Meta employees protest mouse-tracking software as layoffs approach

Staff protest overhaul and mouse tracking at 'Employee Data Extraction Factory'

Meta employees are protesting the company's new mouse-tracking software, the Model Capability Initiative (MCI), with flyers in US offices and a petition citing the National Labor Relations Act. The tool records keystrokes, clicks and screenshots to train Meta's AI agents—just days before the May 20 layoffs cutting 8,000 jobs. UK staff have also launched a unionisation drive with United Tech and Allied Workers.

As Meta has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into outpacing its competition in the AI arms race, employees have been forced to get on board with its big bet. Meta employees have been asked to enthusiastically adopt AI and are now evaluated on their AI use in performance reviews. Recurring layoffs have reportedly stoked discontent: According to a recent New York Times report, employees have built websites to count down to another round of rumored job cuts next week.  Now the company is also using mouse-tracking software to collect employee data that will help train Meta’s AI models—and employees are not having it.  A Reuters report today revealed that an online petition is circulating at the company, and that employees have even posted physical flyers to encourage their colleagues to sign. The flyers were distributed across multiple U.S. offices in meeting rooms and on vending machines, and according to Reuters, included the following language: “Don’t want to work at the Employee Data Extraction Factory?” Employees cannot opt out of being tracked by the mouse-tracking software if they are using a company laptop, which has fueled privacy concerns among its workforce and questions about whether they are training AI that will ultimately replace them. But Meta has insisted this data will be a critical part of developing its AI models. “If we’re building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them—things like mouse movements, clicking buttons, and navigating dropdown menus,” a Meta spokesperson previously told Fast Company. “To help, we’re launching an internal tool that will capture these kinds of inputs on certain applications to help us train our models.” (As for the concerns over privacy, Meta also noted that there were “safeguards in place to protect sensitive content.”)   When reached by Fast Company, Meta was not immediately available for comment. There has been growing concern over AI-related layoffs, which are becoming routine across the tech industry. (LinkedIn announced job cuts yesterday that will impact 5% of its workforce—right on the heels of layoffs at companies like Coinbase, Cloudflare, and PayPal.) But the dissent at Meta also indicates that employees are organizing in a manner that is more atypical among white-collar tech workers. Employees are not simply incensed by the rapid clip of layoffs; they are openly speaking out against their working conditions.  The Times reported that hundreds of employees had sounded off in response to Meta’s plan to track computer usage. The online petition and flyers being distributed at Meta offices even referenced the National Labor Relations Act, according to Reuters, noting that the law protected their right to organize in the workplace “for the improvement of ‌working conditions.”  The tech industry has seen an uptick in this kind of employee activism over the last decade. But the dizzying pace of AI adoption at companies like Meta seems to be catalyzing a new wave of protest over issues like workplace monitoring that, until now, have been largely the purview of blue-collar workers. As Fast Company has reported, there is little legal recourse for employees who are subject to this sort of tracking software, as long as it is limited to company devices.  There are, however, real ethical concerns over the fact that employees have no choice but to comply with this kind of surveillance—especially in a climate where their jobs are on the line.

Privacy concerns aside, Meta workers are worried that AI-training mouse tracking software will ultimately lead to further job cuts.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Meta employees distributed flyers at multiple U.S. offices on Tuesday to protest the company's recent installation of mouse-tracking software on their computers, according to photos of the pamphlets seen by Reuters. The flyers, which appeared in meeting rooms, on vending machines and atop toilet paper dispensers at the Facebook owner's offices, encouraged staffers to sign an online petition against the move. "Don't want to work at the Employee Data Extraction Factory?" they asked, according to the photos seen by Reuters. [...] The pamphlets and the petition both cite the U.S. National Labor Relations Act, saying "workers are legally protected when they choose to organize for the improvement of working conditions." In the UK, a group of Meta employees has started organizing a drive for unionization with United Tech and Allied Workers (UTAW), a branch of the Communication Workers Union. The employees set up a website to recruit members using the URL "Leanin.uk," a reference to former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg's best-selling book encouraging women to seek equal footing in the workplace. "Meta's workers are paying the price for management's reckless and expensive bets. While executives chase speculative AI strategies, staff are facing devastating job cuts, draconian surveillance, and the cruel reality of being forced to train the inefficient systems being positioned to replace them," said Eleanor Payne, an organizer with UTAW. "If we're building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them -- things like mouse movements, clicking buttons, and navigating dropdown menus," said a statement Meta issued earlier. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Flyers framing the Model Capability Initiative as an ‘Employee Data Extraction Factory’ appeared in US offices on Tuesday, with a petition and a UK unionisation drive in train By Tuesday afternoon, the flyers were everywhere. Meta employees at several US offices walked into meeting rooms, broke for coffee at vending machines, and used the restrooms […] This story continues at The Next Web