• The EU Parliament passed a new law on Tuesday that sets minimum rights and other protections for gig economy workers.
• Currently, gig economy workers in the EU are considered private contractors and are not given the same rights as those employed at more traditional jobs.
• The new rules include increased employer transparency and are expected to impact a growing economic sector of about 3 million people in Europe.

EU Passes New Law

Lawmakers in the European Union Parliament approved a new law Tuesday that sets minimum rights for gig economy workers, along with other rules to ensure worker protections.

The move is expected to benefit those who work for prominent gig services such as Uber drivers, food couriers for popular delivery companies in Europe like Deliveroo and Just Eat, and many others.

Currently, gig economy workers are considered independent contractors, meaning they do not receive any of the employment rights or benefits that come as a part of more traditional jobs.

While employees with more traditional jobs in EU member states have a wide array of protections for working hours, breaks, and vacation time, workers in the gig economy have not been afforded the same protections.

Companies that employ gig workers often say that being an independent contractor provides more flexibility, but critics have said this often results in worker exploitation.

What Does the Law Change?

The new rules will apply to anyone in the gig economy who works at least three hours in a week and an average of 12 hours in four weeks.

The rules apply to casual or short-term workers, on-demand workers, intermittent workers, as well as paid trainees and apprentices, though it does not apply to self-employed workers.

Under the new law, employers will be required to inform all workers about “essential aspects” of their working conditions from the first day of employment. This includes the duration of a job, payment, and other features that are intended to increase transparency and “prevent abusive practices.”

Employers will also be prohibited from preventing workers from working for other companies and will be required to provide free mandatory training.

Additionally, the law will give workers the right to refuse an assignment that is given outside of their predetermined hours without consequences, and recieve compensation if the job is not canceled in time.

Moving Forward

Member states will now be given three years to implement the law, which is expected to apply to at least 3 million people in the gig economy in Europe, though this economic sector is expected to grow.

Enrique Calvet Chambon, the Member of European Parliament who pushed the passage of the law said it was the first legislation in the EU that set minimum workers’ rights in 20 years.

“This directive is the first big step towards implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights, affecting all EU workers,” Chambon said.

“All workers who have been in limbo will now be granted minimum rights thanks to this directive, and the European Court of Justice rulings, from now on no employer will be able to abuse the flexibility in the labour market.”

Read the full press EU press release here.

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• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg once considered 100 deals with app developers to potentially sell user data in an attempt to learn the “real market value” of the information, according to an NBC News report.
• The report cites around 4,000 pages of leaked internal Facebook documents that show that the company instead opted to use the data as a bargaining chip to reward apps that purchased ads, were close friends of executives, or shared data with them in return.

The Report

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg once considered selling the company’s user data to third-party app developers to find out just how much the user’s data is worth, all while publically claiming to be protecting that same data.

NBC News released a report Tuesday, saying it had obtained around 4,000 pages of leaked company documents spanning from 2011 to 2015. The documents contained emails, web chats, presentations, spreadsheets, and meeting summaries which reportedly showed that Zuckerberg and his team found ways to leverage Facebook user data to companies it partnered with.

It’s not uncommon for companies to work together to share information about customers, however, Facebook has access to sensitive data that many other companies don’t have access to, like information about friends, relationships, photos, and more.

In some cases, NBC News said that Facebook would reward favored companies by giving them access to the data of its users. It would then deny that same data to rival companies or apps that were not considered “strategic partners.”

For instance, Facebook gave Amazon extended access to user data because Amazon had invested heavily in Facebook advertising and partnered with the company for the launch of the Fire smartphone.

By contrast, Facebook reportedly discussed cutting the app, MessageMe, off from user data access. Facebook’s reasoning was that the app had grown too popular and was now a competitor.

Protecting User Data

All the while, Facebook was publically creating a narrative around its concern for user trust, promising to prioritizer data protections.

Private communication between users is “increasingly important,” Zuckerberg said in a 2014 New York Times interview. “Anything we can do that makes people feel more comfortable is really good.”

However, the documents show that behind the scenes, the company was formulating ways to require third-party applications to compensate them for access to user data, through direct payment, spending on advertising, or data sharing agreements.

Facebook Wants to Maintain Its Dominance

Zuckerberg reportedly talked about pursuing 100 deals to sell data access to developers, “as a path to figuring out the real market value” of Facebook user data and then “setting a public rate” for developers, NBC reported.

“The goal here wouldn’t be the deals themselves, but that through the process of negotiating with them we’d learn what developers would actually pay (which might be different from what they’d say if we just asked them about the value), and then we’d be better informed on our path to set a public rate,” Zuckerberg wrote in a message.

In the end, Facebook decided against selling data directly and instead opted to share it with app developers who were considered “friends” of Zuckerberg, or who invested heavily on Facebook and shared their own valuable data in return.

According to NBC, Zuckerberg “noted that though Facebook could charge developers to access user data, the company stood to benefit more from requiring developers to compensate Facebook in kind — with their own data — and by pushing those developers to pay for advertising on Facebook’s platform.”

The companies ultimate goal was to ensure that Facebook held onto its dominant position in the market.

Facebook Calls Documents Cherry-Picked

Facebook has denied giving any developers or partners preferential treatment because of their spending or personal relationships with executives. Instead, the company told NBC News that its focus on “full reciprocity” was to enable users to share their experiences within outside apps with their Facebook friends.

The company also did not question the authenticity of the documents, which stem from a California court case between Facebook and Six4Three.

Six4Three developed an app called Pikinis, which let people pay to find pictures of users in swimsuits. Six4Three’s app was shut down in 2015 after Facebook changed its policies around the sharing of user data with third-party app developers.

Facebook said the documents are “cherry-picked” and misleading.

“As we’ve said many times, Six4Three — creators of the Pikinis app — cherry picked these documents from years ago as part of a lawsuit to force Facebook to share information on friends of the app’s users,” Paul Grewal, vice president and deputy general counsel at Facebook, said in a statement released by the company.

“The set of documents, by design, tells only one side of the story and omits important context. We still stand by the platform changes we made in 2014/2015 to prevent people from sharing their friends’ information with developers like the creators of Pikinis. The documents were selectively leaked as part of what the court found was evidence of a crime or fraud to publish some, but not all, of the internal discussions at Facebook at the time of our platform changes. But the facts are clear: we’ve never sold people’s data.”

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• Burger King New Zealand posted an ad showing diners struggling to eat its new Vietnamese Sweet Chili chicken sandwiches with giant red chopsticks.
• Social media users called the ad offensive, prompting the company to remove the ad and issue an apology.

The Advertisement

Burger King New Zealand has removed a controversial new advertisement that was criticized as culturally insensitive on social media.

The fast-food chain released an ad for their new Vietnamese Sweet Chili Tendercrisp chicken sandwich, which featured customers attempting to eat the food with giant chopsticks.

An Instagram post with the ad also included a caption that read, “Take your taste buds all the way to Ho Chi Minh City with our Vietnamese Sweet Chili Tendercrisp, part of our Tastes of the World range. Available for a limited time only.”

A New Zealander of Korean descent, Maria Mo, took issue with the ad and tweeted out a screen recording of the clip along with a sarcastic note. “OK, coolcoolcool, chopsticks r HILARIOUS right omg etc,” she wrote.

In a message to HuffPost, Mo explained why she decided to call out Burger King for the ad saying, “Because I couldn’t believe such blatantly ignorant ads are still happening in 2019, it honestly took me a second to work out what the heck I was looking at.”

“[People of color] are constantly having to deal with microaggressions as well as outright hatred and it just never ends,” she added.

Backlash

Mo’s post has pulled in nearly 3 million views as of Tuesday morning and prompted others to speak out against Burger King

Apology

“The ad in question is insensitive and does not reflect our brand values regarding diversity and inclusion,” the company said in a statement following the backlash. “We have asked our franchisee in New Zealand to remove the ad immediately.”

In an interview with The New Zealand Heral, James Woodbridge, Burger King New Zealand’s general manager of marketing said, “We are truly sorry that the ad has appeared insensitive to our community.”

Defense

Still, not everyone found the ad offensive. In fact, many social media users came to Burger King’s defense and argued that people were overreacting.

It’s not racist. It’s just a joke…with the butt of the joke actually being westerners who are stereotyped as being bad with chopsticks and thinking they should always be used for any oriental food. One person complained and the company removed it. It’s utterly pathetic.

— TheRawGeek (@TheRawGeek) April 9, 2019

I’m Asian and honestly who cares. Why do we have to get sensitive about everything??? I doubt Burger King was trying to be racist when doing this and to me it doesn’t come off racist. It’s funny. Seriously…get over it whoever you are!

— Matthew Tom (@matttom24) April 7, 2019

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