Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
About 8 percent of U.S. adults earn money by doing contract work through so-called “gig economy” employers like Uber, Favor, or Amazon Mechanical Turk, according to the Pew Research Center; if the trend continues, one-third of Americans will support themselves this way by 2027. The gig economy is growing rapidly, but it’s also changing how…
If every generation gets the culture it deserves, then Creative Canada is the cultural policy we deserve. With its panegyrics to innovation, digital solutions, and “creative hubs,” Heritage Minister Melanie Joly’s new strategy, released on September 28, is an unmistakable product of our moment. But beneath the carapace of Silicon Valley jargon and political sloganeering hides…
“Meh. There’s always Death to look forward to,” my dad would say whenever I would air my frustrations with a world that was at odds with the one I had conjured in my mind. Though I found his blatant disregard for my artful misery frustrating in my youth, I later found myself boomeranging the exact…
Uber board member David Bonderman. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg) Billionaire businessman David Bonderman, a member of Uber’s board, apologized Tuesday for making what he called an “inappropriate” comment about women at a company-wide meeting that was aimed at addressing the harassment of women and other unprofessional conduct within the company. At the event, Bonderman made a joke…
Uber has fired more than 20 employees after a company investigation into sexual harassment claims and workplace culture. The terminations were announced at a company-wide meeting on Tuesday, details of which were first leaked to and reported by the New York Times and Bloomberg News. Uber confirmed the departures to the Guardian. The identities of…
A top Uber executive who reportedly obtained the medical records of a woman who was raped by her Uber driver was only fired after journalists learned of the incident, it emerged on Wednesday. According to reports on the tech website Recode and in the New York Times, Eric Alexander, the president of business for Uber…
There was a “lactation/quiet room” sign on the door and the room had been reserved for that purpose on the company calendar. So Hannah was surprised when she walked in to discover a male co-worker using the lactation room for a phone call. “I had to stand there with my sore, full boobs and explain…
The German government has announced new plans to force social media sites to delete hate speech and fake news. Justice Minister Heiko Maas said Facebook and Twitter had failed to regulate themselves. German Justice Minister Heiko Maas has revealed details of a new plan to curb hate speech and fake news on social media…
Donald Trump has inherited the most powerful machine for spying ever devised. How this petty, vengeful man might wield and expand the sprawling American spy apparatus, already vulnerable to abuse, is disturbing enough on its own. But the outlook is even worse considering Trump’s vast preference for private sector expertise and new strategic friendship with Silicon…
YouTube canceled its top star’s show on Tuesday over his anti-Semitic jokes, complicating its efforts to court television advertisers while also retaining its edgy video stars. YouTube, a unit of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, distanced itself from its most popular creator—27-year-old Felix Kjellberg, who goes by PewDiePie—after The Wall Street Journal reported he made anti-Semitic jokes or showed Nazi imagery in…