The biggest tech scandals of 2018

14 Dec, 2018 - 00:12 0 Views
The biggest tech scandals of 2018

eBusiness Weekly

In the tech world, 2018 was rocked by scandal.

Over the last 12 months, many tech companies have found themselves at the centre of most pressing social and political issues.

Facebook provided Cambridge Analytica — a data firm used by president Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign to target voters — with 87 million users’ personal information without obtaining proper consent.

Google reportedly paid an executive tens of millions of dollars after he was let go over a sexual misconduct investigation.

And WhatsApp became a hotbed of misinformation, influencing political elections and costing people their lives.

What follows are the biggest scandals in the tech industry over the course of the last year:

Uber and Waymo go to court over stolen trade secrets regarding self-driving car technology.

In February, Uber and Google’s self-driving car spinoff, Waymo, went to court over allegations that Uber stole trade secrets relating to Waymo’s self-driving-car technology.

The case centred around Anthony Levandowski, a high-profile engineer who was accused of taking information with him when leaving Google and bringing that information to Uber when he joined the company.

The trial was hugely anticipated among those in tech, as it included two of Silicon Valley’s largest companies, and even featured testimony from Uber’s former CEO, Travis Kalanick.

Ultimately, Uber agreed to pay Waymo $245 million in equity.

WhatsApp’s popularity in Brazil is used for widespread sharing of false propaganda, spam messages, and hoaxes ahead of the country’s contentious presidential election.

As Facebook was to the 2016 US presidential election, WhatsApp — a Facebook-owned platform — was the epicenter for Brazil’s presidential election this year.

Ahead of the election, the messaging platform was flooded with forwarded spam messages that spewed misleading information, conspiracy theories, and hoaxes, as well as an illegal fake news campaign.

To put it in perspective, Brazil has a population of 210 million, and 120 million people in Brazil are on WhatsApp.

In the end, the presidency was won by Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right candidate who has pushed extremist views on torture, marriage equality, and violent police tactics.

In September, the Senate Intelligence Committee called Twitter, Facebook, and Google to testify about the companies’ plans to diminish foreign interference in future elections and, more broadly, how they planned to moderate content across their platforms going forward.

Twitter and Facebook agreed, sending CEO Jack Dorsey and COO Sheryl Sandberg, respectively, but Alphabet CEO Larry Page refused to attend.

“Given its size and influence, I would have thought the leadership at Google would want to demonstrate how seriously it takes these challenges,” Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia said at the time.

At the hearing, the Senate Intelligence Committee left an open seat at the table for Google. — Business Insider..

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