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

theregister.com

121–130 of 184 posts

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

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of people working at Meta will never ever again in their lives get a job offer that good. Meta knows this and doesn't care about many of them quitting. They can currently scoop up an endless supply of developers that have memorized every single leetcode hard, system design and """behavioral""" interview question.

> They can currently scoop up an endless supply of developers that have memorized every single leetcode hard, system design and """behavioral""" interview question. And will those help them get where they think they want to go?

Yes.

Meta stock is up 33% last year, up 122% in the last 5 years. If that isn't "being where you want to be", I don't know what is.

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

#122
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.

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

#123

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...

> "This makes me super uncomfortable. How do we opt out?" was the top-rated comment in response to the internal announcement, according to a post on Meta's internal workplace communications site seen by Business Insider." Have people lost their spine? seriously, quit your job. this is insane. why are americans putting up with this bullshit?

    > why are americans putting up with this bullshit?
The answer is simple: Golden handcuffs. If you pay people enough money, they will do anything. Also, labor laws are so weak in the US that this is surely allowed. It would take a federal law (or many powerful states to all pass laws in parallel) to outlaw this behaviour. Hint: It will not happen.

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

#124
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.

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

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "This makes me super uncomfortable. How do we opt out?" was the top-rated comment in response to the internal announcement, according to a post on Meta's internal workplace communications site seen by Business Insider." Have people lost their spine? seriously, quit your job. this is insane. why are americans putting up with this bullshit?

"Companies should be able to bully their staff, since their staff are free to quit" is not compatible with a decent society.

This line immediately brought various Dilbert images to my mind.

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

#128
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Companies should be able to offer massively addictive and manipulative websites, since their users are free to not look at them" is not compatible with a decent society either.

> since their users are free to not look at them It's even worse when you consider that even if you were to opt out of Meta services entirely (which is not practical due to how many essential things run on e.g. whatsapp), they still build a shadow profile on you based only on data other people upload about you. So yeah, not only "just don't use it" is not a reasonable argument, it doesn't even solve anything!

> which is not practical due to how many essential things run on e.g. whatsapp

Where do you live that WhatsApp is essential?

I deleted my account when Facebook bought it and I don’t feel like anything of value was lost. Between messages/sms, signal, telegram, discord, I have no shortage of places to chat.

WhatsApp only has value because of the network effect. Quit the platform and make your contacts find you elsewhere. Every platform dies eventually. The users just need to leave.

I don’t really care about the shadow profile. Meta is hardly the first to build a database of non customers, and it’s not the only such database I’m in. I avoid all Meta services and will never see an ad from them.

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

#129
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> its my manager's job to supervise No it isn’t. The fault with your logic is that you assume people work because they’re supervised.

If I was hiring anyone for a job over 75k usd I should know very well that they can produce with very few touch points. I would also expect my team to speak up if someone wasn't producing. I wouldn't care about hours worked because they are a salary employee. I would care that the team could contact them and they contributed meaningfully to projects.

So your thing is not achieving something, your business is about keeping people busy all day? Hopefully folks like you are leaving the workforce soon.

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

#130
post #115
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is using a mobile phone, his location is sold by the mobile company and can be bought for relatively cheap

> his location is sold by the mobile company Citation please.

It's as far away as a google search, but:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/t-mobile-claimed...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ice-cell-m...

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