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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

#281

Post by wl »

macNchz wrote: post #107
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…

I think IT departments also tend to underestimate the risk they pose when they manage machines. Look at Stryker, where intruders used Intune to wipe all the company's devices. The ability to do that shouldn't exist, but the IT department happily rolled out the means of their own destruction in the name of compliance and making their lives easier.

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

#282

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#284

Post by mh- »

1121redblackgo wrote: post #122
taude wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

pass

This is such a curious POV for me - I'd genuinely like to hear your thoughts on this. Who owns your career growth if not.. you?

(If you don't desire to grow your career, that's a viewpoint I can entirely understand.)

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

#285

Post by Hasz »

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.

save 70% of net and (try to) reject the hedonistic treadmill

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

#286

Post by alsetmusic »

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…

> It's always been hard to know the extent of how draconian tracking actually is (IT pros tend to not talk about it much).

Having worked at a FAANG and then downsizing back to IT (it's pretty great if you don't need the paycheck), I'll say a bit here. I was FAANG for 8.5 years, though in a more limited role for half of that. I've been doing the IT thing since 2018, first at a small private company and then at a gov state agency.

We were ~25 people and we had one person who was a nightmare. They created a toxic work environment. I asked for a meeting with the owner and brought a laundry list of documentation about their behavior, including spending most time not performing the job (browsing online shopping instead). He asked if I knew their device name so he could pull it up and see what she was doing right then. I didn't know. I'm sure he checked later.

Every computer had management software that allowed remote viewing and remote control because of course they did; we managed fleets of machines. I genuinely don't think the owner ever had the impulse to spy or check up on anyone until that moment, when he was receiving really troubling news. I worried more about the security camera installed after a break-in because it could expose my long breaks when I came in super early in the morning.

Where I work now, users have to approve a screen sharing session. I can't just spy on someone like at my former employer. But there's undoubtedly metrics being recorded in case anyone ever needed to profile a user's work time (say a labor lawsuit, for example). We all know we can be tracked on work devices.

My expectation is that while your company can, theoretically, track everything, they have no motivation to waste their time unless given a reason. Maybe AI will change that as the cost of tracking creeps closer to nil (probably). And at Meta, I think they're evil enough to consider the cost worthwhile anyway. But probably not a big deal most places so long as you aren't up to anything beyond slacking off. People have work to do.

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

#287

Post by p-e-w »

jkl5xx wrote: post #266
yojo wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta is straight evil. It undermines the institutions of democracy and it negatively impacts its users mental health, all in service of selling your data to advertisers so they can better goad unnecessary consumption. If I learn you work at Meta, I will judge you as at best lacking a moral compass and treat you appropriately. Apple has problems, but is a lot closer to morally neutral. Ditto for Netflix. Amazon has ho…

This is a pretty uncharitable perspective. Most folks I know working at Meta or Amazon aren’t morally bankrupt. They just have kids, debt, poor parents with health problems, etc. They work at Meta to support their loved ones. And it’s not like you can walk onto the street and just wave down a morally superior job with similar pay and benefits. Blame the tech oligarchs, not the workers.

There are many, many tech jobs at many companies (at least there used to be, until very recently).

“I work for one of the most evil institutions on the planet today because it is the only way I can support my sick parents” is an absurd excuse.

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

#288

Post by jasondigitized »

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…

And employees will employ robots to do hyper realistic work like activities to game the system. Here's an idea...... find good leaders who understand team building and culture and let the score take care of itself.

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

#289

Post by [deleted] »

sollewitt wrote: post #80
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.

[deleted]

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

#290

Post by jscd »

yodsanklai wrote: post #245
fourside wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing up, I’d wonder how people could work for companies like cigarette manufacturers even after it became well known that their products wreck havoc on your health. This comment is a masterclass in the type of mental gymnastics people do to justify working for these kind of companies. > Is the company toxic? where do you draw the line? You couldn’t even answer the question you yourself posed.

Meta isn't nowhere near cigarettes manufacturers in terms of damage. Tobacco kills millions every year. Meta may need even more regulation, and you can argue that social medias aren't the greatest invention, but I don't think they are that bad. There's no mental gymnastics here. I draw the line differently than you, that's all. I'm not a big fan of Meta and their products, I would be happy to work there anyway for th…

Maybe not in the millions, but Meta is certainly not free from bloodshed. For example, in efforts to promote "engagement," they left the rollout of Facebook in Myanmar dangerously unmoderated, and (at least according to claims by Amnesty International[1]) are at least partially responsible for the genocide of the Rohingya there, which saw the tens of thousands of deaths.

[1]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa16/5933/2022/en/

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