Tech Tok: Tech giants on a firing spree

It is vital to point out that beneath the lost jobs are actual software professionals, whose financial future is at a risk.

Hyderabad: Gone are the days when a career in the IT sector was synonymous with job security. With multiple tech giants handing over the pink slips to their employees, the IT sector surely is in a state of crisis.

While Elon Musk firing of around 50 per cent of Twitter staff grabbed eyeballs, the micro-blogging site is not the only one ‘giving the boot’ to its employees. Back in August, Snapchat’s parent company Snap cut around 20 per cent of its workforce. Meta fired 11,000 of its employees and Microsoft around 1,000 people.

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Streaming platform Netflix has also cut around 450 jobs this year till October and BYJU’S sacked 2,500 employees to cut expenditure. And now according to reports, Amazon will also lay off approximately 10,000 people starting as soon as this week.

But, why these sudden layoffs, you may ask. Majority of tech companies that fired their employees sighted either or both of these reasons among others.

One, during the pandemic, people were glued to their devices and hence tech firms had to hire more professionals to cash in on the boom. While they expected that the surge would sustain, it did not. So, now they are cutting back on costs and firing people. The second reason they say is the global economic slowdown.

As sorry as these big corporations say they feel for these lost jobs, it is vital to point out that beneath these numbers are actual software professionals, whose financial future is at a risk.

Content of ‘national interest’ is a must

According to the recently approved ‘Guidelines for Uplinking and Downlinking of Television Channels in India, 2022’, all TV channels will have to telecast content in the national interest.

Under the new guidelines, at least 30 minutes are to be given for content on “public service and national interest “for which eight themes have been given to channels for the creation of content.

Google pays big

In a continuation of their legal troubles, Google’s parent company Alphabet was adjudged to pay $391.5 million to settle a complaint by a group of US States led by Oregon and Nebraska. They alleged that the search engine was illegally tracking users’ locations.

Apart from the huge sum, Google should now be more transparent with its users about when and why their location is being tracked.

VLC ban lifted in India

Earlier this year, the Central government banned VLC media player because it allegedly had a Chinese connection although it is open source software from a France-based company. On Monday, it lifted the ban.

According to their tweet, the non-profit organisation Internet Freedom Foundation helped the company by providing legal support for this issue.