Ethics in the digital workplace
Digitisation and automation technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), can affect working conditions in a variety of ways and their use in the workplace raises a host of new ethical concerns.
Discovery Inc, a US-based media company which broadcasts more than 100 TV channels in Europe, including Eurosport and The Animal Planet, has announced that it will make 100 of its employees in London redundant. The company will close its European playout centre in London, when all its television channels that do not broadcast live programmes will be migrated to the cloud. A spokesperson for the company said that the change is part of Discovery adopting a ‘more agile operational technology model’ that relies on its recently upgraded global technology and playout centre in the USA.
Discovery Inc will continue to employ 1,300 people in the UK, where it makes programmes and broadcasts 16 channels to British viewers.
Until March 2018 Discovery Inc was known as Discovery Communications, Inc. In March 2018, Discovery formally acquired the media firm Scripps Networks Interactive (SNI), and made around 60 London-based employees of SNI redundant.
Eurofound (2018), Discovery, Internal restructuring in United Kingdom, factsheet number 94290, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/94290.