Irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs

jjgreen

Full title prefixed "Magnificent"

RugnirViking

I really don't like the conflation of all meta staff with the strategy of the massive multinational corpo-monster that is meta itself. Its very easy to suggest that someone should leave their job on ideological grounds when its someone else you've never met. I don't work at meta, I work at a large non-tech company. I've been seeing it more and more these days. People do it for programmers as a whole too, or scientists. Concerns about job market layoffs due to ai dismissed with "Programmers surprised as leopards eat their own face" as though dave who does the database at your local high school is responsible in even some small sense for the effects of AI in society. There are actual people responsible for these problems. People who are not programmers. Who have far less in common with you or me than we both do with some random backend engineer at meta.

nsbk

Surveillance for thee, not for me

poulpy123

I don't see what can be trained with that, but it would be a nightmare to be always recorded like that

joe_mamba

Man, I sure wonder if those engineers building Palantir's, Flock's, and other surveillance SW right now (hello if you're reading this), will have this 20/20 hindsight "oh shit" epiphany moment, when the product they helped build is gonna be used against them or their kids in the future. Kind of like when Dr. Frankenstein finds his end at the hands of his creation. Those SW devs probably think that doing a deal with the devil in exchange for a higher than average income now, will allow them to build an upper class lifestyle where they'll be safe from the government's jackboots, but news flash, NO you won't, unless you're part of the insider-trading presidential Epstein Island elite pedo-class, you're also on the menu. Zuckerberg, Gates, Karp, Thiel, all have self sustaining doomsday bunkers on private islands, to escape the societal fallout of their actions. Do you?

yfw

Read Careless People. The fish rots from the head

fhennig

In the actual article (not the headline) there is no mention of staff reporting to be unhappy.

mykowebhn

s/Irony/Schadenfreude/g

softwaredoug

This article is just a summary of other articles. Specifically these two more detailed ones: https://www.itnews.com.au/news/meta-to-start-capturing-emplo... https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-new-ai-tool-tracks-staf...

notTheLastMan

Fam, what should we actually do about this? If you want to be real for a minute, we all lived through the freedom of Covid WFH. We all did dishes and billed for it. We all told ourselves 'I needed a break, it helps me think about the problem'. (And that was true, one day I was stuck on an 8 queens problem and I ran a half marathon, when I finished I had the solution) But... common everyone... we are humans. We take the path of least resistance. Does anyone waste money or time on things that dont matter intentionally? If I'm making 200k a year with 0 output, I'll probably work on something else in the meantime. If I'm in office, I don't think I need surveillance, I'm on the clock and its my manager's job to supervise. WFH? I get it. This idea is as old as the panopticon, and Michel Foucault talks about this as well. As I get older and run my own company, I find my juniors and seniors need to be supervised. My mid-levels are fine. Juniors dont know when to ask for help. Seniors are complacent. Mid-levels seem to have something to prove. Can labor make a deal with management? I'll give you WFH for surveillance software.

Devasta

Meta employees shocked to find out they work for Meta.

bossyTeacher

Not unhappy enough to leave though.

rubyfan

The Zuckerberg quote from the article reads like someone running for class president in high school. > helps you achieve your goals, create what you want to see in the world, experience any adventure, be a better friend to those you care about, and grow to become the person you aspire to be. … If you vote for me, all of your wildest dreams will come true. Thank you.

throwaway2037

I gotta say, the opening line is a gem of British humour: > Meta, the company built on watching everything its billions of users do online so it can keep them clicking on ragebait and targeted ads I am laughing so hard right now.

everdrive

As much as everyone is rightly dunking on meta employees, it's an interesting slice of the population. Anyone who cared about surveillance and privacy (and addiction, and societal health, etc.) wouldn't be working for meta in the first place. The hypocrisy point is correct to point out, but I do wonder why this is a bridge too far for them.

dada78641

I was once asked to install surveillance software on my personal PC, as a remote freelance worker. The person responsible on Slack told me "let me know when you've installed it". So I decided to just wait 15 minutes and then say "yeah I installed it" to see if they would notice that I didn't... and they didn't, they just said "OK, thanks" and I never heard anything about it ever again. I realize this doesn't really help this conversation but that's all I can think of whenever this kind of subject comes up.

ChrisArchitect

More discussion on source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47860961 And Related: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47851948

rich_sasha

So what happens when this keylogger captures the password that gives access to all the personal data Facebook scraped over the years?