WeChat may be a staple of Chinese digital life, but that isn't stopping the country's government from clamping down on the messaging giant's behavior. Reutersreports that Beijing prosecutors have sued Tencent over claims We Chat's restricted "youth mode" violates laws protecting children. The lawsuit didn't explain how the mode allegedly violated the law.

Youth mode prevents younger users from accessing payments, finding nearby friends and playing certain games. It's effectively a parental control tool for a "super app" that can handle many daily tasks in China.

Tencent hasn't commented on the lawsuit. It recently set stricter limits for young Honor of Kings players, capping their play time to just an hour a day on weekdays.

The suit might be part of a broader crackdown. China's state media blasted the game industry and online platforms just this week, and officials have previously demanded better protections against online threats to kids. The country has also focused much of its recent attention on reining in tech giants like Tencent, Alibaba and Didi, slapping them with antitrust fines and temporary app bans — the suit may be an extension of that effort.

Twitter is scrambling to reassure India and reclaim its liability protections for user-made content. Bloombergreports that Twitter has told an Indian court it appointed grievance and nodal officers to honor new rules demanding local full-time staff to handle handle issues like compliance and law enforcement matters. The court previously claimed Twitter was in "total noncompliance" and had stripped the protections, leaving Twitter legally vulnerable if users posed illegal material.

Police have filed cases against Twitter multiple times based on user actions, including child pornography violations or posting controversial political maps.

The social media giant isn't safe yet. The government will have to determine whether or not the executives put India in compliance with the rules. Another hearing is due on August 10th. Companies like Facebook, Google and Telegram have already complied the requirements.

Twitter has had a fractious relationship with the Indian government. The social media giant refused to block critics of the Indian government after officials threatened to arrest employees in early February. Accordingly, India ordered Twitter to pull criticism of its pandemic response after COVID-19 cases surged in April. The alleged rule violations just represented an escalation of already-high tensions in that regard. Not that Twitter has much choice but to comply — leaving the Indian market would deliver a serious blow to its business while having little impact on censorship in the country.

Earlier this week, Facebook followed through on its threats to cut a group of New York University researchers off from its platform. The researchers were part of a project called the Ad Observatory, which recruited volunteers to study how Facebook targets political ads on its platform.

In it decision to ban the researchers, Facebook repeatedly referred to its obligations to the FTC saying it was acting against the researchers “in line with our privacy program under the FTC Order” — a reference to the company’s 2019 settlement with the agency over lax privacy practices. But the social network’s actions were roundly criticized by the research community and free speech advocates, who said the company was preventing legitimate research under the guise of “scraping.” As Wired pointed out, the company’s agreement with the FTC doesn’t even prohibit what the researchers were actually doing.

Now, the FTC has weighed in, calling the company’s explanation of its actions was “misleading” and “inaccurate.” In a sharply worded letter addressed to Mark Zuckerberg, Acting Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection Samuel Levine, said that he was “disappointed by how your company has conducted itself in this matter.”

“The FTC is committed to protecting the privacy of people, and efforts to shield targeted advertising practices from scrutiny run counter to that mission,” Levine wrote. “Had you honored your commitment to contact us in advance, we would have pointed out that the consent decree does not bar Facebook from creating exceptions for good-faith research in the public interest. Indeed, the FTC supports efforts to shed light on opaque business practices, especially around surveillance-based advertising. While it is not our role to resolve individual disputes between Facebook and third parties, we hope that the company is not invoking privacy – much less the FTC consent order – as a pretext to advance other aims.”

Facebook didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

When California’s fair employment agency sued Activision Blizzard, one of the largest video game studios in the world, on July 20th, it wasn't surprising to hear the allegations of systemic gender discrimination and sexual harassment at the company. It wasn't a shock to read about male executives groping their female colleagues, or loudly joking about rape in the office, or completely ignoring women for promotions. What was surprising was that California wanted to investigate Activision Blizzard at all, considering these issues have seemingly been present since its founding in 1979.

Activision Blizzard is a multibillion-dollar publisher with 9,500 employees and a roster of legendary franchises, including Call of Duty, Overwatch, Diablo and World of Warcraft. On July 20th, California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, alleging executives had fostered an environment of misogyny and frat-boy rule for years, violating equal pay laws and labor codes along the way. This is about more than dirty jokes in the break room — the lawsuit highlights clear disparities in hiring, compensation and professional growth between men and women at Activision Blizzard, and it paints a picture of pervasive sexism and outright abuse in the workplace.

Here’s a rundown of some of the allegations:

• Just 20 percent of all Activision Blizzard employees are women.

• Top leadership roles are filled solely by white men.

• Across the company, women are paid less, promoted slower and fired faster than men.

• HR and executives fail to take complaints of harassment seriously.

• Women of color in particular are micromanaged and overlooked for promotions.

• A pervasive frat-boy culture encourages behavior like “cube crawls,” where male employees grope and sexually harass female co-workers at their desks.

It’s been a few weeks since the lawsuit was filed, and employees, executives and players have all had a chance to respond. Meanwhile, additional reports of longstanding harassment and sexism at Activision Blizzard have continued to roll out, including photos and stories of the “Cosby Suite,” which was specifically named in the filing. According to the lawsuit, this was a hotel room where male employees would gather to harass women at company events, named after the rapist Bill Cosby. 

Days after the filing, Kotaku published photos of the supposed Cosby Suite, showing male Activision Blizzard developers posing on a bed with a framed photo of Bill Cosby at BlizzCon 2013. Screenshots of conversations among the developers discussed gathering “hot chixx for the Coz” and other insulting, immature things (especially when you remember these are middle-aged men, not middle-schoolers).

One of the only executives actually named in the suit was Blizzard head J. Allen Brack, and it alleges he routinely ignored systemic harassment and failed to punish abusers. Brack called the allegations “extremely troubling,” but this line was thrown back in his face on Twitter when independent developer Nels Anderson compared it to a video out of BlizzCon 2010, featuring Brack on the far left. 

In the video, a young woman asks the panel of World of Warcraft developers, all six of whom are white men, whether they'll ever create a female character that doesn't look like she just stepped out of a Victoria's Secret catalog. The panelists laugh and one responds, "Which catalog would you like them to step out of?" They proceed to essentially dismiss her question. At the end of the exchange, Brack piles on and makes a joke about one of the new characters coming from a sexy cow catalog.

On August 3rd, just two weeks after California filed its lawsuit, Brack stepped down from his role as the president of Blizzard. In his place will be GM Mike Ybarra and executive development VP Jen Oneal. Oneal will be the first woman in a president role since Activision’s founding in 1979; the lawsuit notes that there has never been a non-white president or CEO of Activision Blizzard.

Activision Blizzard’s initial response to the lawsuit was tragic, with one leader calling the allegations meritless and distorted. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, who regularly gets into fights with shareholders over the ridiculous fortune he’s amassed, published his own response to the lawsuit, where he essentially promised to listen better. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t alleviate many employees’ concerns. A petition in support of the lawsuit ended up gathering more than 2,000 employee signatures, and workers organized a walk-out just eight days after the filing, calling for systemic change at the studio.

Shareholders weren't bolstered by Kotick's response, either. Investors filed an additional class-action lawsuit against Activision Blizzard on August 3rd, alleging the company failed to raise potential regulatory issues stemming from its discriminatory culture. Blizzard's head of HR, Jesse Meschuk, also left the company in the weeks following the initial lawsuit.

Meanwhile, other major game developers have rallied behind the suit, and former Activision Blizzard leaders have shared their support for employees, apologizing for their parts in sustaining a toxic company culture.

None of this is new. As evidenced by the photos, videos, stats and personal stories flowing out of Activision Blizzard, the company has operated on a bro-first basis for decades, and honestly, it’s been sustained by an industry that largely functions the same way.

In 2019, a wave of accusations against prominent male developers crashed over the industry, and AAA studios like Ubisoft and Riot Games made headlines for fostering toxic workplace environments. California is currently suing Riot over allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination in hiring and pay practices.

But even that’s not new. Women, non-binary people and marginalized folks in the video game industry have been speaking up about systemic harassment and discrimination for literal decades. Sexism is apparent in the hiring and pay habits of many major studios, and it’s also clear in the games themselves, which feature an overabundance of straight, white, male protagonists.

What is surprising, this time around, is that the lawsuit against Activision Blizzard kind of came out of nowhere. It took a blockbuster media report to make California sue Riot in 2020, but the lawsuit against Activision Blizzard appeared on its own, after years of quiet investigation by the Department of Fair Employment and Housing. If sexism is systemic in the video game industry, it feels like the system is finally fighting back.

A harassment and discrimination lawsuit from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) isn’t the only legal battle Activision Blizzard has to worry about anymore. Ahead of the company’s Q2 earnings call on Tuesday, a firm called Rosen Law filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of investors who traded in Activision Blizzard securities between August 4th, 2016 and July 27th, 2021.

The firm, the same one that’s behind a similar lawsuit against CD Projekt RED over the disastrous launch of Cyberpunk 2077, accuses Activision Blizzard of intentionally failing to disclose its ongoing problems with sexual harassment and discrimination. In doing so, Rosen Law alleges the company put itself at greater risk of regulatory legal scrutiny and enforcement. The suit names Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, as well as several other executives, as defendants and seeks to recover damages for investors under federal securities laws.

The suit comes on the same day the company announced J. Allen Brack was “stepping down” from his role as president of Blizzard Entertainment. In its lawsuit, the State of California accuses Brack of taking “no effective remedial measures” to curb the “bro culture” that enabled individuals like Alex Afrasiabi to harass the company’s female employees. Taking his place are Jen Oneal and former Xbox executive Mike Ybarra, who will oversee the studio as co-leaders.

Amazon has been handed its largest ever privacy fine in the EU by Luxembourg's data watchdog. The CNPD fined the company €746 million ($888 million) on July 16th for violating the bloc's strict data privacy laws, known as GDPR. Amazon disclosed the ruling in an SEC filing on Friday in which it slammed the decision as baseless, adding that it intended to defend itself "vigorously in this matter." 

“There has been no data breach, and no customer data has been exposed to any third party,” Amazon told Bloomberg. “These facts are undisputed. We strongly disagree with the CNPD’s ruling.” It added that it plans to appeal the decision. Amazon has its EU headquarters in Luxembourg, tasking the local data regulator with overseeing its compliance.

The penalty is the result of a 2018 complaint by French privacy rights group La Quadrature du Net, which filed numerous lawsuits against Big Tech companies on the behalf of 12,000 people shortly after the GDPR was established that year. 

Among those was a case involving Google's Android operating system that led to France's CNIL regulator slapping the search giant with a $57 million fine in January, 2019 — the biggest GDPR fine to date. The watchdog ruled that the company had violated the GDPR due to its failure to obtain legal consent for data collection related to its ad targeting practices.

The record penalty comes amid heightened scrutiny of Amazon's business in Europe. Its use of data is also at the heart of the EU's antitrust investigation. Following a year-long probe, officials in November reached a preliminary decision that Amazon had breached competition rules by using third-party seller data to boost its own products. At the same time, they launched a second investigation into its alleged preferential treatment of its own products on its site and those of its partners.

The antitrust lawsuit brought by 48 attorneys general against Facebook isn't dead yet. A federal judge dismissed the suit last month, but the AGs have filed a notice of plan to appeal.

“We filed this notice of appeal because we disagree with the court’s decision and must hold Facebook accountable for stifling competition, reducing innovation, and cutting privacy protections,” New York’s attorney general Letitia James said, according to The New York Times. “We can no longer allow Facebook to profit off of exploiting consumer data.”

The suit, which was filed in December, alleged that Facebook created a monopoly and illegally stifled competition through its acquisitions of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. Judge James E. Boasberg of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that too much time had gone by since the mergers were approved for the case to proceed.

On the same day he dismissed the AGs' suit, Boasberg tossed a similar case from the Federal Trade Commission. The agency is expected to file an amended suit next month.

The FTC lawsuit was initially filed in December while Trump administration appointee Joseph Simons led the agency. Big Tech critic Lina Khan was appointed FTC chair last month. Facebook has asked the agency to recuse her from antitrust decisions involving the company.

Facebook has argued against both suits, claiming much of the evidence in the cases was submitted to the FTC before the purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp were rubberstamped. It also claims it doesn't have a monopoly, partly due to competition from the likes of Snap and Twitter, as well as messaging apps.

Following nearly a week of internal unrest, Activision Blizzard has published a letter from CEO Bobby Kotick addressing the company’s original response to the sexual harassment lawsuit brought against it by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) on July 20th. “Our initial responses to the issues we face together, and to your concerns, were, quite frankly, tone deaf,” Kotick says in the letter addressed to Activision Blizzard employees. “It is imperative that we acknowledge all perspectives and experiences and respect the feelings of those who have been mistreated in any way. I am sorry that we did not provide the right empathy and understanding.”

Kotick claims Blizzard Activision is taking “swift action” to ensure a safe, respectful and inclusive working environment for women and other minority groups. The company has hired law firm WilmerHale to review its policies, and Kotick says Activision Blizzard will implement changes to its hiring practices. It also plans to make personnel tweaks and remove content from its games employees and players have said is “inappropriate” in light of the allegations against the company. On Tuesday, the World of Warcraft development team said it would remove specific references from the MMO. While the team didn’t elaborate, those references may involve items and non-playable characters named after Alex Afrasiabi, one of the former Blizzard employees singled out in the DFEH lawsuit for repeated inappropriate behavior.

Notably, the letter doesn’t make mention of forced arbitration, saying only the company “will continue to investigate each and every claim and will not hesitate to take decisive action,” nor does it promise greater transparency when it comes to employee compensation. Those are two issues Activision Blizzard employees who are staging a walkout to protest for better working conditions highlighted in a statement of intent they shared on Tuesday.

In its initial public response to the lawsuit, Activision Blizzard said the allegations from DFEH included “distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past.” In a separate email to employees, Frances Townsend, executive vice president of corporate affairs at the company, claimed the lawsuit presents “a distorted and untrue picture of our company, including factually incorrect, old and out of context stories — some from more than a decade ago.”

The official World of Warcraft Twitter account has announced that it will take immediate action to "remove references that are not appropriate for [its] world." While it didn't elaborate on what those references are, they may pertain to in-game elements connected to its senior creative director Alex Afrasiabi, as Kotaku has noted. Afrasiabi was singled out in the lawsuit filed by California authorities accusing Activision Blizzard of fostering a "frat boy" culture that's become a "breeding ground for harassment and discrimination against women."

According to the lawsuit, Afrasiabi is known for hitting on and touching female employees inappropriately in plain view of other male employees who would try to intervene and stop him. He apparently has such a notorious reputation within the company that his suite was nicknamed the "Crosby Suite after alleged rapist Bill Crosby."(The lawsuit has misspelled Bill Cosby's name.) In addition, executives allegedly knew about his behavior but "took no effective remedial measures." Blizzard President J. Allen Brack talked to him a few times, the lawsuit reads, but gave Afiasiabi a slap on the wrist for the incidents.

Activision Blizzard denied the accusations in the lawsuit and said it "includes distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard's past" in its initial response. Executive Vice President Fran Townsend told employees in a memo that the lawsuit "presented a distorted and untrue picture of [the] company, including factually incorrect, old and out of context stories."

A group of over 800 Activision Blizzard employees decried the company's response to the accusations as "abhorrent and insulting." They wrote in an open letter: "Categorizing the claims that have been made as ‘distorted, and in many cases false’ creates a company atmosphere that disbelieves victims." At least 50 employees working in the company's main office in California are now planning a walkout on Wednesday to protest the company's actions and to demand better working conditions for women.

In WoW's announcement, it said the decision to remove inappropriate elements was made in order to rebuild trust. It admitted that it must earn people's trust with its "actions in the weeks and months to come," though it didn't say what other steps the company intends to take in response to the lawsuit's allegations. 

Employees at Activision Blizzard are calling on the company to issue a new statement in response to the lawsuit it’s facing from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH). If you’ve been following the saga since it broke earlier in the month, you may recall the company brushed off allegations that it had fostered a “frat boy” workplace culture, claiming the lawsuit included “distorted, and in many cases false descriptions of Blizzard’s past.”

Now, in a letter obtained by Polygon, a group of more than 800 Activision Blizzard employees say the statement the company issued was “abhorrent and insulting,” and they’re demanding leadership undertake “immediate” corrective action. “Categorizing the claims that have been made as ‘distorted, and in many cases false’ creates a company atmosphere that disbelieves victims,” the letter states. “Our company executives have claimed that actions will be taken to protect us, but in the face of legal action — and the troubling official responses that followed — we no longer trust that our leaders will place employee safety above their own interests.”

The group specifically calls out the message Frances Townsend, executive vice president of corporate affairs at the publisher, sent to employees after the news broke. In the leaked email, Townsend claims the lawsuit DFEH filed presents “a distorted and untrue picture of our company, including factually incorrect, old and out of context stories — some from more than a decade ago.” According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, the response had some workers “fuming.” The group that signed the letter is calling on Townsend to step down as executive sponsor of the ABK Employee Women’s Network.

The timing of the letter comes after Activision Blizzard reportedly held an ‘all-hands’ meeting with 500 employees. The Zoom call was supposed to include the entire studio, but a scheduling error meant not everyone could join the meeting. Activision executive Joshua Taub allegedly told those in attendance he and CEO Bobby Kotick “have never seen this,” adding that “does not mean this behavior does not happen.” Taub then reportedly said, “we don’t publicize all of these claims, we work with the employee and the person who is accused and try to work on a resolution.” The company has a second meeting planned for tomorrow, according to Uppercut. 

We’ve reached out to Activision Blizzard for comment.