Mark Zuckerberg’s new initiative to track employee computer use is tearing the company apart. In a sign that those simmering tensions are boiling over into open revolt, some workers are sending clear shots across the bow.
“Selfishly, I don’t want my screen scraped because it feels like an invasion of my privacy,” an engineer wrote this week in an internal post seen by nearly 20,000 coworkers, Wired reported. “But zooming out, I don’t want to live in a world where humans — employees or otherwise — are exploited for their training data.”
The initiative at the center of the debate, called the Model Capability Initiative, closely tracks employees’ keyboard strokes, mouse data, and records their screens while using certain apps. Meta leadership claims that this data will be used to teach its AI models “how people actually complete everyday tasks using computers,” amid the industry’s heavy push into AI agents that can perform tasks on your behalf. Despite half-hearted assurances from Meta chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth that the data would be “tightly controlled,” many employees see it as a blatant violation of their privacy (and that’s without even getting into Zuckerberg’s own dismal history with accessing users’ private data.)
It comes at a time when morale at the company is at a nadir. As part of Zuckerberg’s all-in AI push, Meta announced it would fire ten percent of its workforce, or nearly 8,000 employees, leaving many uncertain about their future. The company is also demanding that employees produce more than ever by using AI agents and coding tools as much as possible, with AI usage now a factor in performance reviews.
The gloomy esprit de corps could easily turned into numb acceptance of Meta’s AI regime, but the Model Capability Initiative clearly struck a nerve and has sparked open acts of mild defiance. Per Wired, a petition calling to end it has been circulating inside the company since last week. It states that “it should not be the norm that companies of any size are permitted to exploit their employees by nonconsensually extracting their data for the purposes of Al training.” Employees have been posting flyers in communal areas like cafeterias and in bathrooms that advertise the petition.
As such, the Meta engineer who called the data tracking initiative an “invasion of my privacy” was summarizing the current sentiment brewing in the ranks.
“Layoffs, budget cuts, years of efficiency and intensity — all of it contributed to a growing sense of dread,” the employee wrote, per Wired. “MCI is a microcosm for the Al movement,” the engineer added. “Yes, it’s just a small turn of the temperature knob, but it’s representative of the types of systems that people will be compelled to build.”
In some respects, these criticisms are tinged with irony. Of all the Big Tech companies, Meta’s privacy track record is generally seen as the worst of the worst (two words: Cambridge Analytica). For its employees to turn around now and be shocked that the surveillance boomerang has come back to hurt them, too, is a little rich. It could be a scales-falling-from-the-eyes moment, or it could be a blip in the corporate monolith’s operations. Whatever happens, it’s clear that Zuckerberg’s is losing his grip on the rank and file.
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