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01 Feb 2026

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Five French Ubisoft Unions Call For Massive International Strike Over 'Cost-Cutting' and Ending of Remote Work

Five French unions representing Ubisoft workers "have called for a 'massive international strike'," reports the gaming news site Aftermath. The move follows a "series of layoffs and cancellations" at Ubisoft, the article points out, plus what the company calls a "major organizational, operational and portfolio reset" that will lead to more layoffs and cancellations announced last week. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot even sent an end-of-day message warning that management continues to "make difficult decisions, including stopping certain projects" and "potentially closing select studios," an earlier article points out: Slipped in between the grand vision and subtle threats was the reversal of a popular hybrid work-from-home policy that would have a direct impact on everyone working at Ubisoft. Staff would be back in the office five days a week, but with the promise of a generous number of work from home days. "The intention is not to question individual performance, but to regenerate our collective performance, which is one of the key elements in creating the best games with the required speed," Guillemot wrote. There was immediate confusion and frustration. One French union representing Paris Ubisoft developers called for a half-day strike. "It is out of the question to let a boss run wild and destroy our working conditions," Solidaires Informatique wrote in a press release. "Perhaps we need to remind him that it is his employees who make the games...." [The article notes later that "There's concern that these shifts could make it harder for Ubisoft to recruit the talent it needs to improve, or even worse, actively drive away more of the company's existing veterans."] Particularly galling about the new return-to-office policy for some Paris staff was that they had only recently finished negotiating to ensure two days of work-from-home per week. "It's only been six months since the situation was more or less 'back to normal' and now it's shattered to the ground by Yves' sole decision with zero justification, zero documents, zero internal studies proving RTO increases productivity or morale, nothing," one developer told me. The specific details for the rollout of the return-to-office policy have yet to be communicated to everyone, could vary team by team, and might not go into effect for much of the year. The "massive international strike" would take place from February 10-12, Aftermath notes, citing the five French unions representing Ubisoft workers (CFE-CGC, CGT, Printemps Ãcologique, Solidaires Informatique, and STJV): "The announced transformation [at Ubisoft] claims to place games at the heart of its strategy, but without us, these games cannot exist," the unions wrote in a joint release.... We are not fooled: rather than taking financial responsibility for layoffs, they prefer to push us out by making our working conditions unbearable. It's outrageous...." The Ubisoft unions hope that February's strike will be the largest yet, and they're coordinating with unions outside France to present a globally united front against the company. A union representative at Ubisoft Paris even argued to Aftermath that because the CEO "needs to find 200€ million for the coming year, any person who has to quit because of this is a net benefit for him."

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I dropped my Google Pixel 9 XL Pro from 6th floor balcony to the street

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01 Feb 2026 3:14am GMT

Slashdot

US Government Also Received a Whistleblower Complaint That WhatsApp Chats Aren't Private

Remember that lawsuit questioning WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption? Thursday Bloomberg reported those allegations had been investigated by special agents with America's Commerce Department, "according to the law enforcement records, as well as a person familiar with the matter and one of the contractors." Similar claims were also the subject of a 2024 whistleblower complaint to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the records and the person, who spoke on the condition that they not be identified out of concern for potential retaliation. The investigation and whistleblower complaint haven't been previously reported... Last year, two people who did content moderation work for WhatsApp told an investigator with Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security that some staff at Meta have been able to see the content of WhatsApp messages, according to the agent's report summarizing the interviews. [A spokesperson for the Bureau later told Bloomberg that investigator's assertions were "unsubstantiated and outside the scope of his authority as an export enforcement agent."] Those content moderators, who worked for Meta through a contract with the management and technology consulting firm Accenture Plc, also alleged that they and some of their colleagues had broad access to the substance of WhatsApp messages that were supposed to be encrypted and inaccessible, according to the report. "Both sources confirmed that they had employees within their physical work locations who had unfettered access to WhatsApp," wrote the agent... One of the content moderators who told the investigator she had access said she also "spoke with a Facebook team employee and confirmed that they could go back aways into WhatsApp (encrypted) messages, stating that they worked cases that involved criminal actions," according to the document... The investigator's report, dated July 2025, described the investigation as "ongoing," includes a case number and dubs the inquiry "Operation Sourced Encryption..." The inquiry was active as recently as January, according to a person familiar with the matter. The inquiry's current status and who may be the defined target are both unclear. Many investigations end without any formal accusations of wrongdoing... WhatsApp on its website says it does, in some instances, allow information about messages to be seen by the company. If someone reports a user or group for problematic messages, "WhatsApp receives up to five of the last messages they've sent to you" and "the user or group won't be notified," the company says. In those cases, WhatsApp says it receives the "group or user ID, information on when the message was sent, and the type of message sent (image, video, text, etc.)." Former contractors outlined much broader access. Larkin Fordyce was an Accenture contractor who the report says an agent interviewed about content moderation work for Meta. Fordyce told the investigator he spent years doing this work out of an Austin, Texas office starting as early as the end of 2018. He said moderators eventually were granted their own access to WhatsApp, but even before that they could request access to communications and "the Facebook team was able to 'pull whatever they wanted and then send it,'" the report states... The agent also gathered records that were filed in the whistleblower complaint to the SEC, according to his report, which doesn't describe the materials... The status of the whistleblower complaint is unclear. Some key points from the article: "The investigative report seen by Bloomberg doesn't include a technical explanation of the contractors' claims." "A spokesperson for Meta, which acquired WhatsApp in 2014, said the contractors' claims are impossible." One contractor "said that there was little vetting" of foreign nationals hired to do content moderation for Meta, saying this granted them "full access to the same portal to review" content moderation cases

Hacker News

Apple-1 Computer Prototype Board #0 sold for $2.75M

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01 Feb 2026 2:25am GMT

List animals until failure

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01 Feb 2026 1:03am GMT

31 Jan 2026

Slashdot

AI Use at Work Has Increased, Gallup Poll Finds

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Associated Press: American workers adopted artificial intelligence into their work lives at a remarkable pace over the past few years, according to a new poll. Some 12% of employed adults say they use AI daily in their job, according to a Gallup Workforce survey conducted this fall of more than 22,000 U.S. workers. The survey found roughly one-quarter say they use AI at least frequently, which is defined as at least a few times a week, and nearly half say they use it at least a few times a year. That compares with 21% who were using AI at least occasionally in 2023, when Gallup began asking the question, and points to the impact of the widespread commercial boom that ChatGPT sparked for generative AI tools that can write emails and computer code, summarize long documents, create images or help answer questions... While frequent AI use is on the rise with many employees, AI adoption remains higher among those working in technology-related fields. About 6 in 10 technology workers say they use AI frequently, and about 3 in 10 do so daily. The share of Americans working in the technology sector who say they use AI daily or regularly has grown significantly since 2023, but there are indications that AI adoption could be starting to plateau after an explosive increase between 2024 and 2025... A separate Gallup Workforce survey from 2025 found that even as AI use is increasing, few employees said it was "very" or "somewhat" likely that new technology, automation, robots or AI will eliminate their job within the next five years. Half said it was "not at all likely," but that has decreased from about 6 in 10 in 2023. A bar chart lists the sectors most likely to be using AI at their jobs: Technology (77%) Finance (64%) College/University (63%) Professional Services (62%) K-12 Education (56%) Community/Social Services (43%) Government/Public Policy (42%) Manufacturing (41%) Health Care (41%) Retail (33%)