Workplace

Mask mandates return to some Facebook and Amazon offices

Facebook said Monday that it will start requiring U.S. office workers to wear masks at work, joining Apple, Lyft and Uber in that policy.

A face mask

Mask mandates are returning.

Photo: Aleksandr Zubkov via Getty Images

Facebook said Monday that it will start requiring U.S. office workers to wear masks at work, joining Apple, Lyft and Uber in that policy. Amazon is also requiring masks at a number of its U.S. offices, according to an employee who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity.


Facebook cited several reasons for its new mask policy, which goes into effect on Tuesday. "Given the rising numbers of COVID cases, the newest data on COVID variants and an increasing number of local requirements, we are reinstating our mask requirements in all of Facebook's U.S. offices, regardless of an employee's vaccination status," company spokesperson Chloe Meyere said in a statement.

A number of Amazon offices in Los Angeles, New York and Las Vegas now require employees to wear masks, according to an Amazon employee. LA County's mask mandate does apply to public, indoor spaces, including offices. San Francisco officials also announced their own mask mandate on Monday, with other Bay Area counties expected to follow.

But the ecommerce giant hasn't imposed a nationwide mask mandate, Seattle-based company spokesperson Angie Schneider said. "I'm on site right now and am not masked," Schneider noted in an email.

Amazon's chief financial officer, Brian Olsavsky, said on Thursday that the company was still planning to return to the office next month and would not require vaccines. Apple, Facebook, Google and Uber have told employees they can work remotely until October, while Lyft has pushed back its full reopening until February.

In addition to these mask requirements, Facebook, Lyft and Uber have recently imposed vaccine mandates. Google is also requiring employees to get vaccinated in order to return to the office, but hasn't publicly announced a mask mandate. The search giant did begin strongly encouraging workers at its Bay Area offices to wear masks in mid-July.

Fintech

Judge Zia Faruqui is trying to teach you crypto, one ‘SNL’ reference at a time

His decisions on major cryptocurrency cases have quoted "The Big Lebowski," "SNL," and "Dr. Strangelove." That’s because he wants you — yes, you — to read them.

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Photo: Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images

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Veronica Irwin

Veronica Irwin (@vronirwin) is a San Francisco-based reporter at Protocol covering fintech. Previously she was at the San Francisco Examiner, covering tech from a hyper-local angle. Before that, her byline was featured in SF Weekly, The Nation, Techworker, Ms. Magazine and The Frisc.

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FTA
The Financial Technology Association (FTA) represents industry leaders shaping the future of finance. We champion the power of technology-centered financial services and advocate for the modernization of financial regulation to support inclusion and responsible innovation.
Enterprise

AWS CEO: The cloud isn’t just about technology

As AWS preps for its annual re:Invent conference, Adam Selipsky talks product strategy, support for hybrid environments, and the value of the cloud in uncertain economic times.

Photo: Noah Berger/Getty Images for Amazon Web Services

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Donna Goodison

Donna Goodison (@dgoodison) is Protocol's senior reporter focusing on enterprise infrastructure technology, from the 'Big 3' cloud computing providers to data centers. She previously covered the public cloud at CRN after 15 years as a business reporter for the Boston Herald. Based in Massachusetts, she also has worked as a Boston Globe freelancer, business reporter at the Boston Business Journal and real estate reporter at Banker & Tradesman after toiling at weekly newspapers.

Image: Protocol

We launched Protocol in February 2020 to cover the evolving power center of tech. It is with deep sadness that just under three years later, we are winding down the publication.

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Enterprise

Why large enterprises struggle to find suitable platforms for MLops

As companies expand their use of AI beyond running just a few machine learning models, and as larger enterprises go from deploying hundreds of models to thousands and even millions of models, ML practitioners say that they have yet to find what they need from prepackaged MLops systems.

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Photo: artpartner-images via Getty Images

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