Tesla Ex-employees Sue; Twitter Revives Chirp Dev Conference; EU Disinformation Rules; Latest Trusted Brands

Tesla is being sued by a couple of former employees from its Sparks (Reno), Nevada gigafactory or mass layoffs. Engadget.com reports that the former employees claim that more than 500 employees were terminated without the required 60 days of advance notice per the US Warn Act…a violation of that federal law. Tesla also only offered a week of severance pay to some employees (and demanded a release from them.) Musk told CNBC that the lawsuit wasn’t important. “That is a small lawsuit of minor consequence,” he said. “Anything that relates to Tesla gets big headlines, whether it is a bicycle accident or something much more serious.”

It’s been over 10 years since they held one, but Twitter is reviving its Chirp Developer Conference in November. According to techcrunch.com, Twitter has acknowledged its past screwups with developers, and admitted that it needs to rebuild its relationship with the developer community. The conference will be live in San Francisco, and will also stream live. In addition to announcing the Chirp event, Twitter rolled out new pricing tiers that aimed to make it easier for different types of developers, small and large, to get started with the platform — including researchers and academics in need of larger datasets. Not all of these are yet available — Twitter’s Elevated+ access which offers more than 2 million tweets per month, for example, is still waitlisted. 

The European Union has toughened rules for deep fakes, bots, impersonation and fake accounts, with huge fines for tech companies that don’t help fight disinformation. Geekcentral.com says that now Google, Meta, Twitter, Twitch, TikTok, and Clubhouse have signed on to the rules…along with over 32 other companies.The 2022 Code of  Practice toughens one the EU introduced in 2018. How big is the fine for non-cooperators? 6% of global revenue!

Morning Consult surveyed 5,000 Americans to find out what are the most trusted brands.  The pandemic has brought an interesting mix. In previous years you might see the likes of Disney, Apple, or Coke. The latest top 10 are: Band-Aid at number 1, runner up is Lysol, in third place is Clorox, with venerable UPS clocking in at 4th. the 5th most trusted is CVS Pharmacy, followed by 6th place Visa. #7 is Cheerios, and the 8th place brand is The Weather Channel. Rounding out the top 10 are number 9 Colgate, and 10th place is Home Depot.