Gig economy: Writers, photographers sue California

Two organizations that represent freelance journalists filed a lawsuit this week arguing that California’s new gig-worker law, AB5, is unconstitutional, said Suhauna Hussain in the Los Angeles Times. Following a lawsuit by the California Trucking Association, it is the second legal challenge to AB5, which was promoted as a way to protect independent contractors for companies like Uber or Lyft. The new suit stakes out a First Amendment claim, arguing that the law, which limits news outlets to publishing “35 pieces per year from an individual freelance writer” before classifying the writer as an employee, violates free speech rights. Uber is funding a ballot initiative to overturn the law in 2020.

Jacob Gottlieb, whose hedge fund, Visium Asset Management, was liquidated following an insider-trading scandal in 2016, wanted to bury the undesirable results he found when typing his name into Google. He hired a “reputation management” company, Status Labs, to place fawning—or simply false—content about him “on websites masquerading as news outlets.” One article appeared on a site called Medical Daily Times about a donation to New York University’s medical school. But

NYU said the information was inaccurate, and “the phone number for Medical Daily Times on its website rang at a pizzeria in Toronto.” Other former clients of Status Labs include billionaire Ken Griffin and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.