In the wake of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape trial, a survey of nearly 10,000 workers by the Anita Hill-led Hollywood Commission revealed a sobering result: Few people believed perpetrators would ever be held accountable.

The vast majority, however, were interested in new tools to document incidents and access resources and helplines.

Four years later, the Hollywood Commission is trying to make that request a reality.

On Thursday, the nonprofit organization launched MyConnext, an online resource and reporting tool that will allow workers at five major entertainment business organizations to get help with reporting incidents of harassment, discrimination and abuse.

The website allows those entertainment industry employees to speak with a live ombudsperson, create time-stamped records and submit those reports to their employer or union. (Any entertainment worker can access the site’s resources section to learn more about what it means to report an incident and understand complicating factors such as mandatory arbitration.)

So far, the commission has partnered with the Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America, certain U.S.-based Amazon productions, all U.S.-based Netflix productions and film/TV producer the Kennedy/Marshall Co., founded by filmmakers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall. The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees is expected to join later this year, according to the commission.

MyConnext is not intended to replace any of these organizations’ individual reporting platforms. Rather, it’s designed to provide an additional option and serve as a one-stop shop for workers seeking help or resources. The commission did not say what the initiative cost.

One key feature of the MyConnext reporting platform is called “hold for match,” which allows a worker to fill out a record of an incident and instructs the system not to send the report to one of the partner organizations until another report about the same person is detected. At that time, both reports will be sent.

“It is very difficult for an individual to come forward,” said Hill, president of the Hollywood Commission, which was founded in October 2017 to help eradicate abuse in the entertainment industry. “Let’s say, for example, Harvey Weinstein: It was very difficult to prove a case when there was only one person because there was a tendency to turn it into a so-called ‘he-said, she-said’ situation.”

With this feature, however, employers could potentially recognize a pattern of abuse. And that, Hill said, could be a game changer.

“We ultimately hope that [the tool] will elevate the level of accountability, and accountability is ultimately what I think everybody wants,” said Hill. The commission led the 2020 survey, along with a follow-up survey this year that found a similar desire for harassment reporting resources.

“Information, really, is power,” said Hill.

Advocates say such resources have become even more crucial amid what they describe as a pullback in Hollywood’s promised efforts to create a more inclusive industry for women. Fears of backsliding escalated after Weinstein’s New York sex assault conviction was overturned last month by a state appeals court, which ordered a new trial. Weinstein’s conviction in California remains.

“What’s so important even now, in light of the reversal of a conviction, is making sure that individuals who have suffered harm get to choose what makes the most sense for them,” said Malia Arrington, executive director of the Hollywood Commission. “You need to be informed about what all of your different choices may mean to make sure that you’re entering into whatever path with eyes wide open.”

With that in mind, the platform has a multipronged approach. The resources section helps workers understand their options, including the general process for filing a complaint, as well as where to access counseling and emotional or employment support.

Members of the participating organizations also have access to a secure platform through MyConnext that lets them record an incident — regardless of whether they submit it as an official report — send anonymous messages, speak with an independent ombudsperson and submit reports of abuse.

Speaking with an advocate allows workers to get their questions answered confidentially and by a live human, said Lillian Rivera, the ombudsperson who is employed by MyConnext.

“It’s a human that’s going to listen to folks, who’s going to be nonjudgmental, who is going to be supportive and is going to be able to point people toward all of their options, and really put the power in the hands of the worker so they can make the decision that’s best for them,” Rivera said.

After years of delays, Boeing’s Starliner capsule was set to take off early this month with two astronauts aboard — and now the flight to the International Space Station has been put on hold indefinitely following a series of setbacks.

The original May 6 launch was scuttled hours before takeoff due to a balky rocket valve. It was rescheduled first for May 10 and then a second time for Friday, when it was decided to replace the valve on the Atlas V rocket.

All systems seemed go until yet another problem cropped up, this time with the capsule. A helium leak was detected coming from the spacecraft’s propulsion system.

After two more delays, officials with NASA, Boeing and United Launch Alliance, the rocket maker, said late Tuesday that the flight would be postponed indefinitely — a sequence of events that Boeing didn’t need.

“It’s embarrassing that Boeing was on the verge of launching this mission, and now we do not even have a time for when they are planning to launch,” said Laura Forczyk, executive director of space industry consultancy Astralytical. “On the other hand, we have waited years for this launch, so what’s another couple of weeks. They are relying on this mission to go very smoothly.”

NASA said Tuesday that it is still reviewing flight safety issues and would “share more details once we have a clearer path forward.”

The delays are particularly nettlesome for the Arlington, Va., aerospace giant because it’s years behind SpaceX in launching a crewed capsule to service the space station.

Both companies were given multibillion-dollar contracts in 2014 to develop the craft, and since 2020 Elon Musk’s Hawthorne company has ferried eight operations crews to the base — while Boeing has managed only two unmanned flights.

The companies were chosen by NASA after the agency had to rely on the Russian program to send U.S. astronauts to the station when the space shuttle program was ended in 2011.

Boeing has reportedly had to eat $1.5 billion in Starliner cost overruns, and it can ill afford a failure with astronauts aboard, especially after the two crashes of its 737 Max 8 jets and a door plug that blew out of a 737 Max 9 flight this year on its way to Ontario International Airport in San Bernardino County.

“Boeing has so much to prove. They’re just about four years behind SpaceX,” Forczyk said. “They need to make sure they have all their ducks lined up in a row.”

The California Supreme Court appears poised to uphold Proposition 22, the voter initiative that allows Uber, Lyft and other gig economy companies to classify their ride hail and delivery drivers as independent contractors rather than as employees.

As justices on the state’s top court heard arguments Tuesday afternoon on the constitutionality of the law, their line of questioning suggested they were not persuaded by the argument put forth by those challenging the law: that it should be overturned because it interferes with the state Legislature’s authority to provide workers’ compensation protections to drivers.

The justices, however, appeared to be open to a compromise of sorts offered up by Michael Mongan, solicitor general at the California Department of Justice, in which the state Legislature would amend Proposition 22 to allow drivers access to workers’ compensation benefits.

How the justices ultimately rule will have enormous implications for the delivery and ride hail companies that have argued that their ability to operate in California depends on the law’s survival, as well as the million-plus people in the state who drive for them.

Under the law, drivers are considered to be their own employers, a designation that frees the companies they drive for from having to provide benefits that traditional employees in the state are entitled to, such as overtime, sick leave and a minimum wage.

Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and other companies poured upward of $200 million into a campaign to sway voters in favor of Proposition 22 on the ballot in 2020. It passed with 59% of the vote.

At the hearing Tuesday, Scott Kronland, the attorney representing the union and drivers that brought the lawsuit challenging Proposition 22, reasserted the legal theory he’s used throughout as the case has wound its way through lower courts: The California Constitution has given the Legislature “unlimited” power to regulate workers’ compensation for more than a century.

Justices, however, immediately challenged him, asking why the will of voters, or “initiative power,” shouldn’t be given equal weight.

“What is your evidence that in 1918, when this was adopted, the voters didn’t have in mind the initiative power?” asked Justice Goodwin Liu, referring to the year voters gave lawmakers the authority over workers’ compensation.

“Isn’t the initiative power equal to the Legislature?” Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero asked.

Kurt Oneto, an attorney representing the industry coalition backing Proposition 22, said he is cautiously optimistic the state’s highest court will uphold the law.

“We are confident,” Oneto said. “The court was asking questions around whether or not they could just issue an opinion clarifying the validity of Prop. 22, or whether they should go a step further and discuss the Legislature’s ability or lack thereof to amend Prop. 22 to provide workers’ compensation benefits.”

Kronland declined to speculate on the outcome. “It was a lively oral argument,” he said.

The court must issue its ruling within 90 days of Tuesday’s hearing.

Nicole Moore, one of a group of drivers who rallied outside the Earl Warren Building in San Francisco, where the hearing was held, said the back-and-forth between justices and lawyers was “disempowering and honestly confusing” because it didn’t address the heart of drivers’ concerns: pay and benefits.

“It didn’t feel like justice in that room. The state has to make a decision, if it’s OK to have huge numbers of people managed by algorithms and AI make less than what is possible to live,” Moore said.

In a statement, Uber spokesperson Ramona Prieto said, “Forced employment would be devastating for the thousands of drivers and couriers who turn to Uber for flexible work and the millions of Californians who would see major service reductions and cost increases — or lose ridesharing and food delivery entirely.”

The ride hail companies have considered pulling out of states before. Both Uber and Lyft threatened to stop operating in Minnesota after the state announced a statewide minimum wage for drivers, although they retracted that threat after reaching a compromise with state officials. Earlier this month, Massachusetts’ highest court heard arguments over whether to allow an industry-backed ballot measure similar to Proposition 22 to go before voters in November.

Veena Dubal, a law professor at UC Irvine who has studied pay issues in the gig economy, said that if Proposition 22 is allowed to stand, companies would double down on efforts to legalize the business model “all over the world, not just in other states.”

Lorena Gonzalez, head of the California Labor Federation and a former California assemblywoman, said if Proposition 22 is upheld in whole or in part, labor groups and lawmakers “have a responsibility” to explore other avenues for improving drivers’ working conditions, whether through collective bargaining efforts or amendments giving drivers access to workers’ compensation.

“We knew going in the disposition of most courts is to allow an initiative to stand. What gets carved out or clarified, we have to use to make the world better for rideshare and delivery drivers,” Gonzalez said.