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Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

reuters.com

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Re: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

#141

Post by plagiarist »

layman51 wrote: post #86
dagmx wrote: post #42

This is going to be a huge chilling factor for employees. You’d no longer be able to disent, or discuss anything non-work related with even the slightest expectation of privacy. Yes they could have accessed logs before but there’s a difference between directed checking after incidents and active surveillance at scale.

Question: I have heard that at some tech companies that use internal chat software, the general practice is for IT to set it so that the messages are automatically deleted at the end of the day. In Google Chat this is a feature called "turn off history", and the idea behind it is that it can reduce a paper trail when there are investigations into the company doing something that's potentially monopolistic or otherwis…

Would require a government willing to hold criminals accountable even after taking bribery into account.

Re: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

#142

Post by satvikpendem »

cyclopeanutopia wrote: post #139
satvikpendem wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> employee communications are already monitored everywhere proof? > Turns out people actually don't really care about privacy at work lol, won't ask for proof, because it's trivially falsifiable

Ask your IT department what they're tracking and they'll tell you. And yet I assume you still continue to go to work or do not actively seek out non-surveiling companies. By "everybody," maybe iI should clarify that it’s "majority" instead.

Re: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

#143

Post by cyclopeanutopia »

satvikpendem wrote: post #138
cyclopeanutopia wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? How about a company-owned toilet? It's their property as well.

You're right, maybe they should put cameras in there too. But there's a reason we don't yet every worker still explicitly or implicitly knows not to use their work computer for personal tasks, as people can and do get fired for doing so.

This is a ridiculous statement. Everyone I know at my company uses work laptops for personal stuff. It's not in the land of freedom though, so great leaders like yourself can't fire people at will.

TBH at this point I don't believe you are a real person.

Re: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

#144

Post by Desafinado »

Honest question, does most of Meta's creepiness trickle down directly from Zuckerberg, or is their entire executive also this creepy?

Does the executive know better at this point but have toasted the culture and no one can fight against it anymore?

Re: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

#145

Post by satvikpendem »

cyclopeanutopia wrote: post #143
satvikpendem wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, maybe they should put cameras in there too. But there's a reason we don't yet every worker still explicitly or implicitly knows not to use their work computer for personal tasks, as people can and do get fired for doing so.

This is a ridiculous statement. Everyone I know at my company uses work laptops for personal stuff. It's not in the land of freedom though, so great leaders like yourself can't fire people at will. TBH at this point I don't believe you are a real person.

Consider, do they ever go on explicit websites on that computer? No? Because they know that's surveiled while a personal computer for the same purpose is not. As I said, people do know the difference and might do light personal things like googling something unrelated to work but wouldn't do e.g. banking on a work computer. If they do, well, it'll be their fault if they ever get fired for doing so.

The fact that you don't believe people who don't share your same opinion on mixing work and personal stuff are somehow not "real" is part of the problem.

Re: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

#146

Post by peacebeard »

bradlys wrote: post #47
shimman wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think collecting this type of intimate information about your employees as a major violation of the social contract?

I’m just saying that they’ve been collecting this info for years. Keyloggers, etc. are on all the computers you’re given. Employees didn’t have any expectation of privacy - just a hope. Now, it’s clear it’s completely gone and so the hope and goodwill is gone.

> Keyloggers, etc. are on all the computers you’re given.

I was curious about this claim and I dug up this article from 2024. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/internet-su...

It's an employee survey so it's not resistant to claims that the number is higher than people know. But I think saying "on all the computers you're given" is an exaggeration at best.

I did think it was interesting that "One in three [employees] have had activity from their employer’s online surveillance used in their performance reviews."

Sounds like if you're being surveilled by your employer there is a good chance you know about it.

I've never experienced anything like that, so it's sort of a window into another world from my perspective.

Re: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

#147

Post by alexpotato »

Desafinado wrote: post #144

Honest question, does most of Meta's creepiness trickle down directly from Zuckerberg, or is their entire executive also this creepy? Does the executive know better at this point but have toasted the culture and no one can fight against it anymore?

In my experience, a LOT of company culture trickles down from the top. Some of this is by design e.g. CEO consciously and publicly rewards certain traits/behaviors. Some of this is accidental in the sense that CEOs, like many humans, have both stated and expressed preferences.

There is also this effect:

- CEO says "the lights are a bit dim in here"

- that turns into "We need to change all of the lightbulbs in here immediately!"

(this is especially true in firms where the CEO cares a lot about being proactive).

Two great posts/stories about this:

1. This post about smart employees "reading their managers minds": https://yosefk.com/blog/people-can-read-their-managers-mind....

2. In Michael Crichton's book Disclosure there is a great line: "Why did you dress casually instead of wearing a suit? Is it b/c you wanted to do that or b/c the CEO did it and you wanted to show you were part of the team??"

Re: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

#148

Post by sassymuffinz »

dagmx wrote: post #42

This is going to be a huge chilling factor for employees. You’d no longer be able to disent, or discuss anything non-work related with even the slightest expectation of privacy. Yes they could have accessed logs before but there’s a difference between directed checking after incidents and active surveillance at scale.

Highly ironic that people who spend their lives building things that invade everyone else's privacy might now whinge about privacy themselves.

Re: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

#149

Post by snek_case »

Desafinado wrote: post #144

Honest question, does most of Meta's creepiness trickle down directly from Zuckerberg, or is their entire executive also this creepy? Does the executive know better at this point but have toasted the culture and no one can fight against it anymore?

Culture is often set top down. Look at the current US administration for a public example. People at the top will choose people who agree with them or who are sycophants. Top execs also chose this job and zuck because they have no moral issues with what the company does... Often if you closely associate with someone creepy or immoral it's because you care more about money and power.

Re: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training

#150

Post by Liskni_si »

satvikpendem wrote: post #142
cyclopeanutopia wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> employee communications are already monitored everywhere proof? > Turns out people actually don't really care about privacy at work lol, won't ask for proof, because it's trivially falsifiable

Ask your IT department what they're tracking and they'll tell you. And yet I assume you still continue to go to work or do not actively seek out non-surveiling companies. By "everybody," maybe iI should clarify that it’s "majority" instead.

What if "the IT department" is just this one guy who asks me to Cc him an invoice when I buy a laptop and that's the end of it?

(yes that's a real story from my career, and the company was 100+ employees at the time)

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