It feels like forever since we all were able to look back on the last 12 months and not say “good riddance, you garbage fire hellscape of a year.” 2021 kicked off with riots at the Capitol and though things seemed to quiet down a little after, all was not well in tech.

There are companies that are obvious additions to this list, like Meta (formerly Facebook) with its repeated transgressions this year. Activision Blizzard faces multiple lawsuits and investigations over allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the workplace, revealing that despite all the growth we hoped we’d made in the last few years, the gaming industry remains toxic.

But there are other businesses that made the lives of workers and consumers miserable on a daily basis, too. And all major companies in Big Tech have to share in the blame. When we put together this roundup of the worst players in tech this year, it’s clear that we’re overdue a reckoning. Let’s hope that in the years to come, the people with the most influence learn how to treat people better.

Carlos Barria / reuters

Meta / Facebook

For the company now known as Meta, 2021 went sideways from the very beginning.

For all its talk about safeguarding the 2020 presidential election, Facebook was ill-prepared for the insurrection that followed on January 6th. The company failed to recognize the danger posed by the “Stop the Steal” movement until after a violent mob stormed the Capitol. Then COO Sheryl Sandberg downplayed the role Facebook had played in the insurrection, only to be promptly proven wrong. In the end, the events of January 6th ultimately forced the platform to do something it had studiously avoided for most of the Trump presidency: Enforce its rules for his account. (Sort of. Trump’s Facebook ban isn’t permanent.)

Elsewhere, the arrival of coronavirus vaccines only highlighted Facebook’s poor track record at combating vaccine misinformation, which surged throughout the pandemic. After years of dragging its feet, the company finally banned misleading or inaccurate vaccine content. But enough damage had already been done. The US Surgeon General said viral health misinformation was an “urgent threat” to public health. President Joe Biden went a step further: saying that Facebook was “killing people.”

This year was also the first time the Oversight Board, created so Facebook could outsource its thorny content moderation decisions, was operational. The body has pushed the social network to change some policies and has repeatedly criticized the company for a lack of transparency and ability to enforce its rules evenly.

POOL New / reuters

Then came Frances Haugen, the former employee turned whistleblower who left the company with thousands of pages of internal research and other documents that have since become known as the “Facebook Papers.” Her disclosures paint a picture of a company that is unwilling or unable to adequately tackle some of its biggest problems, particularly outside the United States and Europe. She also revealed internal research about the effect of Instagram on teens, which was immediately seized on by lawmakers in Congress.

Amid all that, Zuckerberg announced not an overhaul of the company’s policies, nor a review of its internal research, but… a new name: Meta. It’s meant to symbolize the company’s newfound commitment to a metaverse that no one can fully explain. Will the company change its content moderation policies when it comes to the metaverse? Will it invest more in safety for non-western countries? How will it address hate speech in the metaverse? Facebook, er Meta, has yet to meaningfully address any of those questions. But if recent history is a guide, we all have a lot to worry about.

— Karissa Bell

Truth Social

You’d be forgiven if, amidst the news of actual importance in 2021, you forgot about TRUTH Social — the upcoming site built by disgraced former president Donald J. Trump. Trump spent most of his presidency fear-mongering and spouting lies on Twitter and other social platforms, which finally resulted in him being banned from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and most other services of note. While Trump is wrongfully convinced that this is an unlawful witch hunt, he’s also decided to say “who needs ‘em?” and launch his own.

TRUTH was announced in October, with a limited beta planned for November before a full public launch in 2022. Immediately, dedicated internet pranksters found a test version of the site in the open and signed up for a slew of high-profile accounts (including, naturally, donaldjtrump and mikepence). (The donaldjtrump account had a profile picture of a defecating pig, for good measure.)

The test was quickly shut down, but not before it was revealed to be basically a Twitter clone running on the open-source software Mastodon. But since TRUTH Social didn’t properly cite its usage and didn’t share the source code with users, the site was in violation of Mastadon’s open-source license agreement.

TRUTH’S terms of service were also revealed, and we learned that it was essentially hoping to be protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which currently states that services like Twitter and even TRUTH aren’t responsible for what their users post. This shields companies from liability for the awful things those users might share.

We blissfully haven’t heard much about TRUTH Social since its disastrous first few days in the public spotlight; the company missed the November beta launch date and there’s no update on when the promised full launch might happen. Based on these early struggles, it’s easy to call TRUTH Social a loser of 2021 – but the citizens of the internet who didn’t have to deal with the ugly reality of a Trump-backed social network are all undoubtedly winners.

— Nathan Ingraham

Wolfgang Rattay / reuters

Global chip supply

The rise in demand for PCs, gadgets and cars couldn't keep up with the slowing production in global chip supply. That's why it's still tough to find a PlayStation 5 a year after its launch, and why used car prices have gone absolutely bonkers. This is our new reality for the next few years, at least until chip suppliers can ramp up production and start spinning up new fabrication plants. Basically, be prepared to use all of your gear for a bit longer without upgrading.

— Devindra Hardawar

Activision Blizzard

There are far too many stories of sexual harassment and discrimination in the video game industry. Over the past few years, reports of systemic misogyny and abuse have poured out of Riot Games, Ubisoft and many other studios large and small, and the problems date back decades.

Among all this trash, Activision Blizzard stands out as one of the worst.

Activision Blizzard was accused of fostering a culture of sexual harassment by California’s fair-employment agency in July, and multiple organizations have since launched investigations into the studio, uncovering years of mismanagement in the process. According to the California lawsuit, leaders at the studio cultivated a frat house-style environment where sexual harassment was commonplace and gender discrimination was systemic. The fair employment agency found that all of Activision Blizzard’s top leadership positions were held by white men, just 20 percent of all employees identified as women and reports of harassment were routinely ignored.

In December, an employee named Christine went public with her experience at Blizzard, saying she was inappropriately touched by male coworkers, propositioned for sex by her superiors and subjected to crude comments about her body. After reporting the abuse to management, she said she was demoted and told to “get over it.”

Allen J. Schaben via Getty Images

Activision Blizzard’s response to these accusations has been tragic. Back in July, CEO Bobby Kotick sent an email to employees dismissing the California lawsuit, but he signed a female employee’s name to it. The response was roundly and loudly criticized, with employees calling it “insulting” and “abhorrent.” Kotick let Frances Townsend, one of the few women executives at Activision Blizzard, take the heat for that letter for months, losing her spot on the studio’s women’s network in the process. Publicly, Kotick called the email “tone-deaf.”

Blizzard head J. Allen Brack lost his job shortly after the lawsuit was filed, and Kotick offered a co-leadership role to Mike Ybarra and Jennifer Oneal, who became the first woman to hold a president title since the studio’s founding in 1979. Oneal left the company shortly after this promotion, reportedly because she was being paid less than Ybarra, and she felt “tokenized, marginalized and discriminated against” at the studio.

Activision Blizzard employees have walked out multiple times this year, calling for a culture shift. Major business partners, including PlayStation and Xbox, have said they’re reevaluating their relationships with the studio. Shareholders and media outlets alike are calling for Kotick to resign.

At this point, investors, employees, analysts, major gaming companies and multiple government agencies agree that Activision Blizzard is a hotbed of discrimination and sexual harassment, and it’s in urgent need of restructuring. In his 30 years as CEO of Activision Blizzard, this is the closest Kotick has come to actually being ousted from his position of power.

From that angle, it almost feels like a good year for the company. Almost.

— Jessica Conditt

Miquel Benitez via Getty Images

5G

I’m so disappointed with 5G. If, like me, you’ve watched the networking standard since at least 2014, you’ll likely agree. The promises about downloading feature films in seconds were really mostly advantages of mmWave technology, which as of today still hasn’t broadly rolled out. The sub-6 network that’s more widely available today on carriers like T-Mobile and AT&T offer a barely noticeable speed boost, and the reported latency improvements it was supposed to bring haven’t been delivered in the real world.

Yes, the telecom industry did meet its target launch date of 2020 for an initial rollout of the new standard. But 5G is still too confusing for the average consumer. Any time a company says in a briefing that a new product is 5G-ready, a guaranteed follow-up question is “Does that mean sub-6 or mmWave?” And with the recent addition of mid-band spectrum to the mix, the layers of compatibility are only going to make things more tedious.

I’ve been more than forgiving in the last couple of years, but it’s been difficult to ignore the complete mess that is the state of 5G in the US today. Sure, we’ve had more pressing issues to deal with, but if consumers are going to embrace the new standards (and be convinced to spend money for the privilege of 5G on their devices), the industry needs to get its act together and either commit to a more coherent message or more consistent rollout.

— Cherlynn Low

Workers and big tech 

For a long time, working at a tech giant like Google or Apple was an enviable position. But 2021 pulled back the curtain a bit on some of these companies, exposing deep-rooted issues with how employees are treated. While not everyone at these massive organizations may be dealing with sexual harassment or poor working conditions (to name just a few issues), the many employees speaking out across the industry are indicative of an underlying trend that need to be confronted by tech’s most powerful leaders.

Mike Blake / reuters

Amazon’s poor treatment of its warehouse workers is well-known, and reports persisted in 2021. At the same time, the company pushed back hard against unionization efforts in Alabama. While the union drive was defeated in a vote, a regional office of the National Labor Relations Board recently ordered a new election, effectively invalidating the results of the earlier one. The union had filed a formal objection right after the election, and while there’s no word on when a new election will take place, it’s clear that Amazon will be under intense scrutiny when it does. The same should hold if New York City Amazon workers hold a union vote; reports have indicated that could happen soon.

Apple workers also exposed issues within the company this year. In late August, a call went out for current and former employees to share stories of discrimination, harassment and retaliation that they had experienced. This led to the start of the #AppleToo website, where these stories are regularly published.

As Jess already explained in detail above, employees at Activision Blizzard spoke up about a misogynistic culture rife with sexual harassment, as well. Reports indicated male executives groped female colleagues while other employees joked about rape or ignored women for promotions. The revelations have been so damning a lawsuit was filed by California’s Department of Fair Employment, though somehow Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick still has his job.

Google isn’t free from sin, either – employees led a massive walkout back in 2018 around how it dealt with sexual harassment (among other concerns). It hasn’t dealt with things on the same scale as other companies this year, but Google’s recent decision that it wasn’t raising pay to match inflation has certainly rankled workers. These are just a few high-profile examples, but together they paint a dark picture of the environment at some of tech’s biggest corporations. Perhaps the only upside here is that these hopefully put pressure on those in charge to clean house and improve things as quickly as possible.

— N.I.

Oculus

Meta didn't even give Oculus a proper funeral. Instead of a celebratory news announcement, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth pushed out a quick post to announce that the Oculus brand was being retired. What a sad fate for a company directly tied to the rise of consumer VR. (But perhaps this was the best way for Meta to separate itself from the legacy of Oculus's controversial founder Palmer Luckey.)

— D.H.

Joe Skipper / reuters

Blue Origin

2021 was a massive year for the burgeoning private spacelift industry. Firsts were made, records were achieved and billions of dollars worth of government contracts were awarded. It should have been a surefire win for all three of the industry’s leading companies — SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and Blue Origin — but then one of them managed to repeatedly shoot itself in the proverbial landing strut more than the other two combined.

Now, that’s not to say Blue Origin didn’t enjoy its share of success this year. CEO Jeff Bezos put his money where his oversized stetson is and made a historic trip out to the Karman line along with both the oldest (at least at that point) and youngest people to ever venture into space. This past November, the company even won financial backing from NASA to help build out its bonkers Orbital Reef commercial space station design.

However, those achievements were often overshadowed by the company’s public pettiness and truculence. For example, ahead of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic making its own historic first successful flight into space this past July, Blue Origin took to Twitter to talk a little trash. This is a little rich from the company that has reportedly become a toxic workplace.

More embarrassing still was Bezos’ repeated, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempts to secure Blue Origin a lucrative NASA contract. See, back in April, NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion (yes, with a B) Artemis lunar lander contract.

Blue Origin immediately protested to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) over NASA’s “fundamentally unfair” decision against it, bringing work on the lunar program to a standstill until July, when the GAO kindly told Blue Origin to take its $2 billion and get out. Blue Origin did not.

Instead, the space lift company doubled down, suing NASA in open federal court, "in an attempt to remedy the flaws in the acquisition process found in NASA's Human Landing System," per a Blue Origin representative in August. The court was not at all convinced and ruled against the plaintiffs, proving SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s jab true. Blue Origin really can’t sue its way to the Moon.

— Andrew Tarantola

Microsoft Edge

Microsoft finally managed to make its Edge web browser a solid competitor to Chrome, Safari and Firefox by integrating the Chromium open source framework. And then, inexplicably, it began to pile on bloat, like a predatory "buy now pay later" feature and cringey anti-Chrome warnings. All of a sudden, Edge seems more like a way to trap and commodify its users, instead of delivering a solid web experience. It's as if Microsoft made it harder to change your default browser in Windows 11 on purpose (thankfully, it's testing out a simpler method, following plenty of industry criticism).

— D.H.

Riot Games has agreed to pay $100 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed in November 2018 by former employees alleging gender discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation. The League of Legends publisher was only going to pay $10 million per the preliminary settlement in 2019, but the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing went to court to block the agreement. $10 million was much too small, the agency argued, and the women suing the company could be entitled to as much as $400 million.

The lawsuit was originally filed by Melanie McCracken and Jess Negrón after a Kotaku report exposed the developers' "men-first" and "bro" company culture. In the report, Kotaku detailed employees' experiences within the company, such as instances of "genital grabbing" and senior leaders passing around lists of employees they would sleep with. One former employee who left the company due to sexism said working for Riot was like "working at a giant fraternity."

Under the terms of the settlement, $80 million will go towards members of the class-action lawsuit, while $20 million will go towards the plaintiffs' legal fees. All employees and contractors in California who identify as women and who worked at Riot between November 2014 until present day qualify for a payout. Those who've been with the company longer will get a bigger cut than newer workers. And there are quite a lot of newer ones — while only around 1,000 workers were qualified for a payout in 2019, there are now around 2,300 eligible personnel. In a statement, the developer told The Washington Post:

"Three years ago, Riot was at the heart of what became a reckoning in our industry. We had to face the fact that despite our best intentions, we hadn’t always lived up to our values. As a company we stood at a crossroads; we could deny the shortcomings of our culture, or we could apologize, correct course, and build a better Riot. We chose the latter... While we'e proud of how far we’ve come since 2018, we must also take responsibility for the past. We hope that this settlement properly acknowledges those who had negative experiences at Riot."

In addition to paying $100 million, Riot Games is also required to get a third-party expert to conduct "sex/gender equity analysis of total compensation, assignment and promotion outcomes for California employees." Riot must also allow pay transparency and will have to be monitored by a third party, who'll keep an eye on things like HR complaints and pay equity, for three years. The monitor will be able to recommend changes to the company that Riot can implement. 

Genie Harrison, the women's rights attorney who represented the plaintiffs, said in a statement:

"This is a great day for the women of Riot Games – and for women at all video game and tech companies – who deserve a workplace that is free of harassment and discrimination. We appreciate Riot’s introspection and work since 2018 toward becoming a more diverse and inclusive company, its willingness to take responsibility for its past, and its commitment to fairness and equality in the future. Along with the DFEH and DLSE, the brave women of Riot who carried the torch of justice have achieved a precedent-setting result that stands as a beacon for other women and as a warning that employers had better pay and treat women fairly, or else be held accountable."

A TikTok moderator has sued the social media platform and its parent ByteDance over trauma caused by graphic videos, Bloomberg has reported. In a proposed class-action lawsuit, moderator Candie Frazier said that she has screened videos showing violence, school shootings, fatal falls and even cannibalism. "Plaintiff has trouble sleeping and when she does sleep, she has horrific nightmares," the lawsuit states.

Compounding the problem, TikTok allegedly requires moderators to work 12-hour shifts with only a one-hour lunch and two 15-minute breaks. "Due to the sheer volume of content, content moderators are permitted no more than 25 seconds per video, and simultaneously view three to ten videos at the same time," according to the complaint. 

Plaintiff has trouble sleeping and when she does sleep, she has horrific nightmares.

Along with other social media companies including Facebook and YouTube, TikTok developed guidelines to help moderators cope with child abuse and other traumatic images. Among the suggestions is that companies limit moderator shifts to four hours and provide psychological support. However, TikTok allegedly failed to implement those guidelines, according to the lawsuit.

Content moderators take the brunt of graphic and traumatic images that appear on social media, making sure that users don't have to experience them. One company that provides content moderators for large tech firms even acknowledged in a consent form that the job can cause post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, social media companies have been criticized by their mods and others for not paying enough given the psychological hazards, and not providing enough mental health support. A similar lawsuit was filed against Facebook in 2018. 

Frazier is hoping to represent other Tiktok screeners in a class-action suit, and is asking for compensation for psychological injuries and a court order for a medical fund for moderators. 

Block may have hit a snag in its rebranding effort. Per The Wall Street Journal, H&R Block is suing the company formerly known as Square. In a federal complaint filed on Thursday, the tax-prep firm said the name change could hurt its brand. It wants Jack Dorsey’s payments outfit to stop using the name and a logo it contends is “nearly identical” to its own.

“The goodwill that Block has so carefully created and nurtured over the past six decades is now under attack by a Silicon Valley fintech company,” it said. We’ve reached out to Block, the other one, for comment.

Square changed its name to Block at the start of December. At the time, the company said it wanted a name that better reflected the expansion of its business beyond payments and the growing importance of blockchain technologies to its identity. Since its founding in 2009, Block’s business has expanded to include stock and crypto trading, money lending and even music streaming.

Where things may get tricky in terms of a trademark infringement complaint is that Block bought Credit Karma's tax-prep business in 2020. It plans to offer tax returns through its Cash App. In trademark cases, a court will look at similarities between the products and services two companies offer. It will also consider how the two may compete against one another in the future. Jack, if you're reading this: it's never been a better time to rebrand the company to "Tesseract."

They may not be a household name yet, but workers at Vodeo Games are trying to set a positive example for their industry. The studio, which was founded this year by Threes designer Ashley Vollmer, has successfully unionized with CODE-CWA — the Communication Workers of America's Campaign to Organize Digital Employees.

Operating out of various locations in the US and Canada, the all-remote team of 13 is an unusual case for a few reasons. Foremost, about half of the bargaining unit are independent contractors – typically the exact sort of workers left out of, or deemed ineligible for, a union.

And while much of the push to unionize digital workspaces in recent years has focused on curbing abuses by management and pay imbalances, Vodeo's does not appear to stem from a need to course-correct away from imminent disaster. Rather, their desire to unionize seems rooted in wanting to maintain an equitable workplace. “They’re not organizing because there’s some big scary boss, like Bobby Kotick or someone,” campaign lead for CODE-CWA Emma Kinema told Polygon. “They’re organizing because they care so much about the work they do, and they want more of a say over how it’s done — the conditions in which they work to actually make those games that they care about.”

As Kinema alludes to, the games industry has been going through a period of great internal upheaval. Whistleblowers within Rocksteady, Riot, Wildlife and Quantic Dream, have detailed harassment and discrimination. There has also been increased pushback against industry practices such as “crunch,” in which studios demand herculean overtime hours from staff in order to hit targeted release dates. Some Activision-Blizzard workers walked off the job, demanding among other things, the resignation of their CEO, Bobby Kotick. They've set up a strike fund and are in the midst of their own union drive. 

“All workers deserve a union and a say in how their workplace is run, no matter where they work, what their employment status is, or what kind of conditions they work under," Myriame Lachapelle, a producer at Vodeo Games, wrote in a statement to press. "We have been inspired by the growing worker organizing within the gaming industry and hope we can set a new precedent for industry-wide standards that will better our shared working conditions and inspire others to do the same.”

Vodeo released its first game, the Peggle-like RPG Beast Breaker, in September to largely positive reviews. It's available for PC, Mac and Switch.

In the wake of Jessica Barraza’s lawsuit last month, six more current and former female employees have come forward to accuse Tesla of fostering a culture of rampant sexual harassment at its Fremont factory in California. In separate complaints filed on Tuesday with the Superior Court in Alameda County, the women said they were consistently subjected to catcalling, unwanted advances, physical contact and discrimination while at work.

Jessica Brooks, one of the women who sued Tesla, alleges she was harassed on her first day of orientation at the automaker. She claims a supervisor told his male subordinates to “check out the new girl.” Brooks says the harassment was so constant she eventually stacked boxes around her workstation to deter her coworkers from whistling at her. Brooks also claims she complained of the situation to Tesla’s HR department. The company allegedly responded by moving Brooks to a different part of the factory instead of addressing the situation directly.

“I was so tired of the unwanted attention and the males gawking at me I proceeded to create barriers around me just so I could get some relief,” Brooks told The Washington Post. “That was something I felt necessary just so I can do my job.”

When Jessica Barraza sued Tesla last month, she said she was subjected to “nightmarish” working conditions at the company’s Fremont plant. Barraza’s lawsuit described a factory floor that looked more like “a crude, archaic construction site or frat house” than the site of one of the most advanced EV makers in the country. Most of the seven women who have sued Tesla have linked the abuse they experienced to the behavior of CEO Elon Musk. “He would make 69 or 420 jokes … which caused the technicians to be even worse,” said one of the complaints.

The suit comes on the same day five former SpaceX employees accused Musk’s other company of doing little to stop sexual harassment. We’ve reached out to Tesla for comment. The automaker does not operate a public relations department. When a federal court recently ordered Tesla to pay $137 million to a Black worker who said they were subjected to daily racist abuse at the company’s Fremont factory, the company said: “We continue to grow and improve in how we address employee concerns. Occasionally, we’ll get it wrong, and when that happens we should be held accountable.”

MGM Resorts is letting applicants try out casino and hotel jobs in virtual reality (VR) before signing on, Business Insider has reported. It's part of a new effort to reduce employee attrition during the "great resignation" that has caused labor shortages in the US and elsewhere during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The casino and resort group is using headsets from a VR company called Strivr that specializes in virtual training for industry health and safety, customer service and more. The idea is to let employees experience typical job activities so that they know what to expect. "It can be very difficult just to verbally explain the types of positions or show a video," MGM Resorts' chief HR officer Laura Lee told BI. Using VR, by contrast, lets applicants "throw a headset on and really experience the job."

MGM plans to use the headsets at its offices and possibly career fairs, starting in January. The idea is to let potential customer service employees experience key aspects of the job, both positive and negative. For instance, the MGM Resorts VR module would include interactions with difficult guests, something that has reportedly become more common with COVID.

The negative interactions could discourage some candidates, but MGM expects that it would also allow for better hiring decisions. The use of the tech "might've resolved some turnover we experienced when people accepted positions and then realized it wasn't quite what they thought it would be," said Lee.

MGM plans to use the tech for its proposed $9.1 billion hotel, resort and casino in Osaka, Japan. It would be the first casino in the nation, so potential employees may not be familiar with typical jobs. As such, the VR option could be offered to candidates (it won't be required) to show them customer-oriented functions like hotel check-ins and gaming operations.

VR might not be the hit everyone expected in the consumer space, but it's certainly caught on with enterprises, particularly for training. MGM also uses Strivr's tech for customer-interaction training with new employees, saying it allows them to fail without consequences while learning a role. "Virtual Reality gives employees the opportunity to think and correct themselves without getting stressed or worried that they did something wrong," Lee said in a Strivr webinar. 

Back in November, Apple engineer Cher Scarlett left the tech giant. Scarlett was one of the lead organizers of the #AppleToo movement and aired fellow employees' and workers' grievances against the company on their behalf. She also filed a complaint against Apple with the National Labor Relations Board for allegedly suppressing workers' organizing efforts and interfering with surveys involving gender pay equity. The former Apple engineer was supposed to withdraw her complaint as part of the settlement when she left. Now, though, she told Forbes that she's no longer withdrawing her complaint because of the way Apple chose to execute the terms it agreed to. 

Under the terms of their settlement, Scarlett would receive a one-year severance package if she withdraws her complaint with the NLRB. Apple also agreed to publicly acknowledge workers' rights to talk about their salaries and workplace conditions. "One of the requests I made was for there to be a very public, visible affirmation that employees are allowed to discuss their workplace conditions and compensation, both internally and externally," she told Forbes.

While Apple did acknowledge workers' rights to discuss pay, the company only posted its stance on its internal human resources page. Also, it allegedly made the post on November 19th, the weekend before employees' Thanksgiving vacation, when people may not be paying attention to anything work-related. The company also took the post down by Monday after the holidays when employees have only just started coming back to work.

In addition, Scarlett said Apple refused to make the 22 changes in the settlement document that the NLRB had requested. One of those changes involve a part in the settlement that asks Scarlett not to "solicit, encourage or incite anyone to file any charge or complaint with any administrative agency or Court against Apple" for a year after the settlement is executed. Apparently, the NLRB requested for the words "encourage or incite" to be removed from the paragraph. Scarlett says that kind of language would prevent her from helping Apple employees organize or file complaints against the company. 

So far, Scarlett has reportedly only received less than half of the settlement she was promised, and she'd likely no longer get the rest now that she isn't withdrawing her labor board complaint anymore. Apple is also facing another NLRB complaint filed by former senior engineering program manager Ashley Gjøvik who was fired in September. Gjøvik previously said that she was put on indefinite paid administrative leave after raising concerns about sexism in the workplace, as well as dealing with an unsafe and hostile work environment. 

Google told employees at a virtual all-hands meeting Tuesday that it will not be adjusting workers' pay to match inflation. In other words, Google's rank and file will be effectively earning less, even while the company has thrived, achieving record profits for five consecutive quarters.

According to audio shared with CNBC, CEO Sundar Pichai read a question from his staff concerning the rising cost of just about everything, and the decision by some companies to offset those hardships with commensurate pay raises. The company's vice president of compensation, Frank Wagner, reportedly responded that: “As I mentioned previously in other meetings, when we see price inflation increasing, we also see increases in the cost of labor or market pay rate," and that "those have been higher than in recent past and our compensation budgets have reflected that.”

If you're a tech working looking to talk about issues in your workplace, you can reach me confidentially on Signal at 646.983.9846

Raises of this kind are fairly standard for many businesses, and are typically referred to as "cost of living adjustments." Wagner, however, claimed any potential pay raises ought to reflect "performance" instead of a smaller but more broadly implemented increase.

Google has shown a willingness to adjust compensation related to the realities of the pandemic: by cutting pay for workers who chose to remain remote in locations with lower costs of living. In some cases these salary reductions were estimated to be as much as 25%, according to Reuters.

In the midst of multiple lawsuits and investigations over allegations of gender discrimination and sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard, an employee on Wednesday made a public statement about the abuse she says she's experienced over her four-year career at the studio. Christine works for Blizzard, the group responsible for games including Overwatch and Diablo, and she stood outside the studio's headquarters in Irvine, California, with her lawyer, Lisa Bloom, by her side. 

Through tears, Christine said she experienced years of sexual harassment at Blizzard, even though it had started out as her "dream job."

"I was so excited to be a part of a community that seemed to care so much about their employees," Christine said. "Unfortunately, that didn't happen to me. Since I've been employed at Blizzard, I've been subjected to rude comments about my body, unwanted sexual advances, inappropriately touched, subjected to alcohol-infused team events and cube crawls, invited to have casual sex with my supervisors, and surrounded by a frat-boy culture that's detrimental to women."

Christine said she brought these negative experiences to her supervisors and they were brushed aside. According to her statement, her superiors said the men harassing her were "just joking" and that she should "get over it." She was told not to go to HR. She was told her abusers had done nothing wrong in the eyes of the law.

Christine said that after she complained about the sexual abuse she was experiencing, she was demoted and faced retaliation. She said she was denied shares in the company and full profit-sharing, and she received minimal raises.

In her statement, Christine said her mental health was shattered by these events, but she was going public in order to fight for a safe work environment for all Activision Blizzard employees.

"Blizzard has some amazing people that work for them, but we need to feel safe and supported by people in leadership roles, and hold people accountable for their actions," she said.

Activision Blizzard is facing multiple investigations and lawsuits regarding its alleged frat-boy culture. The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing is suing the studio after an investigation uncovered years of discriminatory hiring practices, a systemic failure to treat sexual harassment seriously, and a culture that encouraged abuse. The result, according to the DFEH report, was a studio where just 20 percent of employees were women, and leadership roles were held only by white men.

Lisa Bloom, Christine's lawyer, made a statement of her own after the employee spoke.

"We are here because sexual harassment victims at Activision Blizzard have been ignored," Bloom said. "They are still suffering and it's time that they are prioritized."

Following an investigation by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission earlier this year, Activision Blizzard was ordered to establish an $18 million fund to compensate victims of sexual harassment and gender discrimination at the studio. Bloom argued that this amount is far too low, considering there are hundreds of victims. She also pointed out that Activision Blizzard has already missed critical deadlines when it comes to distributing this money.

"I think we can all agree that the $18 million number is woefully inadequate," Bloom said.

Bloom then outlined three demands. She first said Activision Blizzard should establish a streamlined, fair and fast process for all victims to resolve their legal claims, and asked for a fund exceeding $100 million. Second, Bloom said the studio should deliver a real apology to Christine and the other victims, and third, she demanded a review by a neutral third party of the career damage employees like Christine have endured, with the goal of remedying any discriminatory decisions.

Bloom has ample experience in this legal arena, most recently representing victims of Jeffrey Epstein.

Activision Blizzard employees have staged a handful of walkouts in protest of the studio's response to these allegations, which has been dismissive and generally terrible. More than 800 workers in November signed a petition calling for CEO Bobby Kotick to resign, considering he's held that position for 30 years and has overseen the alleged culture of harassment and discrimination the entire time. Kotick's tenure at the studio and his power over the board is also likely why he hasn't yet been forced out.