The Justice Department suing Facebook for violations of labor law

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The Justice Department has filed charges against Facebook for allegedly discriminating against US workers in its hiring practices. The complaint, filed on Thursday, alleges that the company maintained a separate job listing process for visa-eligible job postings, both limiting the visibility of the job listing online and insisting that job seekers submit their applications by mail.

According to the Justice Department, the result was a systematic effort to discourage US workers from applying for an entire class of jobs at Facebook.

“Facebook’s discriminatory recruitment and hiring practice is routine, ongoing, and widespread,” the complaint reads. “It discriminates against U.S. workers because of their immigration or citizenship status, and it harms them by limiting their ability to apply, to be considered, and to be hired.”

In simple terms, prosecutors believe Facebook was hiding job listings reserved for visa-bound workers that the company had already contacted and knew it wanted to hire. But in its rush to clear the lane for its preferred applicant, the company allegedly violated important labor rules.

The Justice Department’s case focuses on permanent labor certifications at Facebook, which enable visa holders to work in the United States indefinitely (as opposed to guest worker visas like the H-1B that must be renewed every few years). US law requires an extensive process for permanent labor certification and approves applications only after a company attests that it could not find a qualified US worker for the position.

But when a guest worker at Facebook expressed interest in a permanent position, the complaint alleges, “Facebook diverged from its normal recruiting protocols by not advertising the position on its external website, Facebook.com/careers, by not accepting online applications, and by requiring interested applicants to apply to the position by mail.”

In one particularly strange note, the complaint notes that visa-linked job openings were listed in the print version of the San Francisco Chronicle but not the paper’s website, even though the Chronicle offers free online listing for every ad.

Prosecutors say the double standard has been in place since at least the beginning of 2018 and has yet to be remedied. Facebook received more than 2,600 permanent labor certifications for its employees during the named period.

Reached for comment, Facebook said it was cooperating with the Department of Justice but disagreed with its findings. “Facebook has been cooperating with the DOJ in its review of this issue,” a representative said, “and while we dispute the allegations in the complaint, we cannot comment further on pending litigation.”

China's Chang'e 5 mission lands on the Moon to collect lunar soil

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China’s Chang’e 5 mission, tasked with bringing a sample of lunar dirt back to Earth, successfully landed on the Moon on Tuesday, marking the third time that China has placed a robotic spacecraft on the lunar surface. The lander will soon begin digging up samples of lunar soil, which will be returned to our planet later this month.

Chang’e 5 launched from China’s Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on November 23rd, flying to space on top of a Long March 5 rocket. It’s a complex mission consisting of four main spacecraft that will all work together to bring between 2 to 4 kilograms of lunar dirt back to Earth. The quartet traveled to the Moon attached together and got into lunar orbit on November 28th.

Two of those four spacecraft include a lander and an ascent vehicle, which are stacked on top of each other. On November 28th, the pair separated from the third spacecraft, Chang’e-5’s service module, which remained in orbit around the Moon. The lander and ascent module touched down on the lunar surface today, according to CGTN, though a time was not provided.

Now over the next few days, the lander will use a robotic arm to drill into the lunar dirt and scoop up rocks, storing them inside a sample container. Once the sample is collected, the robotic arm will transfer the container to the ascent module on top of the lander. Then it’ll be time for Chang’e-5’s second takeoff, with the ascent module blasting off from the lander with the sample in tow. The ascent module will meet up with the service module in orbit, and together the spacecraft will head back to Earth.

The sample will eventually be transferred to the fourth spacecraft, a reentry capsule tasked with bringing the material to the ground. It’s unclear exactly when that landing will take place, but it could occur around December 16th or 17th. China is targeting somewhere in Inner Mongolia for the landing spot.

If all goes to plan, China will become one of three countries to bring back samples from the Moon. US astronauts retrieved lunar soil samples during the Apollo missions in the 1960s and 70s, and the former Soviet Union brought back lunar material through a series of robotic missions in the 1970s. In fact, the last successful lunar sample return mission occurred in 1976 with the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 mission. With Chang’e-5, China could bring the first material back from the Moon in nearly half a century.

Chang’e-5 isn’t the only mission that could bring rocks from another world to Earth this month. Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission, which has been in space since 2014, is slated to return a sample of material from an asteroid named Ryugu this weekend. That means Earth could get two precious samples of unspoiled space rocks in December 2020.

TikTok is reportedly rolling out the ability to record three-minute videos

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Brevity is the soul of wit — and the heart of TikTok — but the company wants to see if giving people the ability to record longer videos is something its creators want to explore.

The company is reportedly rolling out the ability to record videos up to three minutes in length, according to social media consultant Matt Navarra. Navarra tweeted a screenshot of the update, which notes the feature is still in early access stages. The Verge has reached out to TikTok for more information.

Currently, TikTok allows all creators to upload videos up to a minute in length. It’s proven to be a successful length — longer than a Vine, shorter than most YouTube videos. The constraint of finding ways to make something funny within 60 short, sweet seconds is part of what makes TikTok work. Not having to focus more than a minute of attention on one video and being able to easily flip to the next right after is a welcome feature in a world dominated by longer content.

Three-minute videos on TikTok feel like a miniature replica of YouTube, back when YouTube videos were shorter than 10 minutes. Will this fill the space left by Quibi’s demise? Three minutes is a lot of time. It could allow for full movie trailers or makeup tutorials — things that are found more often than not on YouTube.

Look, it might not be the worst thing — people were upset when Twitter doubled the length of a tweet from 140 to 280 characters, but that’s mostly worked out fine. Still, trepidation is warranted. Short videos defined TikTok — I’m not sure I want to sit through someone’s three-minute recap of Riverdale just because they have the ability to do so.

Trump calls for last-minute 230 repeal as part of defense spending bill

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On Tuesday, President Donald Trump threatened to veto an annual defense bill authorizing billions of dollars in military spending unless Congress agreed to strip away a pivotal internet law that provides Facebook, Google, and Twitter with legal immunity over content posted by their users.

The result is a standoff holding up one of Congress’ most vital pieces of legislation and placing Section 230 under an unusually imminent threat.

A foundational legal protection for online speech platforms, Section 230 has become controversial in recent years, and there is growing desire across the ideological spectrum to reform the law. During the primary campaign, President-elect Joe Biden said Section 230 “should be revoked, immediately,” responding to concerns that Facebook was shirking its responsibility to moderate the platform. Republicans have taken issue with 230 for the opposite reason, seeing it as granting platforms an inappropriately broad license to censor speech.

The issue became particularly urgent for President Trump in the days after the election, when he used Twitter to spread baseless accusations of election fraud. The platform responded by labeling the tweets as misinformation about a civic process (a specifically protected category on Twitter) and restricting their reach.

Now, the outgoing president has tied 230 repeal to defense funding, one of the few pieces of legislation that is seen as a “must-pass” by members of Congress. The National Defense Authorization Act primarily authorizes spending by the military and other national security agencies, so a failure to pass some version of the bill could have severe consequences for the nation as a whole.

The “must-pass” nature of the bill makes it the perfect target for lawmakers looking to sneak their own partisan priorities (known as riders) into a bill that will surely pass by the end of the fiscal year. It’s a long-standing process for lawmakers, but rarely attempted for an issue as delicate as 230 reform.

In a series of tweets last night, the president was unequivocal in his desire to attach a repeal of Section 230 to the bill. “Section 230, which is a liability shielding gift from the U.S. to ‘Big Tech’ (the only companies in America that have it — corporate welfare!), is a serious threat to our National Security and Election Integrity,” Trump said. He continued, saying that if the “very dangerous & unfair Section 230 is not completely terminated as part of the [NDAA], I will be forced to unequivocally VETO the Bill when sent to the very beautiful Resolute desk.”

As of publication, the first tweet in Trump’s Tuesday night thread was pinned to the top of his Twitter profile.

This year’s NDAA includes a provision to rename 10 military installations that currently honor Confederate military officers, a policy President Trump has strenuously opposed. In November, The New York Times reported that the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, told NDAA negotiators in Congress that Trump could be open to signing a version of the bill that renamed Confederate-named military bases if Democrats agreed to repeal Section 230.

As of Tuesday, Republicans were also working to include bills like Sen. Roger Wicker’s (R-MS) Online Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity Act, according to Axios. But Wicker’s bill doesn’t amount to a full repeal of the tech industry’s liability shield, and it’s unclear whether the White House would support a version of the NDAA with Wicker’s bill as a rider.

The NDAA is typically approved by veto-proof majorities. So even if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) would agree to placing this year’s NDAA on the floor, Congress could easily overrule Trump’s veto. But according to reporting from The Washington Post last month, McConnell has a policy against taking bills to the Senate floor for a vote when they’ve received a veto threat.

Still, some lawmakers, including Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), one of the original architects of Section 230, seem to think that Trump’s 230 threat holds little weight.

“I’d like to start for the Blazers, but it’s not going to happen either,” Wyden said in a statement Wednesday. “It is pathetic that Trump refuses to help unemployed workers, while he spends his time tweeting unhinged election conspiracies and demanding Congress repeal the foundation of free speech online.”

Google company policies violated labor law - illegally spied on workers

Photo credit should read TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images

Google violated US labor laws by spying on workers who were organizing employee protests, then firing two of them, according to a complaint filed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) today.

The complaint names two employees, Laurence Berland and Kathryn Spiers, both of whom were fired by the company in late 2019 in connection with employee activism. Berland was organizing against Google’s decision to work with IRI Consultants, a firm widely known for its anti-union efforts, when he was let go for reviewing other employees’ calendars. Now, the NLRB has found Google’s policy against employees looking at certain coworkers’ calendars is unlawful.

Several other employees were fired in the wake of the protests, but the NLRB found that only the terminations of Berland and Spiers violated labor laws.

“Google’s hiring of IRI is an unambiguous declaration that management will no longer tolerate worker organizing,” Berland said in a statement. “Management and their union busting cronies wanted to send that message, and the NLRB is now sending their own message: worker organizing is protected by law.”

Spiers was fired after she created a pop-up for Google employees visiting the IRI Consultants website. “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities,” the notification read, according to The Guardian. The company said Spiers had violated security policies, a statement that hurt her reputation in the tech community. Now, the NLRB has found the firing was unlawful.

“This week the NLRB issued a complaint on my behalf. They found that I was illegally terminated for trying to help my colleagues,” Spiers said. “Colleagues and strangers believe I abused my role because of lies told by Google management while they were retaliating against me. The NLRB can order Google to reinstate me, but it cannot reverse the harm done to my credibility.”

If Google chooses not to settle, the complaint will go before an administrative judge in the coming months, according to The New York Times. The company could be forced to pay back wages to both Berland and Spiers, and rehire them, if it loses the case.

Google, once known as the happiest company in tech, has been roiled in scandal in recent years. The company paid former executive Andy Rubin $90 million in the wake of a sexual harassment investigation, which set off a wave of protests at offices across the globe. More than 20,000 employees and contractors participated in the walkouts.

Workers have also protested the company’s decision to work with the Department of Defense on Project Maven, an AI initiative that could help the US improve its drone strike capabilities. In 2018, more than 3,100 employees signed a petition urging CEO Sundar Pichai to pull out of the project.

In a statement emailed to The Verge, a Google spokesperson doubled down on the company’s position. “We’re proud of that culture and are committed to defending it against attempts by individuals to deliberately undermine it — including by violating security policies and internal systems,” they said. “We’ll continue to provide information to the NLRB and the administrative judge about our decision to terminate or discipline employees who abused their privileged access to internal systems, such as our security tools or colleagues’ calendars. Such actions are a serious violation of our policies and an unacceptable breach of a trusted responsibility, and we will be defending our position.”