It had a little bit of Woodstock in the Hippie-time: for Decades flocked talented people in the Bay of San Francisco, to work on the digital Revolution, with fresh ideas, a strong will to be Unconventional and a hoodie instead of a tie. However, the facade of the former liberal Wonderland has suffered this year is huge. The once innocent-looking Silicon Valley, was shaken in 2018, from a moral earthquake to the other – from Sex scandals about data leaks up to ask armor projects worthy.
for the year has been kept in the male-dominated Valley an ugly image in the mirror: After the #metoo movement, and their revelations Hollywood’s power elite to falter had brought, dare also a number of women from the Tech industry to share their experiences. And even there it looked a little rosy. Of constant, unwanted Baggereien, about women’s hostile attitudes to the boss days, up to serious abuse allegations, dozens came small and large scandals to the light of day, and the testosterone had soaked air of the Valley, significantly thinner and thinner. As then it became known that agencies Tech-powered Parties with hot women and a book revealed that some of the industry’s leaders celebrated regularly, real Sex orgies, it was clear that sexism had not overcome the digital Revolution.
terminations and protests
Project Maven: Because this is a Pentagon deal, race Google employees the way
money, or morality?
But also to other principles, it is getting worse and worse. While in other industries, work with the military and dictatorships, and belongs to the dirty everyday life, shunned by many of the largest Tech companies, such a business successfully for a long time. But this year, more and more companies decided to make the military money. Even Google – once for the Slogan “Don’t be evil” (“do no Evil”) – shocked the worthy this year, with several questionable projects. Under the name “Project Maven” supported about the U.S. military with Artificial intelligence for automatic object detection by drones – and, thus, may be indirectly Killing people. Also, the “Project Dragonfly” makes for a lot of Trouble: After Google had pulled years back from the Chinese market, the Tinkers, the group now has its own search engine for the people’s Republic, including automatic censorship against those pesky dissidents.
In the case of the employees, making quite a splash. In open letters and protest marches, they make their Anger. Also about dealing with the criticism will be sued. “In the last few months, I have always been disappointed how the company responds and how to deal with the Concerns of the people is dealt with,” said one of the counter-Maven potest referring employees to “Gizmodo”. In an open letter to defendant Google employees recently, a veritable Tilt for the group. Long she would not have believed that Google introduced its values on the Profit, “we believe that this is the case”. The group showed at the end of insight: Project Maven was not renewed, an application for a further defence contract set.
New strategy
So, was Microsoft of Apple
By Christoph Fröhlich Full support for the military
Microsoft, however, fully relies on the military as a customer. Just it became known that the group had won a 480 million contract from the Pentagon to the troops with the Mixed-Reality goggles, Hololens. This was for civilian use, developed. At the Pentagon, the order is part of the JEDI program and to increase according to the US military spokesman, “the lethality of our Department”.
In the case of Microsoft’s employees are providing pain for belly. In an open letter in the “Medium” requested in October that the group withdraws its application for a huge military contract. “How are we going to staff that develop these services and maintain that knowledge, whether our work in the creation of person profiles will be used in Monitoring, or to Kill?”, ask the staff therein. You want a clear, moral guidelines, and the appropriate limits of what the technology of the group may be sold. The author of the letter is likely to be pretty disappointed. In a speech, Microsoft President Brad Smith made at the weekend that the group will supply the military “with the best technology that we develop. And all the technology, without limitation.” Who had not agree to that could be Yes put said the group in October in a blog post. “We support flexible Working”, it says in a dry place in relation to employees with moral concerns.
WDR
Amazon wants to not quarrelled, only our money, but something much more valuable
By Christoph Fröhlich shops in scandal
Amazon’s employees in the summer with a morally difficult project. The group sought talks with the U.S. to sell the border protection, ICE to his face-recognition Software, here, too, against the protests of its employees. The authority for months of headlines, because they are separated in the order of the Trump government’s illegal immigrants from their children. Previously, Amazon had shipped the Software at police units in Oregon and Florida.
For the biggest shake-Facebook – at least in the USA, provided, however,. With the scandal around the US election in 2016, and the role of Steve Bannon co-founded blow-company-Cambridge Analytica, the group slipped back into his home in a gigantic crisis of confidence. This time Mark Zuckerberg and his Team a lot of unpleasant questions like, what data the group collects and how exactly they are used. Among other things, it became known that dozens of companies were able to retrieve the data of millions of users, directly, in the internal mail was not thinking about the direct sale of the data. So far, Facebook uses it only for advertising.
Facebook-in-chief
Mark Zuckerberg in the cross-examination: “did You do enough things broken – now fix it!”
By Christoph Fröhlich the end of the innocence
As a hoard of data protection was Facebook, although never to the extent of the scandal is a new one. Zuckerberg had to before the US Congress and the EU Parliament statements, the longtime security chief Alex Stamos to be put. The Facebook Motto, “Move fast and break things” (stha: act quickly and not be afraid to break something) sound to bold Creative, but by ruthless profiteers.
the aftershocks are now being quoted by other Tech giants like Google boss Sundar Pichai in front of Congress and have to justify alleged discrimination Republican candidates in Google Searches. Also, Apple CEO Tim Cook intervened in the debate and called for plenty of atypical regulation of Tech companies in the data processing.
Whether or not the corporations, however, must fear actual consequences, which is a different sheet. Of the customers, and the economy is not the danger it seems, at least currently, to threaten. The terms of use and sale are high pay more. Fluctuations in the stock market, have so far been economic and not moral decisions explain. The innocent naivety of the Silicon Valley, but it seems to have flown by.
sources: LA Times, New York Times, Medium, Techcrunch, Microsoft, the Daily Beast, Gizmodo
