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Uber Women To CEO Travis Kalanick: We Have A Systemic Problem

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Uber CEO Travis Kalanick joined a group of more than 100 female engineers on Thursday to discuss the explosive allegations of sexual harassment and sexism recently leveled against the ride-hailing company. During an hour-long meeting, the engineers grilled Kalanick on what they say is a systemic problem at the company and urged him to begin “listening to your own people,” according to an audio recording of obtained by BuzzFeed News.

“In a situation where many women have experienced this kind of thing, the onus is on us to earn credibility,” Kalanick said. “Part of how we get to that place where there’s more optimism is by taking it and apologizing, understanding and doing everything we can to get to the bottom of it.”

Held four days after the publication of a damning essay penned by former Uber engineer Susan Fowler Rigetti, the meeting revealed a company scrambling to address an ugly crisis, with a contrite and emotional Kalanick promising “credible, thorough justice” via an internal investigation by former attorney general Eric Holder and Uber board member Arianna Huffington.

“There are people in this room who have experienced things that are incredibly unjust.”

“I think that we should kind of address the elephant in the room … which is that everyone who’s in these rooms now … believes that there is a systemic problem here. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t,” one engineer told Kalanick. “I do not think that we need [Eric Holder’s] help in admitting to ourselves as a company that we have a systemic problem.”

“Fair enough. Fair enough. Fair enough,” Kalanick replied. “I understand.”

Circling back to the same question later in the meeting, Kalanick added, “There are people in this room who have experienced things that are incredibly unjust. I want to root out the injustice. I want to get at the people who are making this place a bad place. And you have my commitment. I understand that this is bigger than the Susan situation and I want you to know that I’m all about rooting this out and being very aggressive about that, while also being supportive and empathetic and trying to build that support and empathy throughout the organization.”

Kalanick’s meeting with Uber’s “Lady Eng” group caps a week of upset and declining morale at the ride-hail company which is still bruised from last month’s viral deleteUber campaign. Rigetti's essay inspired a flood of criticism and media scrutiny, that Kalanick&039;s apology to Uber employees during a Tuesday company-wide meeting has done little to temper. On Wednesday, the New York Times published a scathing account of the company’s work culture, citing an incident in which a manager groped a female employee, and another case in which a different manager threatened to beat an underperforming employee with a baseball bat. A day later, Uber investors Mitch and Freada Kapor published an open letter to Uber&039;s board and investors decrying “toxic patterns” at the company and criticizing it for choosing “a team of insiders” to investigate its destructive culture and make recommendations for change.”

“Eric Holder has been working on behalf of Uber since at least last June, when he and his firm were hired to advocate on behalf of Uber to lawmakers concerning using fingerprints as part of background checks on drivers,” the Kapors explained. “Arianna Huffington has held a board seat for about a year and is deeply invested in the company weathering the PR crisis.”

Kalanick did his best to rebut this criticism during the Lady Eng meeting. “There are very few law firms in the world that we haven’t worked with in some way,” he said. “The amount of fees that have gone to Eric Holder is as close to 0 as you can get to date.”

Liane Hornsey, Uber’s chief human resources officer, also attended the meeting and urged employees to trust that the company is working to address its aggressive workplace culture. “I know many people are in pain, and I know there’s many things we have to go through together,” she said. “But at some point, we just have to shift into something that is more positive and assumes trust, and tries to believe that we’re doing the right thing.”

Another engineer asked Kalanick what he thought of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s comments two years ago that women should trust that “the system will actually give you the right raises,” despite low diversity at technology companies.

“I believe that first the trust must be earned,” Kalanick said. “But i also understand that we’re operating here in a system that hasn&039;t earned that trust. … God-willing, we will earn it. But we still need to do that.”

Uber declined comment.

Quelle: <a href="Uber Women To CEO Travis Kalanick: We Have A Systemic Problem“>BuzzFeed

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Amazon Says Your Alexa Recordings Are Protected By The First Amendment

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Amazon is turning to the First Amendment to support its refusal to give law enforcement recordings and responses captured by the Alexa voice assistant on an Amazon Echo speaker that may help police solve a murder case.

After James Bates was charged with murdering his colleague Victor Collins in Walmart&039;s hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas in November 2015, police issued a search warrant for the contents of Bates&#039; Echo speaker. But Amazon has fired back with a 90-page brief contending that the records Alexa collected are protected free speech. Forbes has reproduced the document in full.

Bates also owned an LG Nexus cell phone, which, as Amazon noted in its brief, could contain his Echo&039;s recording if he had downloaded the Alexa app. Amazon has already handed over Bates’ purchase history and account information to law enforcement, but it has declined to release his speaker’s records.

In its brief, Amazon argued, “Such government demands inevitably chill users from exercising their First Amendment rights to seek and receive information and expressive content in the privacy of their own home, conduct which lies at the core of the Constitution.”

As the Echo becomes more popular — the company sold out of the speaker during the 2016 holidays despite increase production — Bates&039; case holds implications for a growing number of American homes. If Amazon loses its fight and is forced to give police Bates&039; Alexa recordings, it will set a significant precedent. Knowledge that the government and police may gain access to consumers&039; Echo recordings could damage trust in Alexa, a product so beloved that people sometimes propose to the AI voice assistant.

Amazon cited Riley v. California, a 2014 US Supreme Court case ruling that warrantless searches of electronic devices and digital records are unconstitutional, to say, “searching Alexa’s recordings is not the same as searching a drawer, a pocket, or a glove compartment. Like cell phones, such modern &039;smart&039; electronic devices contain a multitude of data that can &039;reveal much more in combination than any isolated record,&039; allowing those with access to it to reconstruct &039;[t]he sum of an individual’s private life.&039;”

Amazon&039;s legal team also argued, “At the heart of that First Amendment protection is the right to browse and purchase expressive materials anonymously, without fear of government discovery.”

Amazon is attempting to classify Alexa&039;s recordings, responses, and transcripts as equivalent to the purchase or viewing of “expressive materials” — things like books, music, and podcasts — under the law. The team cited the high-profile inquiry into former president Bill Clinton during his impeachment to make its case: Investigators demanded that a bookstore hand over records of purchases made by Monica Lewinsky, but courts ruled that her “freedom of inquiry,” protected by her right to freedom of speech, required law enforcement demonstrate that they really, truly needed those records.

Lewinsky eventually provided the records willingly, but the precedent for “heightened demonstration of need” stood. It&039;s a rule that demands that law enforcement show a “compelling need” for the information and that there is a “&039;sufficient nexus&039; between the information sought and the underlying inquiry of the investigation.”

Amazon also argued that Alexa&039;s speech should be heard as coming from Amazon itself: “the response constitutes Amazon&039;s First Amendment-protected speech.” It equated Alexa&039;s speech to Baidu&039;s search results, which a US judge ruled were editorial judgments and therefore protected free speech in Zhaing v. Baidu, where New York residents sued Baidu for censoring articles about China&039;s democracy movement. A New York judge declined to hear the case.

(The warrant for the Echo recordings, issued December 4, 2015, has actually expired under Arkansas law. But Amazon has chosen not to challenge it under that law, favoring the First Amendment approach.)

Neither Amazon nor the Bentonville police immediately responded to request for comment.

Quelle: <a href="Amazon Says Your Alexa Recordings Are Protected By The First Amendment“>BuzzFeed