Meta Scales Back Employee Activity Tracking Program Following Staff Backlash

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(RTTNews) - Meta Platforms Inc. (META) is scaling back its plans to keep tabs on employees' computer activity following some serious pushback from within the company regarding a program aimed at gathering workplace data for AI training.

This initiative, called the Model Capability Initiative (MCI), was rolled out earlier this year to track things like keystrokes and mouse clicks, all to help train AI to handle computer tasks better. However, it didn't take long for staff to voice their concerns, with over 1,500 employees reportedly signing a petition against it.

In a recent internal memo, Meta shared that employees can now pause data collection for up to 30 minutes at a time and can even ask to be exempt from participating altogether.

They also made some tech tweaks to help lessen the program's impact on laptop battery life and internet performance after workers raised issues about those aspects.

Stephane Kasriel, who wrote the memo, mentioned that the company has taken employee feedback about privacy, device efficiency, and data control seriously. While he pointed out that Meta still views the program as having solid privacy protections, he acknowledged that they need to give employees more leeway regarding their data.

This situation arises amidst broader worries among staff about Meta's growing emphasis on AI and the recent job cuts. So far this year, the company has reportedly let go of around 2,000 employees and previously stated plans to trim its workforce by about 10%.

Meta insists that real-world data on how people use computers is crucial for creating better AI assistants, stressing that the information gathered is strictly for AI training and won't be used for anything else.