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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

#321

Post by yoyohello13 »

yubblegum wrote: post #256
jjulius wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of people in these comments who would be happy to be "paid well" to contribute to what's inarguably a huge net negative worldwide is exactly how the company got to this point. It's astonishing how many people value a ton of money over doing something good. Everyone who talks about setting values aside for cash is the problem. Gross.

I have a dear friend who works at Meta. The conclusion that all meta workers are valuing money over "something good" is not reasonable. This fellow, who I know to be a good man of excellent character btw, for example has to support his family (which all together number 6), and be prepared to pay tuition for 4 kids starting in a decade and then one after another for the other 3! Is providing for your family and their…

Come on now. You make it sound like this guy is “just scraping but trying to provide for his kids.” You don’t need an obscene salary to do that.

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

#322

Post by ryandrake »

rootusrootus wrote: post #129
baggachipz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, I just need to figure out what I realistically want to do. Health care is the primary requirement; enough money to get by and not hit my retirement accounts is a relatively close second.

I agree, health care is primary. I see a lot of people on the FIRE forums who are young and haven’t really looked into what insurance can cost in the years leading up to Medicare eligibility age. It’s the best argument for working until close up 60. Personally, I’ve focused on finding a place I enjoy being, rather than optimizing for income and planning to retire ASAP.

Yep, I could probably retire already if it wasn't for the crippling cost of health insurance and healthcare in general (Thanks, USA).

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

#323

Post by ipsento606 »

ryandrake wrote: post #292
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…

I've always, throughout a 25+ year career, kept personal business on personal devices and work business on work devices, and never cross the streams. Oddly, this is really controversial on HN, though! I've gotten so many weirdly angry responses when suggesting people try it, like it's a huge inconvenience to just bring a personal phone to work in order to do your banking and fuck around posting on HN. It's so much ea…

> like it's a huge inconvenience to just bring a personal phone to work

It's not inconvenient to bring a phone, but it is very inconvenient to have to conduct personal business on a phone rather than on a laptop.

Nonetheless, I agree that it's a bad idea to conduct personal business on an employer-owned machine.

But I don't want to pretend that it's super convenient to have to carry a second laptop, either.

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

#324

Post by ryukoposting »

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!

One thing I have observed so far in SV (haven't been here long) is that folks who work in big tech but aren't from the US don't fully understand the difference in costs depending where you live in the US. I have to wonder if that informs the decision to stay in SV no matter what the work is.

Like, intellectually they know that it costs less to live in Beaverton Michigan than it costs to live in Palo Alto. But the magnitude of that difference, and how that scales your income needs, they've never thought to do the math. It doesn't scale proportionally, and that's counterintuitive.

This isn't a dig against anyone, and exceptions abound. But when I told my foreign-born SV-lifer colleagues how much my rent was in Wisconsin, you'd have thought I was the one from a foreign country!

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

#325

Post by jjulius »

yubblegum wrote: post #275
jjulius wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many, many ways to provide for one's family, Meta is but one. And I say this as a father providing for mine. Additionally, putting the blame for using Meta products on the users in spite of all of what we know about how the company has strived to make the productive terribly addictive is a very wild take.

Well, this fellow is a programmer, that's his trade and at his level he would be working for one of the fangs or whatever they are called these days and they're all creepy as far I am concerned. Which one of them is 'responsible'? Google and its pervasive tracking and selling of our data to all and sundry? Microsoft and "let's make our AI addictive"? Working for Amazon and contributing to the gutting of small busines…

>And I find it disengenous to now pick on a single solitary entity, Meta, as if the rest of these newly arrived big techs were/are clean and ethical. Possibly some want to virtue signal while earning big $ at some other VC unicorn.

This particular discussion is about Meta, hence the focus in these comments. My views (and I'm sure the views of many others here) do, however, apply broadly to much of what you refer to.

That comment about me sleeping through the past 26 years? I'd say the same about all of the companies you cited, they've all had their own broad negative impacts.

Edit: Further, the marijuana comparison is a bit weak (as an aside, I'm a former pothead myself, who made the choice to start and stop). The world hasn't structured itself to the point where most people are required to smoke pot to do everything they need to do. The world has structured itself to require Meta products be used in many instances, lest you lose access to information from certain sources or the ability to communicate with others. "The system" pushes people to it, and it tries it's damndest to keep you there once you arrive.

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

#326

Post by Trasmatta »

yubblegum wrote: post #256
jjulius wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of people in these comments who would be happy to be "paid well" to contribute to what's inarguably a huge net negative worldwide is exactly how the company got to this point. It's astonishing how many people value a ton of money over doing something good. Everyone who talks about setting values aside for cash is the problem. Gross.

I have a dear friend who works at Meta. The conclusion that all meta workers are valuing money over "something good" is not reasonable. This fellow, who I know to be a good man of excellent character btw, for example has to support his family (which all together number 6), and be prepared to pay tuition for 4 kids starting in a decade and then one after another for the other 3! Is providing for your family and their…

There are no other companies that would pay your friend?

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

#327

Post by jlarocco »

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…

Other than adding buzzwords to a features list, I don't see AI really moving the needle here. As you've said, it's always been the expectation that employers are watching over their networks.

There's already loads of monitoring software available that can scrutinize, categorize, and track everything going through corporate networks. A company I worked at ~20 years ago had an internal website showing a live display of URLs accessed through their whole network, a "top 100" list, a break down into categories (news, email, games, etc.) and other stuff along those lines. They were absolutely categorizing and scrutinizing everything way back then, no AI needed.

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

#328

Post by I_am_tiberius »

jjulius wrote: post #152
jryan49 wrote: post #23

Could anything be more ironic, the employees that work to track every person in the world are now being tracked themselves :)

I'm trying to have sympathy for those who work there and are opposed to this, but the irony is so thick that it's a struggle.

I don't think they deserve your sympathy. I don't think there is an employee there that couldn't find another great job somewhere else.

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

#329

Post by gedy »

rkozik1989 wrote: post #278
spicyusername wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dream about it everyday. I love building software, but I can't stand working in the industry. It's such an unholy combination of bad corporate culture and questionable moral principals.

There was a part of me who dreamed of doing simple entry-level jobs instead of working in tech, so I got a part-time job cleaning hospital ER rooms on the weekends. Everything has been fine for the most part, but it has been made clear to me how easy it is to get fired at entry-level jobs. The pay is really pretty dismal and the stability really isn't there. Overall the experience has made me a lot more inclined to n…

> I got a part-time job cleaning hospital ER rooms on the weekends.

> experience has made me a lot more inclined to not leave money on the table.

Sorry for the dark humor, but I'm imagining you meant collecting the pocket change that fell out on the operating table.

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