Live data from Hacker News

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

bbc.com

741–750 of 799 posts

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

#741
post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is allowed, contrary to eg the EU, where this is not allowed. Its allows in most of the EU apart from germany where there are strict limits. however you can still record what your users are doing for purposes of detecting fraud. This is where it differs from the USA, where they can do anything because they have no data protection laws.

Would it be too much to ask to not make stuff up?

WOuld it be too much to ask for you to dig a little deeper in to what the law allows?

An employer am allowed to record all your actions for the purposes of detecting fraud and or illegal activity. The method or recording and the way the employer stores and allows access to that recording must be "reasonable"

For example if you are using slack, gchat or teams, all your conversations are logged in the compliance system. Every action you make in m365 is also logged. AWS actions are also logged if you have cloud trail enabled

All you emails are also recorded and stored for n years.

If you have zscaler or some other threat detection system every site that you visit will be recorded. The anti phishing plugin you have will also log what sites you are looking at. Theses are not automatically illegal, its how the data is stored and processed that determines the illegality.

Now, lets get to meta. As part of their leaking detection system, in about 2024 they started routinely taking screenshots of all users every n minutes. One could argue that it wasn't proportionate. However for holland, france and germany, the workers councils should have been informed.

The thing that was illegal was the covert nature, or at least not explicitly telling employees that they were taking screenshots. not the screenshots themselves.

For the AAI bullshit that meta are pushing, again depending on how its done its not necessarily against the various EU/UK data protection laws to record the data. Where it gets interesting is how and where the data is processed later on.

To blindly say that "EU says it can't happen" is far too simplistic and not accurate to say the least.

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

#742

Reminds me of one of the more brilliant passages in Snow Crash , describing work in "Fed Land"... ''' Y.T's mom pulls up the new memo, checks the time, and starts reading it. The estimated reading time is 15.62 minutes. Later, when Marietta does her end-of-day statistical roundup, sitting in her private office at 9:00 P.M., she will see the name of each employee and next to it, the amount of time spent reading this m…

> occasionally paging back up to pretend to reread some earlier section No eye tracking in this dystopia I guess.

Literally the next two sentences describe eye tracking.

> The computer is going to notice all this. It approves of rereading.

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

#744
post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be too much to ask to not make stuff up?

WOuld it be too much to ask for you to dig a little deeper in to what the law allows? An employer am allowed to record all your actions for the purposes of detecting fraud and or illegal activity. The method or recording and the way the employer stores and allows access to that recording must be "reasonable" For example if you are using slack, gchat or teams, all your conversations are logged in the compliance system…

In which country? Certainly not in my EU country.

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

#745
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tons of good reasons to work for Meta. You can work on interesting projects, build your resume and network, work on interesting engineering problems, learn from other people, and of course, they pay very well. People do need to support their family, secure their retirement and so on... Is it perfect? certainly not. Is the company toxic? where do you draw the line? how much are you willing to compromise give…

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…

I have learnt that very few in tech hold themselves to a complex moral standard. Most seem to have an attitude like "well company X is offering money, why not take it?" Some seem to genuinely believe large money = large societal value no matter what the job is. Quite blasé and pretty sad.

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

#746
post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Travel doesn’t always mean vacation, or work. For me, it’s rarely only one.

Well I guess we all live very different lives :) I only bother with one phone plus an emergency backup because the only work things on my phone are a chat app and some authenticator codes. For laptops, I wouldn't take any on vacation because I'm not working. I'd take the work one for work trips.

I don’t do those also on my vacations, but that’s only about 1/10 of my travels. And I don’t travel because of work, basically only for personal reasons.

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

#747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree other comapnies are just as culpable as Meta, but you think it's childrens fault they get addicted? We barely know the damage social media does yet, it's not comparable to taking the first hit of drugs at all. Agreed that tech workers need to take a look at themselves too, but also it's the execs and governments more too blame.

Why are you putting words in my mouth?

Children are on Facebook because adults like you used their surveillance product and made them a "must have" aspect of social life.

Facebook and Google and the rest were harming society long before '20s. This was obvious to some us and when we spoke up forums like this were used to silence informed voices.

That is the .

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

#749

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People want to make 500k$/year without the inconvenience of having a job.

Or rather they want to make good money without being treated like shit. Believe it or not you can have your cake and eat it too.

Did you forget what the title of this post is?

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

#750

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree other comapnies are just as culpable as Meta, but you think it's childrens fault they get addicted? We barely know the damage social media does yet, it's not comparable to taking the first hit of drugs at all. Agreed that tech workers need to take a look at themselves too, but also it's the execs and governments more too blame.

Why are you putting words in my mouth? Children are on Facebook because adults like you used their surveillance product and made them a "must have" aspect of social life. Facebook and Google and the rest were harming society long before '20s. This was obvious to some us and when we spoke up forums like this were used to silence informed voices. That is the .

What about the less-tech-literate-than-us adult who tried their best to lock down the phone they gave their teen for "emergencies only", but the teen ended up hopping on social media anyway because of FOMO from their friends who were already there?

The kids feel the pressure from their own social circles, I can see it even with my littles and their requests for tablets and Minecraft at their young ages. And if they choose to give into that pressure in spite of their parent's best efforts, much of what they might use is designed to keep them there.

I made a comment about the petroleum industry's feedback loop making it hard for me to fully fault petroleum users for continuing to drive demand for oil in another comment in this chain. Like it or not, our society has become so structured around social media that we're already seeing something similar play out there. That feedback loop is driven by the companies at fault here.

Post reply on HN