AB5 Exemptions, A New Tech Focused Nonprofit Newsroom, and Clearview AI’s Data Breach

This week in tech

California’s controversial new law about employee classification is doing its best Oprah impression.

From the very start, there were dozens of specific exemptions carved out of AB5. Some exemptions are cleanly applied to entire industries, others are more complex. But, since the law went into effect in January, many industries and corporations have started battling to win an exemption of their own. Organizations representing California musicians say the law would crush the industry that (so far as I know) coined the term “gig.” A bill that would exempt freelance writers and newspapers was introduced in the California assembly in late January.

Now, a consortium of “gig platform” companies including Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash has spent more than $110 million on a campaign in support of a ballot measure exempting their workers from the law as well. The organization says they have collected over one million signatures, well beyond the 623,212 required to get the measure on the ballot. It looks like CA voters will ultimately decide whether or not these platforms should be exempt from a law whose raison d’être was specifically to reign in Uber and Lyft.