A Google employee has written a memo accusing the company of discriminating and retaliating against her for being pregnant. According to Motherboard, the memo has been seen by more than 10,000 employees. From the report: Last week, the woman posted the memo, titled "I'm Not Returning to Google After Maternity Leave, and Here is Why," to an internal company message board for expecting and new mothers. The memo was reposted to other internal message boards and has since gone viral, multiple current Google employees in different parts of the company have told Motherboard. Since then, employees have been posting memes that have gathered thousands of likes. The memes were made in support of the woman on an internal message board called "Memegen."

In the memo, which is more than 2,300 words long, the woman says that her manager made discriminatory remarks about pregnant women. She says she reported the manager to human resources, which she alleges spurred retaliation. The woman, who was also a manager, says she eventually joined another team, but wasn't allowed to manage anyone on that team until she returned from maternity leave; she claims she was told that her maternity leave might "stress the team" and "rock the boat." She says that she and her baby had potentially life-threatening complications toward the end of her pregnancy, and that she would need to go on maternity leave earlier than expected. "During one conversation with my new manager in which I reiterated an early leave and upcoming bedrest, she told me that she had just listened to an NPR segment that debunked the benefits of bedrest," she wrote. "She also shared that her doctor had ordered her to take bedrest, but that she ignored the order and worked up until the day before she delivered her son via cesarean section. My manager then emphasized in this same meeting that a management role was no longer guaranteed upon my return from maternity leave, and that she supported my interviewing for other roles at Google." In response, a Google spokesperson sent this statement: "We prohibit retaliation in the workplace and publicly share our very clear policy. To make sure that no complaint raised goes unheard at Google, we give employees multiple channels to report concerns, including anonymously, and investigate all allegations of retaliation."

YouTube's controversial year-end "Rewind" video has become "the most-loathed video in the entire history of YouTube," reports Inc., adding that with 14 million down votes, it now "might just be the most-hated video anybody ever posted anywhere."

"But then came Christmas Day, and YouTube apparently managed to top its own blunder." How? By uploading a promo video wishing viewers a Merry Christmas on Twitter. The problem: YouTube allegedly didn't own the video. Instead, it copied a YouTube user's video and reposted it as its own, without so much as offering credit....The only real difference between the version of video that YouTuber Lily Hevesh created and uploaded to YouTube, and the one that YouTube reportedly passed off as its own work in a post on Twitter is that YouTube's version on Twitter skipped the opening 20 seconds. That would be the part in which Hevesh, who describes herself as a "domino artist," shared her logo and a short clip of herself setting up the dominoes.

Hevesh caught what YouTube had apparently done about 14 hours after the post, and tweeted a response: "Very glad to see that my Christmas domino e-card is getting good use. However, I'm a bit disappointed that YouTube would take my video and re-upload it with absolutely no credit. People rip off my work everyday and it's honestly saddening to see this happen by YouTube itself...." Even if money weren't involved, YouTube's own terms of service and copyright page seem to ban exactly what it looks like was done here. It's a mess.

In the end, YouTube owned up to its mistake -- well, partway anyway. It tweeted a follow-up on the day after Christmas, acknowledging that they "forgot to credit @Hevesh5 for this video!" and linking to Hevesh's YouTube page.
The Verge points out that YouTube "does own a limited license to people's videos, so legally, the company can take Hevesh's content and upload it to its Twitter account. The problem is ethical....

"Reuploading video while stripping credit is a practice that YouTube explicitly condemns. YouTube's community guidelines and policy page specifically states that creators should only 'upload videos that you made or that you're authorized to use.'"

Ecuador is planning to hand over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to UK authorities in the "coming weeks or even days," RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said, citing her own sources. Simonyan reported the news in a recent tweet, which was reposted by WikiLeaks. Slashdot reader Okian Warrior first shared the news. Daily Express reports: Foreign Office minister Sir Alan Duncan is said to be involved in the diplomatic effort, which has come weeks ahead of a visit by new Ecuadorian president, Lenin Moreno, who called Mr Assange an "inherited problem." He also referred to the exiled WikiLeaks founder as a "stone in the shoe." Sources close to Assange claim he was not aware of the talks, but believe America is piling "significant pressure" on Ecuador to give him up, according to the Sunday Times. The sources claim that America has threatened to block a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) if he is not removed from the embassy, based in Knightsbridge, west London. UPDATE 7/21/18: The Intercept also confirmed the news. Glen Greenwald, former reporter for The Guardian, writes: "A source close to the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry and the President's office, unauthorized to speak publicly, has confirmed to the Intercept that Moreno is close to finalizing, if he has not already finalized, an agreement to hand over Assange to the UK within the next several weeks. The withdrawal of asylum and physical ejection of Assange could come as early as this week."

Late last year, Vine's co-founder, Dom Hofmann, said he was working on "a follow-up to Vine," after the six-second video social media app was shut down by Twitter in October. "I'm going to work on a follow-up to vine. i've been feeling it myself for some time and have seen a lot of tweets, dms, etc.," Hofmann tweeted at the time. Well, several months have passed and we have learned that Vine v2 will be postponed for an "indefinite amount of time" while Hofmann figures out funding and logistical hurdles. The Verge reports: The announcement, made on the v2 forums and reposted this morning by the official v2 Twitter handle, is a disappointing but understanding turn of events. Back in January, Hofmann suggested the app may launch as soon as this summer, which was an ambitious timetable. Now, Hofmann says that, despite the immense interest in his project, he has to take the time to make sure it doesn't fall apart before continuing. He cites a need for substantial venture funding to get v2 off the ground after initially thinking he may be able to self-fund it. "Long story short, in order to work, the v2 project needs to operate as a company with sizable external funding, probably from investors," Hofmann writes. "This is difficult because I already run an early-stage company (Innerspace VR, a creative immersive entertainment studio he founded after selling Vine to Twitter years ago) that is in the middle of development. Very few backers would be happy with the split attention, and I wouldn't be either. This is potentially solvable, but it's going to take time for the space and resources to become available."

AmiMoJo shares a report from The Guardian: Fake social media accounts linked to Russia were used to influence and interfere with public debate in the aftermath of four terrorist attacks in the UK this year, researchers have found. At least 47 Russian Twitter accounts posted material after attacks at Westminster Bridge, Manchester Arena, London Bridge and Finsbury Park, according to researchers at the Cardiff University Crime and Security Research Institute (CSRI). Of the 47 accounts, eight were especially active, posting at least 475 tweets about the four attacks, which were reposted more than 153,000 times. The accounts intervened on both sides of polarized debates to ramp up the level of discord online, the research found.

London-based resident Annabelle Narey posted a negative review of a building firm on Mumsnet. She noted in her review that her ceiling fell down in an upstairs bedroom. The Guardian reports about what happened to her in the aftermath of posting that review. Building firm BuildTeam sent a letter to Mumsnet, which the site passed on to Narey. According to Narey, BuildTeam found Narey's comment defamatory and untrue, and asked for the removal of the comment from the website. The original comment saw several other users also post similar grievances, though many of these users pulled their comments in response to the legal threats from BuildTeam. Narey wanted to keep hers up. Then things got even weirder, reports the Guardian. Narey says BuiltTeam staff visited her apartment, and instead of offering any apology, asked her to remove the comment. Mumsnet received a warning from Google: a takedown request under DMCA, alleging copyright infringement. This led Google to de-list the entire thread. From the report: No copyright infringement had occurred at all. At some point after Narey posted her comments on Mumsnet, someone had copied the entire text of one of her posts and pasted it, verbatim, to a spammy blog titled "Home Improvement Tips and Tricks". The post, headlined "Buildteam interior designers" was backdated to September 14 2015, three months before Narey had written it. BuildTeam says it has no idea why Narey's review was reposted, but that it had nothing to do with it.The Guardian deep dives into what is wrong with the copyright system, the issues Google faces in dealing with them, and the consequences many users are facing because of this.

hackingbear writes: "Qin Zhihui, a user of the Chinese Twitter-like website Weibo, has confessed in court to spreading false rumors about the Chinese government in the first public trial under a Chinese crackdown on online rumors. China has threatened criminal penalties against anyone who spreads rumors on microblogs that are reposted more than 500 times, or seen by more than 5,000 users. Qin invented a story that the government gave 200m yuan (US$32m) in compensation to the family of a foreign passenger killed in a high-speed train crash in 2011 in order to incite hatred to the government which gave much lower compensation to Chinese nationals. The Chinese government did have policies in the past to give more compensations to foreigners than locals in disasters, though those policies have been phased out in recent years. Online rumours are particularly pervasive in China, where traditional media is heavily regulated by the government and public trust in the media is low."

hackingbear writes "Harvard sociologist Gary King has just completed two studies that peer into the Chinese censorship machine — including a field experiment within China that was conducted with extraordinary secrecy. Together, the studies refute popular intuitions about what Chinese censors are after. He found that the censors actually permit 'vitriolic criticism' of China's leaders and governmental policies but the censors crack down heavily on any move to get people physically mobilized to act on such criticism. In a related development, China's top court issued a ruling on Monday to threaten a 3-year sentence for people posting online rumors viewed by 5,000 internet users or reposted more than 500 times. Though, in the same ruling, the court also clarified that a person reposting false rumor should not be punished if he or she does not clearly know the information is false, even if real harm is done. "

theodp writes "On Saturday, questions for MIT's Aaron Swartz investigation were posted on Slashdot with the hope that MIT'ers might repost some to the MIT Swartz Review site. So it's good to see that MIT's Hal Abelson, who is leading the analysis of MIT's involvement in the matter, is apparently open to this workaround to the ban on questions from outsiders. In fact, on Sunday Abelson himself reposted an interesting question posed by Boston College Law School Prof. Sharon Beckman: 'What, if anything, did MIT learn from its involvement in the federal prosecution of its student David LaMacchia back in 1994?' Not much, it would appear. LaMacchia, an apparent student of Abelson's whose defense team included Beckman, was indicted in 1994 and charged with the 'piracy of an estimated million dollars' in business and entertainment computer software after MIT gave LaMacchia up to the FBI. LaMacchia eventually walked from the charges, thanks to what became known as the LaMacchia Loophole, which lawmakers took pains to close. 'MIT collaborated with the FBI to wreck LaMacchia's life,' defense attorney Harvey Silverglate charged in 1995 after a judge dismissed the case. 'I hope that this case causes a lot of introspection on the part of MIT's administration. Unfortunately, I doubt it will.'"

First time accepted submitter quantumplacet writes "Longtime Googler Steve Yegge posted an insightful rant on his Google+ page about how Google is failing to make platforms of its products. He also shares some interesting little tidbits about his six year stint at Amazon working for the 'Dread Pirate Bezos'. The rant was intended to be shared only with his Google coworkers, but was accidentally made public. Steve has since removed it from his page, but it has been reposted elsewhere."

eldavojohn writes "You may recall the TSA demonstrating how tech-savvy it is by releasing a document with redactions intact. Now three Republican lawmakers are asking what's being done to prosecute those hosting the document (e.g. Cryptome and Wikileaks). In a letter to the DHS (PDF), Charles Dent (R-PA), Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), and Peter T. King (R-NY) asked, 'How has [sic] the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration addressed the repeated reposting of this security manual to other websites, and what legal action, if any, can be taken to compel its removal?' And they asked if the DHS is 'considering issuing new regulations pursuant to its authority in Section 114 of Title 49, United States Code, and are criminal penalties necessary or desirable to ensure such information is not reposted in the future?' King is the representative who announcing a probe into Wikileaks after the half million 9/11 pager messages were released."

Ian Lamont writes "YouTube has reposted anti-Scientology videos and reinstated suspended YouTube accounts after receiving thousands of apparently bogus DCMA take-down notices. Four thousand notices were sent to YouTube last Thursday and Friday by American Rights Counsel, LLC. After YouTube users responded with counter-notices, many of the videos were reposted. It turns out that the American Rights Counsel had no copyright claim on the videos, and the group may not even exist, although the text of the DCMA notices have been linked to a Wikipedia editor. While filing a false DMCA notice is a criminal offense, prosecution in these cases rarely comes about."

Ian Lamont writes "The International Olympic Committee has withdrawn a DCMA takedown notice that targeted a two-minute long YouTube video of a Students for a Free Tibet protest at the Chinese consulate in New York. The video shows protesters gathering outside the building at night and projecting images of the Olympic symbol, 'tank man,' Tibetan riot footage and clips of victims of the Chinese police crackdown in Tibet. After receiving the request, YouTube contacted the IOC and asked if it really planned to pursue a claim. The IOC retracted the notice and the video was reposted within hours. Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society praised YouTube for 'going out of its way to do more than it's required to do under the law to protect free expression.'"

An anonymous reader writes "A C|Net article discusses the technological innovations being used by the porn industry to ensure they stay relevant (like streaming HD-quality feeds and remote interaction), as well as profitable. Live performances and cutting-edge technology combine to ensure a steady stream of revenue in the age of free downloads. 'Now Kink.com is on the cutting edge of the fight against video piracy. While mainstream entertainment outlets like Viacom and NBC complain noisily about YouTube, Kink.com, with neither the resources nor the mainstream appeal of its giant counterparts, is in an even tougher fight: Protecting the content it produces that's continually copied and reposted on the dozens of Web sites that traffic in poached adult material.'"

An anonymous reader writes to mention something of an ongoing controversy over a recent Craigslist prank. Waxy.org has the full details: "On Monday, a Seattle web developer named Jason Fortuny started his own Craigslist experiment. The goal: 'Posing as a submissive woman looking for an aggressive dom, how many responses can we get in 24 hours?' He took the text and photo from a sexually explicit ad in another area, reposted it to Craigslist Seattle, and waited for the responses to roll in ... '178 responses, with 145 photos of men in various states of undress. Responses include full e-mail addresses (both personal and business addresses), names, and in some cases IM screen names and telephone numbers.' In a staggering move, he then published every single response, unedited and uncensored, with all photos and personal information to Encyclopedia Dramatica." The Wired blog 27B Stroke 6 has analysis of the prank, which author Ryan Singel views as 'sociopathic'. He then follows that up with responses to comments from his analysis, with further exploration of the weighty issues this juvenile prank has brought up.

Julio Ojeda-Zapata writes "It's Free Comic Book Day (May 6), and what better way to mark the occasion than a comic about comic books? A reporter and artist at the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press newspaper teamed up to honor the comic-book form -- imitation is the finest form of flattery, as they say. The comic is available online as a slide show, as well as in downloadable PDF form. As a bonus, the paper's 2001 manga-style tribute to manga (by the same artist, but with a dramatically different look and feel) has been reposted." More information is available at the official Free Comic Book Day 2006 site.

Last week, Tycho mentioned a set of questions they'd sent in the direction of the folks at Blizzard regarding the downtime World of Warcraft has been experiencing. Today Blizzard responds to their questions. Tycho agreed to the interview being reposted below the cut, so read on if you'd like Blizzard's response in the face of player frustration.

galaxy300 writes "Apparently, the Nintendo DS is being released one week earlier than previously expected, on November 15th. Gamestop has updated the release information on their website, and there is discussion on the official Nintendo boards." Update: 11/10 16:52 GMT by Z : In the time it took for this story to crawl onto the games page, the Gamestop link was corrected and reposted with the original ship date. Hence the "?" in the original title. Sorry to get your hopes up.

Update: 06/30 15:42 GMT by T : This article has been pulled; the Spider-Man 2 review which appeared here was reposted without credit or permission from chud. (Read it in its original context.) We welcome original feature-length articles, but not plagiarism.

Roger Ramjet writes "Fan site NGageGaming has reposted a couple of leaked images of what appears to be Nokia's N-Gage 2 phone/gaming handheld hybrid. While the device is similar to the original N-Gage, the keyboard and look has been redesigned, and on the flip side of the phone/gaming device may possibly be space for a camera." Apparently, Nokia "...is expected to have a major press event on April 14 to showcase the upgraded version", and the same fansite is also reporting on the woes of current N-Gage software support, mentioning that "Taito Memories and Marcel Desailly Pro Soccer have both been 'delayed' for N-Gage release."