Irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by joe_mamba » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 1:32 PM UTC

outime wrote: post #70

joe_mamba wrote: post #7

Man, I sure wonder if those engineers building Palantir's, Flock's, and other surveillance SW right now (hello if you're reading this), will have this 20/20 hindsight "oh shit" epiphany moment, when the product they helped build is gonna be used against them or their kids in the future. Kind of like when Dr. Frankenstein finds his end at the hands of his creation. Those SW devs probably think that doing a deal with t…

I guess these individuals think like "if I don't do this someone else will, and we'll end up in the same situation - except I'll have fewer millions - so I might as well choose the lesser of two evils". Some people may have refused to do these things - you just aren't aware of them. It's unrealistic though to think that in a globalized world, individuals would share the same ethics and/or intelligence.

>"if I don't do this someone else will, and we'll end up in the same situation - except I'll have fewer millions - so I might as well choose the lesser of two evils".

Bingo. Tale as old as time. The elites have always stayed in power by paying half the poor people to oppress the other half for them. And if you're thinking about the French revolution as a counter example, then I need to remind you that the wealthy elites didn't lose their heads there, the monarchy did, the rich people got away just fine.

Today the elites got the peasantry to be arguing whether something is "woke" or DEI, and to riot and burn down cities whenever a repeat felon gets killed by police, while the Epstein criminals get away with it while laughing all the way to the bank and nobody rioting.

> It's unrealistic though to think that in a globalized world, individuals would share the same ethics

Nothing to do with globalism here. It's still exclusively up to US citizens to implement their destruction. US national security and surveillance tech isn't outsourced to India for them to worry about labor competition from abroad.

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

#142

Post by anal_reactor » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 1:41 PM UTC

mingus88 wrote: post #134

poulpy123 wrote: post #6

I don't see what can be trained with that, but it would be a nightmare to be always recorded like that

Do people honestly believe their current employers aren’t monitoring them right now? Every employment contract I’ve signed has included language that makes it clear that whatever I do on corporate time, on the corporate net, on corporate devices, is corporate property. This is why I never mix corp and personal data on my phone or join my phone to their WiFi. Is it just the AI training angle that makes this newsworthy…

The world of contracts is really interesting. Imagine a country Byteland that has a problem with alcoholism. Lots of people get too drunk and bother others. The parliament gathers and decides to issue a new law. First they try "it is illegal to bother other citizens in public" but the problem is, how do you legally define "to bother other citizens"? Then someone has a bright idea - make a law "it is illegal to be drunk in public". The idea is, only those who are annoying fucks will ever be checked, for obvious practical reasons. Everyone happy, the law passes. Citizens enjoy their beer, but they know that it they drink too much and start causing problems, they'll be arrested. One day a Sillycoin Valley startup comes up with great technology - a device that can pinpoint who exactly is drunk within two kilometers of range. Now suddenly lots of citizens who had just one beer and are minding their own business start getting fines.

The point I'm making is, there is a difference between what contract explicitly says, and what is implicitly understood due to practical limitations of the real world we live in. When the real world changes so does the effective implementation of contracts, even though the contracts themselves don't change. The problem is, by the time the world has changed against your favor, you might not have the power to demand an adjustment to the already signed contract.

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

#143

Post by Cytobit » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 1:44 PM UTC

ramon156 wrote: post #31

softwaredoug wrote: post #21

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 would you quit your job before determining if you can opt out? What would be the benefit?

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

#144

Post by RugnirViking » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC

snaking0776 wrote: post #91

RugnirViking wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said before. Its very easy to suggest that someone should leave their job on ideological grounds when its someone else you've never met. You have to understand, this hypothetical guy has never met zuck. He's quite possibly never met anyone who has never met zuck. He may well not live in america. The job market for programmers is not good right now. Estimates put average time in unemployment at 12+ months. Would…

I think you’re treating the people at these companies as more dumb/powerless than they really are. I used to work in big tech and quit after a few years due to similar concerns that are being raised here. I will tell you anecdotally that everyone there I worked with thought our company was a net negative on society and that our work was at best indifferent and in my case likely exploited weak labor laws in poor count…

I think your point is well put, and I can agree with most of it, at least in terms of myself. I know I am a robotics engineer, and my best prospects for working on interesting or exciting stuff is in aerospace, defence etc. But I don't do that, because I think this way myself. I find it harder to judge others for the same.

That all being said, I think its worth noting that the reason that coal miners have historically had quite outsized political power and effect on politics was precisely because they required education, which helped them work together as a unit and demand better conditions and wages, as well as the camaraderie generated by experiencing bad conditions together. There are some great books about this, but the coal miners in the uk where im familiar with were much more educated than the average person, due to the engineering understanding involved. Yes it was bad conditions, but you can't have untrained workers using equations to figure out how deep into a rock face you need to put dynamite, and how much explosive of what kind, based on rock samples and tables from books. Same for what kind of supports and where, taking geological surveys etc. It was a high skill job, and also paid relatively well compared to manufacturing workers (not least due to said organization between miners)

The difference between then and now is that there is very little solidarity between software engineers. This is a state of affairs that I believe has been deliberately engineered. I do not think shaming people for where they work will improve things. I think one can assuage ones own guilt by choosing where to work, as you or I do. But I don't see how the solution can be to ask everyone in society to just not take a better life, better income etc for themselves. Especially when the harms are very indirect.

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

#145

Post by miroljub » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 1:52 PM UTC

addandsubtract wrote: post #108

KumaBear wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s company equipment it’s fair game. Literally everytime I sign in it states I have no expectation of privacy while using the equipment.

The American mind can't comprehend privacy. Just because it's company equipment doesn't make it "fair game" to spy and track you.

I wouldn't blame it on Americans. They are not different from the others. Just take a look at what Europeans are putting up with.

The only difference: in the USA it's private companies that spy, while in the EU the governments are leading the spying game.

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

#146

Post by _heimdall » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 1:58 PM UTC

KumaBear wrote: post #89

_heimdall wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the freedom of Covid WFH That's an interesting phrase. Yes, working from home comes with more freedom over your day than working in an office. During the pandemic, though, it was largely forced as we were told you can't go to the office, or the beach, or the gym, etc. That wasn't really freedom as much as a house arrest sentence. The key here, though, is that Meta is at least claiming to be doing this to train AI n…

With enough data and time many of those jobs will be rendered obsolete.

Sure, that's possible though we won't know until it happens. I'm not sure how that connects to the GP's point though, can you connect the dots for me?

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

#147

Post by RugnirViking » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 1:59 PM UTC

troupo wrote: post #138

RugnirViking wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im aware of all of those things. I assume many more terrible things besides those happen internally. I think people directly involved with such decisions, or implementing such decisions, are responsible, and I condemn them. Obviously. I would even suggest that those with internal knowledge of such things before they happened are morally obligated to whistleblow them. I think expecting everyone else (which is, I belie…

> I think expecting everyone else (which is, I believe, almost everyone working at facebook) not involved with any of these things to take a large personal sacrifice or be condemned is unlikely to result in many resignations. Ah yes. All those horrible things happened overnight, right? So that's why we don't expect people to take a large personal sacrifice of ... knowing about this shit for years, and still working f…

I think your position may feel good, but it will achieve nothing. It will probably not even convince anyone to resign, let alone actually stop bad things happening. So why be angry at people who did nothing wrong? Save it for those who actually did the stuff. Save it for lawsuits against the company. Save it for regulation. Save it for efforts to organize workers to push back against these things. A single person leaving for moral reasons at this point will be replaced by the next guy. They will not run out of guys. Going by current trajectories, they're actually TRYING to reduce headcount

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

#148

Post by Hamuko » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 2:03 PM UTC

dada78641 wrote: post #135

I was once asked to install surveillance software on my personal PC, as a remote freelance worker. The person responsible on Slack told me "let me know when you've installed it". So I decided to just wait 15 minutes and then say "yeah I installed it" to see if they would notice that I didn't... and they didn't, they just said "OK, thanks" and I never heard anything about it ever again. I realize this doesn't really h…

I've had the IT department complain that the phone monitoring software wasn't reporting back to them, gave me instructions to fix it, and when I told them that the instructions point to things that don't exist in the app, they never replied back to me. I presume that my work phone is still not pinging them.

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

#149

Post by mingus88 » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 2:10 PM UTC

anal_reactor wrote: post #142

mingus88 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people honestly believe their current employers aren’t monitoring them right now? Every employment contract I’ve signed has included language that makes it clear that whatever I do on corporate time, on the corporate net, on corporate devices, is corporate property. This is why I never mix corp and personal data on my phone or join my phone to their WiFi. Is it just the AI training angle that makes this newsworthy…

The world of contracts is really interesting. Imagine a country Byteland that has a problem with alcoholism. Lots of people get too drunk and bother others. The parliament gathers and decides to issue a new law. First they try "it is illegal to bother other citizens in public" but the problem is, how do you legally define "to bother other citizens"? Then someone has a bright idea - make a law "it is illegal to be dru…

That’s hardly a relevant scenario for any office worker who is issued a laptop, phone, desk and badge.

The equipment is worth thousands of dollars and the company has a fiduciary responsibility to track their assets. Of course they are going to install spyware on their equipment and make it crystal clear that the employee has no expectation of privacy while using it.

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

#150

Post by VoidWarranty » Wed, Apr 22, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

mingus88 wrote: post #134

poulpy123 wrote: post #6

I don't see what can be trained with that, but it would be a nightmare to be always recorded like that

Do people honestly believe their current employers aren’t monitoring them right now? Every employment contract I’ve signed has included language that makes it clear that whatever I do on corporate time, on the corporate net, on corporate devices, is corporate property. This is why I never mix corp and personal data on my phone or join my phone to their WiFi. Is it just the AI training angle that makes this newsworthy…

Same.

I assumed this happens on any employer machine anyway. If not specific mouse movement and keystrokes then file access and connected devices. I honestly don't understand the outrage.