Meta employees protest against mouse tracking tech at US offices

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/meta-us-employees-organize-protest-against-mouse-tracking-tech-2026-05-12/

by delichon • 2 months ago

73 87 2 months ago

reuters.com

rexpop2• 2 months ago

Proud of them—it's scary to stand up to the boss, but we set the floor for eachother.

iAMkenough• 2 months ago

They should be supported, but they did choose to work for a boss whose entire career has followed the path of collecting sensitive personal data from people for personal gain.

rexpop2• 2 months ago

Everybody starts somewhere. They've taken maybe their first step in the right direction.

blinkbat2• 2 months ago

hopefully they push back successfully. even if the most nefarious use is "we're training computer use AI", they should shell out for dedicated labs, not piggyback off the employees. gross.

sidebar but I've never aspired to work for faang and as the years go on it seems more and more like the right choice. vampire culture.

idle_zealot• 2 months ago

they should shell out for dedicated labs

Seriously. This goes for all kinds of analytics. We've normalized surveillance, and if you dare suggest opt-in analytics rather than forced or opt-out you get hit with "but then we won't get enough data to improve our product." That's your problem. Do a UX study, interview people, make a focused effort to make good software. That's how we got the best interface design of all time. Now we're drowning in data and our software is fucking garbage that constantly frustrates and confuses its users. Clearly the issue is not a lack of usage data. It may even do you some good to fly blind if this is your alternative.

Really you should do the lab, though. Take this field seriously and cut out the live A/B testing.

entropyie• 2 months ago

Stunning hypocrisy.

getmoheb• 2 months ago

The irony is indeed absolutely blinding

rvz• 2 months ago

I see...

The employees were all fine with tracking the entire globe and surveilling on Meta's family of apps, but when that is used against them by tracking their own mouse movements and their computers, it is now all too much?

Why are you still at Meta then? Clearly Zuckerberg does not care and can easily (and will) lay them off.

Just leave.

AngryData• 2 months ago

Why not protest the mouse tracking they do for the rest of the world? Oh wait because they only give a shit about themselves, that is why they still work for facebook.

pesus2• 2 months ago

This is really a "hoisted by your own petard" situation. I hope they don't think people are going to be sympathetic towards them when they're guilty of doing the same type of things (and far worse) to billions of people.

dangus11• 2 months ago

I will never blame the non-management workers in this situation. Most of us are forced by modern society to work for someone else and there are a limited number of jobs available.

Not everyone who works at Meta has a better, more ethical option.

This woukd be like saying the person scanning your ticket at the concert condones Ticketmaster as a monopoly. No, they’re just trying to feed their family.

FireBeyond3• 2 months ago

Not everyone who works at Meta has a better, more ethical option.

Come on now. Software engineers at Meta are not trapped with Meta on their resume (whatever you may think of the company itself). Most of the FAANG, for engineering, just having that name on your resume, opens up doors.

You might get less than $700K TC as an E6 but that's also not "trapped" unless you've chosen to outspend your income.

siren20266• 2 months ago

Oh I will blame them.

Working at Facebook means you optimized ruthlessly for $$$$$ only, absolutely nothing else.

Working at Facebook means you are a leetcode monkey and could as well pass other interviews somewhere else and get paid 10% less. But to you, destroying democracy and killing teenager was worth those extra 10%

Working at Facebook means you became a millionaire, even if you joined mid-career a couple years ago because of the stock inflation.

No they are not just trying to feed their family. 99% of them are ruthlessly optimizing to make the most money possible to live in the top 1%, while completely dismissing all the bad Facebook, Meta and Instagram do in the world. No sympathy.

And please don't compare someone making 800k$ with someone scanning a ticket for Ticketmaster for minimum wage. At those income levels, who you work for DOES matter.

darth_avocado4• 2 months ago

Meta employees aren’t DoorDash gig workers trying to feed families. These are well compensated workers. It’s okay to have the opinion that most white collar jobs do some harm somewhere, but pretending these are poor souls forced to work for meta because of lack of options is not a great take.

Furthermore the guy scanning the tickets doesn’t work for Ticketmaster, Meta employees work for and are well compensated for that work, by Meta. Big difference.

That being said, I still empathize with workers. I think people need to be treated like people and not some resource to be exploited.

justacrow• 2 months ago

Yes, all those people Meta just laid off due to whistleblowing on the Glass privacy violations, and their content moderators and data labelers and so on have my full support.

No sympathies for anyone doing SW engineering or similar. Anyone working there can definitely get a different programming gig. It likely doesn't pay as much but that's how it goes when you sell your soul.

linkregister2• 2 months ago

I'm sympathetic to this view, which has merit. I'm also happy to accept any new advocates for privacy and liberty. Purity tests are counterproductive to a movement's goals. Effort should be directed toward activities that advance the agenda of the movement, directly or indirectly.

Here's a better statement "I'm glad they're seeing the light, even if they had to become victimized themselves to finally care."

pesus2• 2 months ago

Fair point, but I'd have to see something more concrete than just them complaining about this situation specifically to believe they've actually seen the light. If they just continue to work there as usual and make no efforts to even find a job elsewhere, it doesn't seem like they've yet opened their eyes to the light.

georgeburdell2• 2 months ago

The 5 Americans left at Meta have had enough

bdhe• 2 months ago

What does this mean? I thought Meta has something like 80,000 employees. Meta had about 1,400 H-1B employee petitions last year. Even if we assume that number held for Meta's entire existence, that's less than 25,000 H-1B employees. Less than a third of Meta are presumably immigrants.

Have I got something wrong or is there this belief that Meta doesn't hire any Americans?

georgeburdell2• 2 months ago

I don’t know why you think Meta accumulated most of its Chinese engineers through H1B. It’s top tier pay so most people move up to them from elsewhere.

ironman1478• 2 months ago

People here are making some warranted snarky comments. I ended working at Meta for a few quarters and quit. I will say many employees are so abstracted away that you sort of forget that you work for Facebook to some extent. I also noticed that people really believe that what Facebook works on is a net good. I don't agree and maybe we don't agree, but saying "haha now it's happening to you" isn't the gotcha you think it is to those people if those people believe the products are a net good.

I disagree that the products are a net good, to be clear. But working there lots of people drink the koolaid

FireBeyond3• 2 months ago

Yup. I worked for Flock for a bit. During recruitment and onboarding, it was all big on ethics and morality and slippery slopes and responsible data stewardship.

After HR pats you on the back and you met with your team and org? Mask off.

"No, we won't build controls that allow us to block [data sharing that is illegal for agencies in state] for those agencies. That's not our concern. Oh, they want training on how to do that data sharing? Sure."

Garrett would talk regularly at all hands about a very Minority Report-esque future that was driven and made possible by Flock, and he was very clear it wasn't exaggerated for example or aspirational but an organizational goal.

Anyone who stayed there more than a few months knows exactly what they're doing.

whyenot3• 2 months ago

Like most state employees, I am in a union and while there are MANY things I do not like about my union, from its high dues, to its constant forays into politics, to the supine pose it takes to contract negotiations, there is one thing that it does very well, and that is stands up against BS like this in a very meaningful way. Tech workers need a union or some union-like organization that stands up for basic worker rights.

archagon• 2 months ago

Forays into politics? Isn’t a union inherently political?

chrismcb• 2 months ago

It shouldn't be. Of course I think sometimes it has to be. But it is supposed to represent the employees in a collective bargaining agreement. That is it. You could argue they should be involved with some politics around labor laws.

whyenot3• 2 months ago

No. I am not paying $1,000s in dues for them to spend it on a rally to "End Child Poverty" (to use an example currently in my inbox; and it's a good cause, just not a good use of my dues). My union exists to represent and protect me and my coworkers. Nothing more, nothing less. ...at least thats the way in should be, IMO.

joe_mamba2• 2 months ago

In my EU country the national tech(IT) union is useless because they are simply toothless. Unions of teachers, airport, road, rail, etc workers are strong and always get what they want regardless of economic performance, because they can grind the country to a halt by simply not showing up to work for a day, but tech workers are under constant pressure of outsourcing and offshoring due to the globally distributed nature of work, so the unions never manage to negotiate anything against employers because they just have no leverage, when their workload can be taken over by someone from another country if they go on strike.

The local company union/workers council (Betriebsraat) si also equally toothless and didn't do much at the mass layoffs.

Unions are only as powerful as their impact to the comfort of the citizens and to the votes of the politicians.

stasomatic• 2 months ago

so the unions never manage to negotiate anything against >employers because they just have no leverage, when their >workload can be taken over by someone from another country if >they go on strike.

Are there mitigation policies in place in your org in case your union decides to take a sabbatical? What would happen if you all called in sick? It seems there'd be more economical damage than teachers or ATC not showing up for their shift, because commerce/transactions. Spirit Airlines in the states just shut down, but everyone just yawned, "oh, so sorry too bad". If your employer does have that plan B, then why are you still employed? Won't they want your union to strike and off with your heads?

I never got my head around the unions. They start idealistic but end up as corrupt as the source of their angst as they mature and it's a constant push/pull and the civilians' bank accounts suffer regardless. I am not saying "give in". So, close the borders, physical or digital?

Just musing, apologies for the ramble.

KumaBear• 2 months ago

My union is excellent but we are the exception to the rules. Our contracts always net better pay and retirement benefits. Sometimes I’m in disbelief what they sometimes get on paper. It wasn’t always like that but the protection unions bring are a huge benefit. Like them or hate them this would be something that would be a line item in a contract with protections.

yodsanklai2• 2 months ago

Stuff like that should be regulated at a much higher level than unions.

gwerbin• 2 months ago

Unions are historically how that kind of policy becomes policy.

xingped• 2 months ago

Probably going to get downvoted for this, but..

Unfortunately too many tech workers think they're special little snowflakes and deserve the highest pay possible and think that unions will interfere with that. Because if you aren't getting the highest pay or the highest job title, you just aren't good enough and why should I be associated with those that aren't good enough? You will never get tech workers to come together for the common good. It's always about only what's best for me. The amount of greedy self-centeredness and backstabbing I've seen in this industry across multiple companies is unreal.

esseph2• 2 months ago

The amount of greedy self-centeredness and backstabbing I've seen in this industry across multiple companies is unreal.

And this just keeps happening over and over? Interesting.

b3ing• 2 months ago

It won’t happen, the last few generations have been brainwashed and have forgotten the past history of when people united together to give us the rights we have today which haven’t been added to since the 90s (the family leave act - which doesn’t even pay you it just keeps from losing a job)

There’s a reason they keep us fighting each other over race, culture wars, and other bs, because they know united our country would look so much different and they wouldn’t be able to make as much money

greenchair• 2 months ago

But these protesting employees were perfectly fine with mouse tracking their users for adtech purposes?

HDBaseT• 2 months ago

Rules for thee but not for me.

This sentiment continues endlessly up the chain. Ultimately, deploying endless adtech, surveillance and data scraping techniques puts you only one or two steps away from a Palantir employee.

TitaRusell• 2 months ago

American work culture is so damn toxic.

If you hire someone you trust them. Otherwise don't.

I fail to see how treating everyone like a miserable inmate at a Siberian gulag is going to help innovation.

yodsanklai2• 2 months ago

I don't think it's about trust, but they're using employees behavior for training their replacement.

jcgrillo• 2 months ago

It's hilariously fucked up. They pay us O($1M)/yr and treat us like we're working on an assembly line producing Jira story points. And if they don't surveil us carefully enough we might steal a point from them! Or something? Who knows. It's not just Facebook, although what they're doing here is particularly bad, but this ethos permeates the entire American tech industry. With very few exceptions, it's like this at every company.

booleandilemma• 2 months ago

Oh poor Meta employees! So sad!

If they were serious they would just walk out. They don't like the mouse tracking tech but I'll bet they like that sweet salary and cushy office job. How are the lunch options? I bet they're great. Oh what's that? You work from home? Must be nice.

blinkbat2• 2 months ago

your objection to them isn't that they work for a -- i think we can all agree -- pretty much despised and evil institution, but that their lives are too good? pick the right battle here.

nalekberov• 2 months ago

When such technologies are used to track masses, Meta employees just shrug, when it’s used to track them, it’s unacceptable.

“The ox does not mind the yoke until it is on his own neck.”

jacques_chester3• 2 months ago

I work at Meta (though after next Wednesday, maybe not).

I signed the petition.

Am I hypocrite? I think another version of me would think so.

I signed up because nobody else would take me on by the time they offered me something. After having only 3 months of work out of 18 months, with savings depleted to zero, facing the prospect of losing health coverage and having to fall back on family, I took the deal.

Hate me if you like. But I have a 40-odd year head start on hating me, so I doubt you'll make any kind of dent.

------

In any case, pushing back, anyhow, anywhere, is better than nothing. Let's not get stuck in HN's favorite argumentative shortcut, the Nirvana Fallacy.

jemmyw• 2 months ago

I'm very surprised that fb took you on but nobody else would. Why do you think that was?

jacques_chester3• 2 months ago

Hard to say, lots of things I guess. One was that I was never good at the current interview triad and needed to practice it a lot. Another was my resume, not impressive to a certain kind of hiring manager and recruiter.

Still another was that I asked blasphemous questions like "will I get to sleep?" and voiced controversial views like "teams focused on quality move faster".

The thing is that you sometimes get quite daft reasons back. One place said "you gave more examples from Pivotal than Shopify". Well yes, I was at Pivotal about thrice as long, that's how time works. I just let it slide.

mitaphane• 2 months ago

Hey Meta Employees,

Instead of signing petitions to enact change, which obviously won't happen because you're under a dictatorship, erode the company from the inside out.

Your platforms are already enshittified, enshittify your workplace, make a game out of making your workplace America's #1 toxic workspace. Quiet Quit, Gaslight your superiors, have AI write all your code & workplace communications, hit accept on all, while sludging up communications & the codebase. Make everything harder to do work while claiming all the productivity gains.

You'll be doing humanity a service.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Sabotage_Field_Manual

jacques_chester3• 2 months ago

Management is waaaayyy ahead of you on all of those suggestions.

TheChaplain• 2 months ago

lol first I thought Meta had a rodent problem :)

Anyways, there is a ton of mouse wigglers out there, notably on aliexpress.com, many external and not connected to your workstation.

rsynnott• 2 months ago

Fairly strong "never thought the leopard would eat MY face" energy there. "Argh, the surveillance company I work for is surveilling me!"

Meta employees protest against mouse tracking tech at US offices

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