"Meta employees at several US offices walked into meeting rooms, broke for coffee at vending machines, and used the restrooms only to find pamphlets denouncing the company's new mouse-tracking software as an "Employee Data Extraction Factory" and urging staff to sign an online petition against it."
"The leaflets cited the National Labor Relations Act and the right to organise for the improvement of working conditions, according to Reuters' exclusive . The protest is the first visible internal pushback against the Model Capability Initiative, the tracking programme TNW reported on last week , which captures mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, and screenshots on a designated list of work applications."
"Meta has said the data is used to teach AI agents how humans navigate software, and that it runs only on a specified set of apps and websites rather than across all computer activity. "If we're building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them, things like mouse movements, clicking buttons, and navigating dropdown menus," Meta said in a statement, adding that "safeguards" were in place to protect sensitive company information."
"Many employees, according to Reuters, read the programme as workplace surveillance reframed as training data, and a step toward automating their own jobs. The timing has sharpened that read. Meta is roughly a week from its 20 May layoffs , which the company has said will cut about 10% of its workforce, or some 8,000 of its 78,865 staff, with further cuts planned for the second half of 2026."
Flyers appeared in Meta offices in the US, with employees finding pamphlets in meeting rooms, around vending machines, and in restrooms. The materials attacked the Model Capability Initiative’s mouse-tracking software and urged staff to sign an online petition. The leaflets cited the National Labor Relations Act and the right to organize for improved working conditions. The initiative captures mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, and screenshots on a designated set of work applications. Meta said the data trains AI agents to learn how people navigate software, runs only on specified apps and websites, and includes safeguards. Some employees viewed the program as workplace surveillance and as a step toward automating their jobs, amid upcoming layoffs.
#workplace-surveillance #mouse-and-keystroke-tracking #ai-training-data #employee-organizing #layoffs
Read at TNW | Meta
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