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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.

In September 2019, Stallman resigned as FSF president and from his MIT CSAIL position after emails surfaced in which he made comments about a victim of Jeffrey Epstein, suggesting she may have been 'entirely willing.' The comments sparked widespread condemnation in the tech community.

WeWork's planned 2019 IPO collapsed after its S-1 filing revealed extensive self-dealing by CEO Adam Neumann: he had trademarked 'We' and charged the company $5.9M to license it, personally owned buildings leased back to WeWork, had taken hundreds of millions in personal loans secured by company stock, and maintained supervoting shares giving him near-total control. The company's valuation dropped from $47B to under $10B.

In 2019, Mozilla partnered with Mullvad VPN to power its Mozilla VPN product (initially Firefox Private Network). Mozilla selected Mullvad after evaluating VPN providers for privacy practices, no-logging policies, and transparency. The partnership brought Mullvad's infrastructure to a much wider audience through Mozilla's trusted brand.

The FTC and New York Attorney General fined Google/YouTube $170 million ($136M to FTC, $34M to NY) for violating COPPA by collecting personal information from children under 13, including viewing history, without parental consent. YouTube had marketed its popularity with children to advertisers like Mattel and Hasbro while refusing to acknowledge portions of its platform were directed at kids. This was the largest COPPA penalty in history at the time.

Shopify created its Sustainability Fund to invest in carbon removal technologies, committing over $54 million to various climate projects including direct air capture and biomass carbon removal.

After researchers including Kate Crawford documented pervasive bias in ImageNet's person categories -- including racist slurs, misogynist labels, and ableist classifications -- Fei-Fei Li's team systematically identified non-visual concepts and offensive categories. They proposed and executed removal of 1,593 categories (54% of the 2,932 person categories), addressing both bias and privacy concerns in the foundational AI dataset. This represented a significant acknowledgment that even groundbreaking datasets require ongoing ethical review and correction.

In August 2019, approximately 60 Palantir employees signed a petition calling for the company to end its contracts with ICE, citing the company's role in family separations and immigration enforcement. Around 200 workers also confronted CEO Alex Karp in a signed letter about the issue. This followed the Mississippi raids and revelations about Palantir's role in targeting immigrant families.

In August 2019, Google settled a class-action lawsuit for $11 million involving 227 plaintiffs who alleged systematic age discrimination in hiring. Plaintiffs claimed Google's median workforce age of 29 (vs. 41-42 nationally) reflected discriminatory practices, that younger workers were hired at substantially higher rates than similarly qualified workers over 40, and that older applicants were told they were not a good 'cultural fit' or not 'Googley' enough—alleged euphemisms for age. Google also agreed to train employees on age-based bias, create a recruiting subcommittee focused on age diversity, and ensure marketing materials reflect age diversity. The settlement followed class certification in October 2016.

WeWork's August 2019 S-1 filing revealed extensive self-dealing by co-founder and CEO Adam Neumann. He purchased properties and leased them back to WeWork with future lease obligations of approximately $236.6 million. He trademarked the word 'We' and charged WeWork nearly $6 million to use it when the company rebranded. He took personal loans from the company and cashed out at least $700 million in shares before the IPO attempt. These revelations triggered investigations by both the SEC and the New York Attorney General into potential financial rule violations and self-enrichment.

Palantir's FALCON mobile app was used by ICE agents during the largest single-state immigration raid in US history at Mississippi food processing plants. 680 workers were arrested, with children returning from their first day of school to find parents missing. The raids were described as traumatic for the community.

In August 2019, Cloudflare dropped 8chan (later rebranded 8kun) as a customer after the El Paso Walmart shooting, where the gunman posted a white supremacist manifesto on the site. CEO Matthew Prince cited 8chan's repeated role as a platform for mass shooting manifestos. This was only the second time Cloudflare had terminated a customer for content.

In August 2019, Mustafa Suleyman was placed on administrative leave from DeepMind following allegations of bullying employees. Google brought in a law firm to investigate staff complaints about his management style. He had 'most of his management duties stripped away' and undertook professional development training. Suleyman later acknowledged: 'I really screwed up. I was very demanding and pretty relentless.' He left DeepMind for a policy role and departed Google entirely in January 2022.