firehose

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the latest tech company CEO to vehemently deny granting government access. In a post today, he said he wanted to "respond personally to the outrageous press reports about PRISM," and, like Google and Apple, said that "We hadn't even heard of PRISM before yesterday. " Zuckerberg used strong language to defend Facebook's policies:

We have never received a blanket request or court order from any government agency asking for information or metadata in bulk, like the one Verizon reportedly received. And if we did, we would fight it aggressively

Zuckerberg said that Facebook does, of course, receive government requests for Facebook information, but that Facebook reviews "make sure they always follow the correct processes and all applicable laws, and then only provide the information if is required by law." Like Google CEO Larry Page, Zuckerberg called for more transparency when it comes to government "programs aimed at keeping the public safe."

Earlier today, President Obama admitted to the existence of programs that collected phone call metadata as well as a program that tracked email — though he said it did not target US citizens. In both cases, Mr. Obama said that Congress was fully aware of the programs.

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Glenn Greenwald is at the center of one of the biggest news stories of the year, and according to The New York Times, there is fear he may soon be the focus of a federal investigation. On Wednesday, Greenwald, a reporter for The Guardian, broke the story that the National Security Agency has been collecting domestic and international phone records from Verizon, the US's largest wireless carrier. On Thursday, Greenwald followed that up with a story on PRISM, an NSA spying program that reportedly collects user data from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and other tech giants. In an interview with The Times, the columnist and former constitutional lawyer said that a number of friends have reached out and told him that "he should be worried."

Greenwald however is taking a different view. "What I am doing is exactly what the Constitution is about and I am not worried about it," he said in the interview, noting that the agency has vehemently pursued Bradley Manning, the Army private who leaked about 700,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war documents to WikiLeaks. "The NSA is kind of the crown jewel in government secrecy," Greenwald told The Times. "I expect them to react even more extremely." Check out The Times interview for more on Greenwald's history as a blogger, activist, and muckracker.

Notoriously, game development involves long hours, high-pressure deadlines and demanding, inexperienced bosses. But a new investigation by Kotaku has revealed allegations of bullying, sexism and mismanagement at one development-house.

The Kotaku report ‘Investigation: A Video Game Studio From Hell' details anonymous complaints and anecdotes from nine people associated with Trendy Entertainment, the company behind tower-defense/MOBA Dungeon Defenders 2, which currently employs around 45 people.

Stieglitz is reported as berating staff publicly and bizarre management techniques

The complaints include allegations of gender discrimination, in which female employers are said to be paid less than men with similar experience and skills. Many of the stories focus on company president Jeremy Stieglitz, who is reported as berating staff publicly as well as haphazard and bizarre management techniques and a creative style that fully embraces derivation.

A Skype log shows a conversation about an in-game character in which Stieglitz describes designs of a female robot in a way that many would deem inappropriate or creepy. In a design chat, he is quoted calling for "ass' and "boobs" to be made more "sexy". He adds, "Even better if the robots are aged under 18." He is also alleged to have released an in-office joke depiction of a seductive female character to the public.

Other allegations include severely long hours, late wage-payments and an ongoing campaign to copy as much from hit game League of Legends for Dungeon Defenders 2 as possible. An anonymous employee alleged, "Interesting, creative ideas [were] thrown by the wayside because 'we don't have time,' or 'Does League do it? No?' Then it's a waste of time, we need to do what League does."

Seeking comment, Polygon has contacted Jeremy Stieglitz via LinkedIn and Trendy Entertainment via its website and Twitter account, with no reply. Trendy did release a statement to Kotaku. "Trendy is a fairly young indie videogame developer experiencing some of the unfortunate issues associated with new companies finding their footing: long hours, quick growth, and on-going challenges stemming from working in a highly creative environment. Our management is focused on continuing to grow and develop a positive workplace despite these challenges. We are excited for our upcoming release of Dungeon Defenders 2 and hope that consumers appreciate the results of our efforts."

A boss who reportedly seems to treat people poorly is a story worth covering

In a 2010 interview with GameFan, Stieglitz talked about his company's philosophy. He said, "Everyone on the team fondly recalls the old-school days when games were packed with crazy innovative ideas. Nowadays, it seems in many cases that sense of risk-taking innovation and genre-mashup is lost by the major developers, while a lot of the indies are producing titles that are more like pretentious art pieces than practical entertainment. The Trendy team looks to develop original in-house games that are appealingly innovative while being obviously fun for a broad range of gamers."

Jason Schreier, the writer of Kotaku's article told Polygon. "Crunch time is a common thing in the industry but a situation like this where people are working long hours year-round and they have a boss who reportedly seems to treat people poorly, that's a story worth covering."

He added that employees of games companies "in an awful situation" should seek to resolve their problems, but that the press serves a useful purpose in "stopping companies from treating people this way."

In 2004, Erin Hoffman, aka ‘EA Spouse' wrote an anonymous post about working conditions at Electronic Arts, leading eventually to a class-action lawsuit against EA, and amendments to working conditions by that company.

Polygon has contacted the International Game Developers Association and Erin Hoffman for comment on this story, so look out for updates. If you work for a games company and are experiencing difficult working conditions, you can contact Polygon anonymously via the Contact Us page.