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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

#101

Post by mikeyinternews »

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?

Or grow professionally during work hours using a personal device.

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

#102

Post by baggachipz »

SoftTalker wrote: post #97
baggachipz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

more like $,$$$,$$$.$$

You're saying the average dev at Meta is making 7 figures?

I'm exaggerating for (poor) comedic effect, as Meta has to pay more to attract people. Every time they've ever tried to recruit me I've lol'd at them and said I would never work there under any circumstances.

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

#103

Post by corps_and_code »

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'm younger than you, and probably haven't been working in tech as long, but I've been having similar thoughts. No kids, so I'm maxing retirement accounts, saving as much as I can, and trying to start my own small software company for niche applications.

Hopefully in a few years I have a couple mildly profitable applications, and I can pull the rip cord on working in tech and coast while I figure out next steps for myself professionally.

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

#104

Post by yoyohello13 »

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?

One time my manager messaged me panicking about a big nextjs vulnerability. I told him, no worries, I saw it on HN and we patched weeks ago. He told me to use HN at work as much as I want.

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

#105

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

scottious wrote: post #71
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…

Is that research still happening?

I began pursuing a biology degree on the side maybe 3 years ago so I can do that kind of work. Several of my professors are involved with projects that have recently lost funding due to NIH cuts and can't retain their engineering support. It hasn't been encouraging.

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

#106

Post by hgoel »

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 see all this complaining from people in big tech nowadays, but I can't help but wonder, why act like the industry is just big tech?

There are so many small companies, research groups etc that can pay a livable wage (just not as exuberant as big tech) without the ethical scruples, while still posing challenging technical problems.

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

#107

Post by macNchz »

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…

This is something that genuinely runs the gamut across different companies—plenty don't even know the serial numbers of company-owned machines, never mind which devices individuals have, while others do effectively have live feeds of every employee's screen available to managers at all times. In between you have many businesses that manage their devices but only insofar as to enforce some basic protection and reserve the right to investigate it in the case that something does go wrong. In having conversations about this kind of stuff with company leaders, many will strongly reject any of the most invasive tracking stuff, believe it or not.

I do agree, though, that for any type of surveillance, the rise of AI presents a really problematic opportunity to allow more targeted observation, since nobody has to spend their own time looking for what people are doing, they can ask an AI to keep tabs and look out for the things they care about.

On that note, I think one of the more realistic risks for an everyday person doing personal things on a work machine is probably insider threat from a rogue IT admin, whose access allows them insight into company devices without enough oversight.

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

#108

Post by Bnjoroge »

spicyusername wrote: post #32
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 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.

None of that is specific to this industry. It’s far worse in others. Grass always looks greener elsewhere

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

#109

Post by fragmede »

apimade wrote: post #100
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…

What you’re concerned about doesn’t stop at the employer. Anyone with access to data being processed about you may have incentives that align similarly with your employer’s use case. Advertisers, Internet service providers, phone manufacturers, social networks, tech platform providers, schools, families, spouses, nosy neighbours, nosy governments. The scale at which you can build a summary about someone is astonishin…

That smart TV you just got has ACR (Automatic Content Recognition), which takes a screenshot of what you're watching, twice a second, and sends it off to data brokers.

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

#110

Post by cute_boi »

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!

Meta is still better than 80% of the companies. Other company spies on you, do micromanagement and still pay way less.

Pick your poison.

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