After Backlash, Meta Dials Back Worker-Tracking Tool

Meta is quietly retooling a controversial plan to log how its own employees use their computers. After internal pushback over a tool that tracks clicks and keystrokes to train AI models, staff will now be able to pause data collection for up to 30 minutes and request full exemptions, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters. The Model Capability Initiative, unveiled in April, sparked a petition with more than 1,500 employee signatures and complaints about privacy, performance issues, and fears it could pave the way for more layoffs.

Meta has cut roughly 2,000 jobs so far this year and signaled plans to shed 10% of its workforce, around 8,000 jobs, while leaving 6,000 open positions unfilled. The memo, from a vice president in Meta's Superintelligence Labs unit, said the team still believes its privacy safeguards are sound but has "heard" workers' concerns about issues including " wanting more control over when capturing happens." One Meta employee tells the BBC that having their actions train the AI models that might replace them felt "very dystopian." A worker who recently left the company says the tool is "just the latest way they're shoving AI down everyone's throats."