Meredith Whittaker is the president of Signal – the not-for-profit secure messaging app. The service, along with WhatsApp and similar messaging platforms, is opposing the UK government's online safety bill which, among other things, seeks to scan users' messages for harmful content. Prior to Signal, Whittaker worked at Google, co-founded NYU's AI Now Institute and was an adviser to the Federal Trade Commission. After 10 years at Google you organised the walkout over the company's attitude to sexual harassment accusations, after which in 2019 you were forced out. How did you feel about that?

Marked by walkouts, strikes, petitions, and open letters, 2021 has been the biggest year yet for workers in the US video game industry taking a stand against labor conditions. Over the last year, a vocal contingent of video game workers has warned employers that they won't tolerate subpar labor conditions just to fulfill their childhood dream of making video games. "In my experience, it actually isn't suffering that drives people to take the risk and organize," says Tom Smith, senior director of organizing for the Communications Workers of America, the country's largest communications and media union. I think this is a moment in history in which both things are out there." On December 15, CWA helped form the US' first video game union at 13-person indie studio Vodeo Games--just two months after facilitating tabletop game publisher Paizo's unionization effort. Labor conditions in the games industry have been under scrutiny for nearly two decades. In the early 2000s, whistleblowers called attention to crunch, the practice of pulling 60- to 80-hour weeks ahead of game launches--a labor tactic that continues to this day. More recently, allegations of sexism and unequal treatment at top studios have roiled the industry. In 2018, current and former employees of League of Legends publisher Riot Games alleged that the company fostered a sexist "bro culture." At Ubisoft, in 2020 several employees alleged that the company was steeped in sexism and that executives and HR failed to adequately handle complaints of misconduct. And in 2021, California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing sued Activision Blizzard, alleging rampant sexism and a "pervasive frat boy workplace culture." In a statement to WIRED for this story, Activision spokesperson Kelvin Liu says, "There is no place at Activision Blizzard, or anywhere, for discrimination, harassment, or unequal treatment of any kind.

Employees of Activision Blizzard, the video game company that produces World of Warcraft and Call of Duty, staged a walkout Wednesday morning to call for better working conditions as the company faces allegations of a "frat boy" culture and severe harassment and discrimination against female workers. The California department of fair employment and housing (DFEH) filed a lawsuit against the company last week after a two-year investigation found widespread sexual harassment, retaliation and discrimination and that the video game maker "fostered a sexist culture" in which female employees earn less than males doing similar work. Just 20% of Activision Blizzard's 9,500 employees are women, and leadership at the company, one of the largest video game makers in the world, is largely white and male. Hundreds of workers gathered outside the company's headquarters in Irvine, California, Wednesday morning while others, unable to attend in person, took part in a virtual protest. A few hundred employees have gathered at the #ActiBlizzWalkout, exceeding the 100 or so organizers expected.

Two Google engineers have quit over the treatment of Timnit Gebru, a prominent Black artificial intelligence researcher whose exit from the company sparked widespread outrage in the tech industry. David Baker, an engineering director focused on user safety, left Google last month after 16 years because Gebru's departure "extinguished my desire to continue as a Googler", he said in a letter seen by Reuters. Baker added: "We cannot say we believe in diversity, and then ignore the conspicuous absence of many voices from within our walls." Vinesh Kannan, a software engineer, said on Wednesday that he had also left the company this week because Google had mistreated Gebru and April Christina Curley, a Black recruiter who has said she was wrongly fired from Google last year. "They were wronged," Kannan said in a tweet.

OneZero is partnering with the Big Technology Podcast from Alex Kantrowitz to bring readers exclusive access to interview transcripts with notable figures in and around the tech industry. This week, Kantrowitz sits down with Meredith Whittaker, an A.I. researcher who helped lead Google's employee walkout in 2018. This interview, which took place at World Summit A.I, has been edited for length and clarity. To subscribe to the podcast and hear the interview for yourself, you can check it out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Overcast. When I interviewed Tristan Harris about The Social Dilemma earlier this month, my mentions filled with people saying, "You should speak to the people who were critical of the social web long before the film." One name stood out: Meredith Whittaker. An A.I. researcher and former Big Tech employee, Whittaker helped lead Google's walkout in 2018 amid a season of activism inside the company. On this edition of the Big Technology Podcast, we spoke not only about her views on the film, but also of the future of workplace activism inside tech companies in a moment where some are questioning if it belongs at all. Alex Kantrowitz: It seems like your perspective on The Social Dilemma is a little bit different from Tristan's.

Facebook launched an independent oversight board and recommitted to privacy reforms this week, but after years of promises made and broken, nobody seems convinced that real change is afoot. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is expected to decide shortly whether to sue Facebook, sources told the New York Times, following a $5 billion fine levied last year. In other investigations, the Department of Justice filed suit against Google this week, accusing the Alphabet company of maintaining multiple monopolies through exclusive agreements, collection of personal data, and artificial intelligence. News also broke this week that Google's AI will play a role in creating a virtual border wall. What you see in each instance is a powerful company insisting it can regulate itself while government regulators appear to reach the opposite conclusion.

More than 1600 Google employees are demanding that the company stop selling technology to police departments. "We're disappointed to know that Google is still selling to police forces, and advertises its connection with police forces as somehow progressive, and seeks more expansive sales rather than severing ties with police and joining the millions who want to defang and defund these institutions," the letter reads, according to Techcrunch. "Why help the institutions responsible for the knee on George Floyd's neck to be more effective organizationally? Not only that, but the same Clarkstown police force being advertised by Google as a success story has been sued multiple times for illegal surveillance of Black Lives Matter organizers." The letter, signed by 1666 employees, was addressed to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.

Worker activists at Google held a "town hall" on Friday where they alleged that the company regularly retaliates against employees who speak out about workplace problems and announced plans for a "company-wide day of action" on 1 May. The meeting, livestreamed for Google employees in offices around the world, was announced after two of the organizers of the November 2018 global walkout circulated a letter internally alleging they were being punished for their activism. The two employees, Meredith Whittaker and Claire Stapleton, provided further details of their cases during the Friday event. Their statements, along with anonymous reports of retaliation of 11 other Google employees, were published in internal documents seen by the Guardian. "I didn't walk out because I'm against Google, I walked out because I'm for it – because I wanted to make it better," Stapleton said in her written statement.

On the first day of November last year, some 20,000 Google employees at more than 40 offices across the world staged a walkout protesting how the company had dealt with serious accusations of sexual assault and harassment and what many employees described as a culture of impunity for executives. The event was planned by a core group of seven organizers who work at Google. On Monday, two of those women, Meredith Whittaker and Claire Stapleton, shared examples of retaliation they've face from the company since on a Google-internal mailing list. Wired first reported the two were facing blowback from Google for helping to organize the protest. Stapleton is a 12-year veteran at Google.

Google must be broken up to end its "overwhelming" market power and safeguard the world's news media, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has said. The news organisation's Australian arm demanded an enforced breakup of Google, which dominates online search and advertising businesses. In an 80-page submission to the Australian government, News Corp, which has itself faced allegations of monopolistic behaviour, said Google's search engine and third-party advertising platform should be separated to allow publishers to compete for ad revenues. We'll tell you what's true. You can form your own view.