^ this! Ever since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, people who decide to work there make the statement that they are ok with it. Same with Palantir, X, Grok, Tesla etc
Yes. It's worth pointing out that the Cambridge Analytica scandal was in 2016 - that's 10 years ago! At that point, FB resp. Zuckerberg already had a bad reputation.
Anyone working for Meta could have chosen to work elsewhere. You have other options (that might not pay $350 grand, but hey, that's the price of your soul)
Poor Meta employees. They are victims of the oppressive job market and are left no other option than to work for 100s of thousands of dollars per year in well-lit and comfortable offices with free food and premium healthcare.
Anyone who could get a job at meta has other options, I think this is why people are so confident criticizing. Outside of the obvious (and correct!) hypocrisy angle, I think this would be an altogether different issue if it were for grocery store workers, retail employees, etc. (or for a much more real example, Amazon warehouse workers) Those groups really might not have other real options.
Of course quitting can be in the cards, but I'd much rather see a successful pushback from meta employees against this new policy; maybe this could be a good cause to form a union over.
Exactly. Meta spent 15 years mining user data and now mines its own staff to build the agents that'll replace them. If you're still there complaining about privacy, you're not the victim rahter the training set
Stop blaming the working class. We need jobs to pay our bills.
Regulate capital, force them to follow the law, force them to be ethical, and use all the force of the state for doing so.
To blame employees for the capital behavior is absurd and solves nothing. Put the high up decision makers in prison. Punish the real criminals and we will get back our privacy and our rights.
Stop using bills as an excuse to be on the wrong side of history. Were the nazi soldiers innocent for gassing jews? Or were they also just "following the law"?
Being ethical is hard, but it's not an excuse. Yes, I judge people that work for FAANG, I judge colleagues for extensively rely on LLMs, and Big Corps for that matter.
> Regulate capital
How? Oh, right, by not using these products or working for the mentioned companies.
It's so easy to shift blame on other's and mark it as "not my problem lol"
Several reports say even a mid-ranked engineer at Meta can earn $200k in salary and another $100k in stock and bonus, every year. And that's not some rare, mega-senior E8 architect either.
Is there any point where a person stops being working class? Can I be chauffeur-driven to the opera in my gold-plated Lamborghini and still call myself working class?
If you work to earn a living, you're working class. If you use capital to pay your bills, you're a capitalist. So I'd say someone with that kind of salary and stocks is probably halfway to not-working-class. If you already have 1MM in stocks then you're not working class anymore, you don't need to work at that point.
If you keep expecting the morals should be coming (only or mainly) from the top, you get trump and all related shitshow and many other beautiful things. Thats not how healthy societies work, and same can be said about companies.
Somebody making 300-500k+ yearly is hardly working class, in same way bezos or zuckenberg are not working class yet they do spend some time working on their businesses.
We all make our choices in our lives and shape it accordingly, at least have a pair and own your decisions.
It is in a way some kind of modern day slavery. Of course they
can always decide to quit, but what if the next company uses
the same sniffing strategy? On youtube you can see video clips
of indians wearing various glasses to monitor their own manual
work procedures. AI has truly become our new overlord, controlled
by a few huge companies.
Some people are forced to work in places, which are dehumanizing through work conditions, whether you get paid for it or not doesn't necessarily tell you much. Of course this is not the case for Mete employees, who should have an easy time finding other employment. But these trends are not limited to Meta. They might find application in some shithole of a badly paid job somewhere, where people have only the choice between living poorly in some slums, or serving their local tech overlord.
Not only were they getting paid, slavery in the Roman Empire involved a bidirectional responsibility. In times of economic hardship and downturn, the owner was required to look after the slave. No kicking to the curb allowed.
Slaves were able to buy themselves out and the list of former slaves who became magnates and even politically influential at the highest level was indeed long and packed with names.
Being a slave was not considered dishonorable or lowly and the power dynamic was not based on notions of inherent ethnic based superiority. Not that the Romans weren’t plenty racist — they were. They also knew what a category error is and were not wont to induce it in themselves. Perhaps they had standards where intellectual rigor is concerned.
The ugly American version of slavery really did a number on people’s understanding of the institution. When we look at the current boardroom and C-suite “elites” and how they were often literally handed their business by the established power structures (Google and the CIA VC fund; DARPA and “lifelog” into Facebook etc), you can’t help but get the feeling that in our wage slavery society social mobility options are worse than Roman era slaves could avail themselves of.
Keen study of history is the only thing that can halt the slide of citizenry into universal and absolute ignorance. Given that Joe Schmoe no longer reads anything longer than a reel caption and even Ignatius Intellectual often maxes out at a blog post, I’d say the slide is well and truly lubed up.
I don’t care about Schadenfreude. It’s good that they are making a stink.
I would bang my head against the wall if they either didn’t make a stink or publicly said that, of course the Company is going to monitor me, it’s their hardware[1] and who am I to be anything but a vessel for my employer on Company time etc.
You are (hopefully) a human being firstly, and only in some later capacity "a vessel for my employer on Company time". It would do the world some good, if more people remembered, that they are working with people and their decisions affect people.
I cannot understand how in normative terms someone ought to be merely a vessel for someone in any capacity, ever. There are things you cannot do to someone and certain things you as an individual cannot sign away. That’s what “human rights” and similar frameworks are supposed to be about anyway.
Speaking about Meta employees. There was this anecdote from a month ago:
> very few facebook employees use their products outside of testing, which is a big contributor to that fear - they just can't believe that there are billions of people who would continue to use apps to post what they had for lunch!
> And as a result of that lack of faith, most of them believe that Meta is a bubble and can burst at any point. Consequently, everyone works for the next performance review cycle, and most are just in rush to capture as much money as they could before that bubble bursts.
Small-scale imperial boomerang. You thought that you're building a privacy-destroying machine and this machine will never destroy _your_ privacy?
At some point in the future, a lot of the SV techbros will be hopefully viewed as ghouls with no morals or ethics. This is not a subsection of humanity that should be dictating anything and yet they always do. If you complain about this and don't quit your job at Meta, you're failing an extremely basic check.
With all due respect to the guidelines that requires assuming good faith, this sounds like the beginning of a nirvana fallacy.
You don't have to provide a perfect solution to point out something is wrong. People who don't care about the people they lead don't make good leaders. I'd rather have leaders who hurt others by accident than on purpose.
The shit sandwich is the sneaky idea that any "subsection of humanity" should dictate anything. Weirdly it's always a subsection that the speaker happens to be in or be friends with. I don't know about you but I know I don't want that shit sandwich.
It was a rhetorical question because obviously there was a reason. The question is whether you didn't put much thought into what you write or it was a Freudian slip. "No" would be your reply in either case.
> At some point in the future, a lot of the SV techbros will be hopefully viewed as ghouls with no morals or ethics. This is not a subsection of humanity that should be dictating anything and yet they always do. If you complain about this and don't quit your job at Meta, you're failing an extremely basic check.
I hope you are right, though it will still take a long time, if it ever happens. The base premises of most people is still something along the lines of: Has money -> must be successful -> is smarter than most -> is right and cannot be wrong.
This kind of shortcircuited thinking is superbly annoying and harms us and the planet and every living being on it. I still remember clearly, when I explained to a Facebook fanperson, that FB is a criminal organization, just after they had to pay the highest fines ever for violating people's privacy. Despite the plain facts in front of them they chose not to believe me, because who am I, right? Just an IT person, who cannot possibly know shit, since I am not as rich and famous as Zucky the android.
Oddly enough was watching Colossus: The Forbin Project. One of those mid 70s scifi flicks. At some point, their AI demanded that its creator be under 24/7 audio-visiual surveillance (including bathroom time, yes).
p.s. was just reading the wiki plot summary and lol'ing at this bit: "Colossus has the responsible programmers summarily executed outside their workplace, left laying 24 hours, and cremated. Colossus also names their replacements. " -- karma is a bitch, indeed.
What a relief that it only applies to when they're using their computers! At first I thought it applied to all work at their desks: paperwork, typing, phonecalls, etc. That would have been crazy.
Does anyone know how many Meta employees use a computer, and what fraction of their work they do on it? It cannot be that much, surely.
People are always keen on criticizing the EU and their regulations, but employees in EU are protected from these kinds of stunts. And also from the upcoming (rumored) layoffs which won't be nearly as cruel.
Layoffs don't happen the same way they do in the US, at least in Germany. It's expensive to lay someone off due to dual-party notice period requirements. "At will" is a foreign concept here.
Correct me if I'm wrong but for Meta/Google, past layoffs in France, Germany, Netherlands were done on a voluntary basis. It also took many months between the announcement and the actual layoff and the severance was competitive.
One may argue that salaries are lower and there are less opportunities in tech in those countries - because of stronger regulation - but I think the layoffs procedures are objectively much more favorable for employees.
Half the big tech world is economically built on mass scale invasive unwanted tracking & adtech. If it goes up in flames from internal tension about invasive tracking that's just karma
They are trying so hard to make AI do human jobs instead of focussing on opportunities where AI is special suited. Do you really want your super intelligent token muncher to be clicking browser tabs all day?
I understand the schadenfreude people are feeling here. It certainly feels like a fitting outcome for people who work for a company with the morals of Meta.
But I hope they successfully push back against it. I don’t want this kind of behavior normalized.
Facebook employees forced their algorithms on the public at large and now the company is doing the same. What did you think would happen when you are employed by an adware company?
Everyone's focused on Meta employees, but the real concern is normalization. If Meta does this and gets away with it, some companies may quietly roll out the same thing.
raxxorraxor | 9 days ago
Of course this is not ok, but you should really quit your job if you have ethical or moral problems with that.
newshackr | 9 days ago
spacechild1 | 9 days ago
physhster | 9 days ago
spacechild1 | 9 days ago
none2585 | 9 days ago
dccoolgai | 9 days ago
none2585 | 9 days ago
Peritract | 9 days ago
Everyone working at Meta has more options than almost anyone else.
hirako2000 | 9 days ago
the_snooze | 9 days ago
ForHackernews | 9 days ago
glimshe | 9 days ago
everdrive | 9 days ago
razingeden | 9 days ago
fhennig | 9 days ago
NikolaosC | 9 days ago
Frieren | 9 days ago
Stop blaming the working class. We need jobs to pay our bills. Regulate capital, force them to follow the law, force them to be ethical, and use all the force of the state for doing so.
To blame employees for the capital behavior is absurd and solves nothing. Put the high up decision makers in prison. Punish the real criminals and we will get back our privacy and our rights.
ramon156 | 9 days ago
Being ethical is hard, but it's not an excuse. Yes, I judge people that work for FAANG, I judge colleagues for extensively rely on LLMs, and Big Corps for that matter.
> Regulate capital
How? Oh, right, by not using these products or working for the mentioned companies.
It's so easy to shift blame on other's and mark it as "not my problem lol"
Frieren | 9 days ago
I don't say that it is "not my problem". It is. That is why Facebook is guilty and high level decision makers should be held accountable by the law.
We need to make it happen. Until CEOs and the like are in prison we are failing society.
michaelt | 9 days ago
Is there any point where a person stops being working class? Can I be chauffeur-driven to the opera in my gold-plated Lamborghini and still call myself working class?
fhennig | 9 days ago
keybored | 9 days ago
Just halfway seems low. But this is Silicon Valley News after all.
Frieren | 9 days ago
They are using a divide an conquer strategy. By splitting the working class they want to weak our ability to resist capital.
There is no logic to their argument just lies to fulfill their goal.
kakacik | 9 days ago
Somebody making 300-500k+ yearly is hardly working class, in same way bezos or zuckenberg are not working class yet they do spend some time working on their businesses.
We all make our choices in our lives and shape it accordingly, at least have a pair and own your decisions.
andrewstuart | 9 days ago
loloquwowndueo | 9 days ago
shevy-java | 9 days ago
nicman23 | 9 days ago
zelphirkalt | 9 days ago
nicman23 | 8 days ago
micik | 9 days ago
Not only were they getting paid, slavery in the Roman Empire involved a bidirectional responsibility. In times of economic hardship and downturn, the owner was required to look after the slave. No kicking to the curb allowed.
Slaves were able to buy themselves out and the list of former slaves who became magnates and even politically influential at the highest level was indeed long and packed with names.
Being a slave was not considered dishonorable or lowly and the power dynamic was not based on notions of inherent ethnic based superiority. Not that the Romans weren’t plenty racist — they were. They also knew what a category error is and were not wont to induce it in themselves. Perhaps they had standards where intellectual rigor is concerned.
The ugly American version of slavery really did a number on people’s understanding of the institution. When we look at the current boardroom and C-suite “elites” and how they were often literally handed their business by the established power structures (Google and the CIA VC fund; DARPA and “lifelog” into Facebook etc), you can’t help but get the feeling that in our wage slavery society social mobility options are worse than Roman era slaves could avail themselves of.
Keen study of history is the only thing that can halt the slide of citizenry into universal and absolute ignorance. Given that Joe Schmoe no longer reads anything longer than a reel caption and even Ignatius Intellectual often maxes out at a blog post, I’d say the slide is well and truly lubed up.
nicman23 | 8 days ago
keybored | 9 days ago
I would bang my head against the wall if they either didn’t make a stink or publicly said that, of course the Company is going to monitor me, it’s their hardware[1] and who am I to be anything but a vessel for my employer on Company time etc.
[1] As seen in the comments on the large thread about this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47851948
zelphirkalt | 9 days ago
keybored | 9 days ago
thedevilslawyer | 9 days ago
keybored | 9 days ago
> very few facebook employees use their products outside of testing, which is a big contributor to that fear - they just can't believe that there are billions of people who would continue to use apps to post what they had for lunch!
> And as a result of that lack of faith, most of them believe that Meta is a bubble and can burst at any point. Consequently, everyone works for the next performance review cycle, and most are just in rush to capture as much money as they could before that bubble bursts.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47409649
vortegne | 9 days ago
At some point in the future, a lot of the SV techbros will be hopefully viewed as ghouls with no morals or ethics. This is not a subsection of humanity that should be dictating anything and yet they always do. If you complain about this and don't quit your job at Meta, you're failing an extremely basic check.
gamerslexus | 9 days ago
Interesting phrasing. So which subsection of humanity you think should be dictating something?
Is there a reason you didn't go with
> No subsection of humanity should be dictating anything and yet these techbros always do.
rootlocus | 9 days ago
You don't have to provide a perfect solution to point out something is wrong. People who don't care about the people they lead don't make good leaders. I'd rather have leaders who hurt others by accident than on purpose.
ceejayoz | 9 days ago
"Here's your shit sandwich."
"I don't want a shit sandwich!"
I don't have to know what I do want to eat to decline the shit sandwich.
gamerslexus | 9 days ago
ceejayoz | 9 days ago
compass_copium | 9 days ago
vortegne | 9 days ago
No and you are being intentionally obtuse for some reason.
gamerslexus | 8 days ago
zelphirkalt | 9 days ago
I hope you are right, though it will still take a long time, if it ever happens. The base premises of most people is still something along the lines of: Has money -> must be successful -> is smarter than most -> is right and cannot be wrong.
This kind of shortcircuited thinking is superbly annoying and harms us and the planet and every living being on it. I still remember clearly, when I explained to a Facebook fanperson, that FB is a criminal organization, just after they had to pay the highest fines ever for violating people's privacy. Despite the plain facts in front of them they chose not to believe me, because who am I, right? Just an IT person, who cannot possibly know shit, since I am not as rich and famous as Zucky the android.
notabotiswear | 9 days ago
Karma’s a b*tch, innit?
thedevilslawyer | 9 days ago
> "This makes me super uncomfortable. How do we opt out?"
>> Opt-out is as simple as sending in your resignation to your manager.
dist-epoch | 9 days ago
> I can't hear you over the sound of the millions I'm making at Meta.
codeulike | 9 days ago
Meta employees are up in arms over a mandatory program to train AI on their _______
Pets?
Hairstyles?
super256 | 9 days ago
ceejayoz | 9 days ago
I'd have gone with "Meta employees up in arms over mandatory program to train AI on their keystrokes".
xnorswap | 9 days ago
brightbeige | 9 days ago
brycewray | 9 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticks_Nix_Hick_Pix
TacticalCoder | 9 days ago
nnx | 9 days ago
dist-epoch | 9 days ago
chrisjj | 9 days ago
Havoc | 9 days ago
heresie-dabord | 9 days ago
tolerance for abuse.
yubblegum | 9 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project
p.s. was just reading the wiki plot summary and lol'ing at this bit: "Colossus has the responsible programmers summarily executed outside their workplace, left laying 24 hours, and cremated. Colossus also names their replacements. " -- karma is a bitch, indeed.
RajT88 | 9 days ago
yubblegum | 9 days ago
spacechild1 | 9 days ago
pluc | 9 days ago
throw0101a | 9 days ago
> 'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.
* https://twitter.com/Cavalorn/status/654934442549620736
LightBug1 | 9 days ago
ludicrousdispla | 9 days ago
> It also says it only applies to computers, not to employees' phones.
What a great motivator for employees to stop using their work computers.
Mordisquitos | 9 days ago
Does anyone know how many Meta employees use a computer, and what fraction of their work they do on it? It cannot be that much, surely.
anygivnthursday | 9 days ago
yodsanklai | 9 days ago
DoctorDabadedoo | 9 days ago
w4yai | 9 days ago
No. They happen, but with a significant difference
plufz | 9 days ago
ITUC Global Rights Index (2025)
Europe: 2.78 Nordics: 1.0–1.2 Western Europe: 2.0–2.3
Americas: 3.68 United States: 4
I couldn’t find per state US numbers but the difference is obviously huge.
junon | 9 days ago
yodsanklai | 9 days ago
One may argue that salaries are lower and there are less opportunities in tech in those countries - because of stronger regulation - but I think the layoffs procedures are objectively much more favorable for employees.
chrisjj | 9 days ago
Havoc | 9 days ago
Half the big tech world is economically built on mass scale invasive unwanted tracking & adtech. If it goes up in flames from internal tension about invasive tracking that's just karma
spprashant | 9 days ago
moregrist | 9 days ago
But I hope they successfully push back against it. I don’t want this kind of behavior normalized.
sys_64738 | 9 days ago
aldielshala | 9 days ago
nathanaldensr | 9 days ago
josefritzishere | 9 days ago
tempodox | 9 days ago