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Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

bbc.com

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Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#71

Post by scottious »

everdrive wrote: post #17

I don't work for Meta, but how many more years do I need to work in tech? I'm in my 40s and my kids are young. I've already set up 529s for them, and am paying for some expensive home upgrades. Maybe when that is finished and I've built up a buffer I can switch industries for the last 5-10 years of my working life. Curious if anyone here has any similar plans.

I understand and sympathize with the motivation here... but not all software engineering is bad. The best job I've ever had was working on cancer research as a software engineer. Brilliant biologists need engineers to help them run their analysis at scale to make discoveries. It was a non-profit, people genuinely cared and the org was good. Pay wasn't FAANG competitive of course, but my point is that not all software jobs are terrible.

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#72

Post by nicce »

Alifatisk wrote: post #39
LucidLynx wrote: post #22

I have a serious question to anyone working at Meta and reading this: HOW can you still work at this company!? Why don't you quit this very toxic company, and start working at another place or even on your own? I genuinely don't understand... Let just Meta die!

> I genuinely don't understand... Really? Its quite obvious to me. They get astonishing resume and salary. That is until they get fired or burned.

> astonishing resume

Not sure about that one.

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#73

Post by infraredshift »

LucidLynx wrote: post #22

I have a serious question to anyone working at Meta and reading this: HOW can you still work at this company!? Why don't you quit this very toxic company, and start working at another place or even on your own? I genuinely don't understand... Let just Meta die!

[dead]

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#74

Post by new_account_104 »

xnorswap wrote: post #44

I hate it when companies use this kind of trick to get around legislation or privacy concerns. "Employees are able to turn off tracking". Sure, but there is a power imbalance, and employees will come to understand ( although never stated in any handbook ) that the rate at which they disable it will be taken into account in performance reviews. Just like "unlimited PTO" is not a benefit, because employees self-regulat…

[flagged]

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#75

Post by TrackerFF »

I used to work for a oil company, and 15 years ago they were discussing this idea of installing sensors on desk which they wanted to use for practical reasons: Instead of having to walk across the building to see someone, you could simply check on some internal website if they were at their desk. No wasted trip!

But that idea was shot down real fast by the unions, who informed the employer that it with great likelihood also would clash with data protection laws, and GDPR (this was not in the US). So it was quickly abandoned. Among workers that was one of the most dystopian ideas we had heard of.

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#76

Post by kelseydh »

tamimio wrote: post #27
crispyambulance wrote: post #20

It's always been hard to know the extent of how draconian tracking actually is (IT pros tend to not talk about it much). In the US, there's the expectation that when you use an employer-provided device that any and all activity on it can be fully monitored/recorded and used against the employee for any reason. In practice, however, few people worry about reasonable amounts web-surfing, being on hacker-news or doing l…

> employer-provided device that any and all activity on it can be fully monitored/recorded And the location, yes, your physical location as well

Work will even flag you for you using a VPN on your phone, e.g. if you check the company Slack.

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#77

Post by smohare »

crispyambulance wrote: post #20

It's always been hard to know the extent of how draconian tracking actually is (IT pros tend to not talk about it much). In the US, there's the expectation that when you use an employer-provided device that any and all activity on it can be fully monitored/recorded and used against the employee for any reason. In practice, however, few people worry about reasonable amounts web-surfing, being on hacker-news or doing l…

[dead]

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#78

Post by JKCalhoun »

andy99 wrote: post #67
fullshark wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My single minded focus is getting my finances in order so I don't need to work in this industry (financial independence) past 50. It's just getting worse and worse in terms of the open contempt for employees from the top down with no end in sight. Once you reach 50 it's just luck of the draw whether or not you are in the annual culling of the senior folks. There's no excuse anymore for being ignorant of how this indu…

Not replying to the above comment specifically as I obviously don’t know individual circumstances. But I find it ironic that people working in basically surveillance tech, who would gladly get paid to strip mine users’ privacy in order to market to them - you might say having open contempt for their users, suddenly get put off when the same is applied to them.

Sure, but using the above comment as reference, I think it is increasingly a lot of things that are off-putting in the industry.

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#79

Post by taude »

p0w3n3d wrote: post #38
crispyambulance wrote: post #20

It's always been hard to know the extent of how draconian tracking actually is (IT pros tend to not talk about it much). In the US, there's the expectation that when you use an employer-provided device that any and all activity on it can be fully monitored/recorded and used against the employee for any reason. In practice, however, few people worry about reasonable amounts web-surfing, being on hacker-news or doing l…

Doesn't visiting hacker news count as personal growth? Or am I supposed to grow professionally outside the work?

You're 100% supposed to grow professionally outside of work.

Re: Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work up to 30 min

#80

Post by sollewitt »

everdrive wrote: post #17

I don't work for Meta, but how many more years do I need to work in tech? I'm in my 40s and my kids are young. I've already set up 529s for them, and am paying for some expensive home upgrades. Maybe when that is finished and I've built up a buffer I can switch industries for the last 5-10 years of my working life. Curious if anyone here has any similar plans.

I think we need to unionize, across companies. We need to be able to block stuff like this, and to be able to demand that you can’t lay off someone to replace them with AI (bringing US workers rights up to the bar set by China). We also need to be able to hold our leadership to some kind of code of ethics. I don’t want to work for a company that makes kill bots, or can renege on climate pledges.
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