employees.

Under Tim Cook's leadership, Apple removed VPN apps, the HKmap.live Hong Kong protest app (October 2019), and other politically sensitive apps from China's App Store at the request of Chinese authorities. Employees alleged Cook ultimately approved plans to aggressively censor apps and store customer data on Chinese government-managed servers in Guiyang and Inner Mongolia.

On September 24, 2019, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded its Goalkeepers Global Goals award to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Swachh Bharat (Clean India) sanitation campaign. The decision drew criticism from academics, Nobel laureates, and human rights activists, with a petition signed by over 100,000 people demanding the Foundation rescind the award, arguing a Hindu nationalist leader with human rights abuse allegations should not be celebrated by an organization stating 'every life has equal value.'

In September 2019, Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge with Global Optimism, committing to reach net-zero carbon by 2040 — ten years ahead of the Paris Agreement. Amazon ordered 100,000 electric delivery vans from Rivian and became the first signatory of the Pledge, which has since attracted 565+ signatories. By 2023, Amazon matched 100% of electricity use with renewable energy, seven years ahead of target. Carbon intensity improved 40% since 2019. However, Amazon faced criticism for quietly dropping its 'Shipment Zero' pledge and the pace of EV deployment (~31,000 of 100,000 vans delivered by 2024).

WeWork formally withdrew its S-1 filing and postponed its IPO on September 17, 2019, after investors raised serious concerns about corporate governance. The filing revealed founder Adam Neumann held super-voting shares (20:1 ratio), lacked meaningful board oversight, had installed his wife as chief brand officer with power to fire employees, and had structured succession planning around the Neumann family. The company's valuation collapsed from $47 billion to approximately $10 billion. Neumann was forced to step down as CEO on September 24, 2019.