Hasta La Gadget!

The US Department of Justice just sued SpaceX, alleging that the company engaged in discriminatory hiring practices against refugees and asylum seekers. The suit says that these practices occurred between 2018 and 2022 and that SpaceX “wrongly claimed” that export control laws limited it to hiring US citizens and lawful permanent residents.

The DOJ began its investigation in 2020 when the department’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section received complaints of employee discrimination. Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement that the “investigation found that SpaceX failed to fairly consider or hire asylees and refugees because of their citizenship status” going on to say that this amounted to a “ban” regardless of their qualifications. This is a violation of federal law.

The investigation also found that “SpaceX recruiters and high-level officials took actions that actively discouraged” these people from seeking employment with the company.

The DOJ lawsuit seeks damages and back pay for “asylees and refugees who were deterred or denied employment at SpaceX.” It also seeks civil penalties and hiring policy changes from the company. The Immigrant and Employee Rights Section (IER) even alleges that SpaceX ignored a subpoena related to the suit in 2021, forcing the DOJ to request a judge order the company to comply with document requests.

The IER opened this probe in 2020 after claimant Fabian Hutter alleged discrimination after losing a spot at SpaceX when asked about his citizenship status during a job interview. It’s requesting other alleged victims to come forward and contact the department, particularly if they were discouraged from applying to SpaceX due to citizenship concerns.

Is this the only Elon Musk-led company facing legal troubles regarding hiring practices and employee treatment? Of course not! The self-proclaimed “Technoking of Tesla” faced penalties when a federal court found that Musk made unlawful threats surrounding employee compensation and unions. There’s also a suit making its way through the New York courts that alleges Musk and Tesla fired workers “in retaliation for union activity.” 

Another big suit alleged a racist work environment at Tesla, which was recently settled for just over $3 million. Employees recently sued Twitter/X after Musk-led mass layoffs. The list goes on and on for the man who used to repeatedly state that he simply wants to save the world. Nowadays, he spends most of his time issuing controversial posts on X and being investigated for building literal glass houses using Tesla company funds.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/us-justice-department-sues-spacex-for-alleged-discriminatory-hiring-practices-172405156.html?src=rss

Two of the original developers of the crypto mixer Tornado Cash are caught up in a whole new shitstorm of a federal indictment. On Wednesday, the U.S. alleged that two of the original devs, Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, helped crypto criminals launder millions of crypto at a time helping to emphasize the “anonymous”…

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Elon Musk’s company is accused of discouraging people with refugee or asylum status from applying for jobs, and refusing to hire them.

Tony Gilroy addressed the picket line in a fiery speech earlier today that evoked his Star Wars series, Andor. Gilroy was in attendance at the Screenwriter’s Solidarity Picket in NYC, and when he was given the mic he didn’t hold back from letting the members of both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA know how he really felt about…

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The long-awaited web version of Threads has finally arrived. After announcing that its Twitter competitor would be accessible from browsers earlier this week, Meta’s rollout is finally underway. Instagram head Adam Mosseri confirmed Thursday the update is now live for all users.

That means if you’ve been impatiently refreshing threads.net waiting for it to be available, you should check again. Up to now, many Threads users have been frustrated by the lack of a web version. Though it was possible to manually navigate to a specific user’s profile, people have been unable to browse their feeds, post, reply or even log in to their accounts from browsers. 

As the app has seen a significant drop-off in engagement following its initial launch, many have viewed the lack of a web version as a significant barrier to the app. Both Mark Zuckerberg and Mosseri have been promising a web version was high on their agenda for Threads, though Mosseri recently said the team was working out some bugs with the experience. 

Now that the web version is finally live, it will be interesting to see which of the many “missing” features Threads will get next. Users have also complained about the lack of content search — right now people can only search for users, not for specific posts — and hashtags, both of which help people discover new content on Instagram and Twitter.

One feature, however, that seems unlikely is the addition of DMs. Mosseri has said he’s reluctant to add another inbox to user’s lives, though he recently raised the possibility of incorporating Instagram DMs into the Threads experience. But he did confirm that post-editing features are in the works, so at least Threads users won’t have to wait more than a decade for an edit button.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-web-version-of-threads-is-finally-here-174909701.html?src=rss