rumors swirling<\/a> that more are to come. It could lay off thousands, largely to offset increased AI costs, and to make room for AI agents to take on some of the work originally done by humans. <\/p>\nIt wouldn\u2019t be unprecedented: A couple of months ago, Jack Dorsey\u2019s fintech company, Block Inc, cited AI efficiencies as it laid off 40% of its workforce.<\/p>\n
How low can morale go?<\/h2>\n
Understandably, many Meta workers are likely feeling uneasy, both about the prospect of losing their jobs, and the fact that the company will be tracking every granular move they make on their computers. <\/p>\n
Unfortunately, experts say there isn\u2019t much they can do about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the U.S., Meta\u2019s approach is largely permissible, but it sits in a legally sensitive zone,” says Natalie Bidnick Andreas, an assistant professor of instruction in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Texas. “Federal law offers very little in the way of employee\u2011privacy protections, so there\u2019s no nationwide rule that clearly prohibits keystroke or mouse\u2011movement monitoring on company devices.”<\/p>\n
Such practices tend to fit within legal boundaries provided they are limited to a company’s own hardware and work accounts, Andreas adds, although some states might have stricter regulations in place.<\/p>\n
“State\u2011level rules add some complexity,” Andreas says, “since a few states require employers to notify workers about electronic monitoring, while newer privacy laws expand personal\u2011data rights but still focus more on consumers than employees.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Laws need to catch up<\/h2>\n
While there are stronger laws concerning keystroke logging and screen capture in places like the European Union, existing law in the United States is \u201cinadequate for the AI era,” says Dario Maestro, legal director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, an advocacy and legal services group that fights against the growing use of surveillance technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Existing \u201cstatutes were designed to stop bosses from eavesdropping on phone calls and reading private emails, not to stop companies from turning every click into training data,” Maestro says. “Workers have almost no federal right to refuse, and \u2018consent\u2019 obtained under threat of termination isn’t consent at all.”<\/p>\n
\u201cClosing that gap will require state legislatures to treat AI training as a distinct use\u2014one that demands separate, revocable consent and bars repurposing employee data beyond what was originally disclosed,” Maestro adds.<\/p>\n
“Employees cannot meaningfully refuse”<\/h2>\n
On an ethical level, Andreas says \u201cthe concerns run much deeper,\u201d and she echoes Maestro in saying that workers aren\u2019t truly able to consent to the activity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEmployees cannot meaningfully refuse when their employer decides to log keystrokes, so any notion of consent is largely symbolic,\u201d she says. \u201cEven if Meta frames the program as contributing to AI development, workers know that opting out could be interpreted as non\u2011compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Derek Leben, an associate teaching professor of ethics at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, says that Meta isn\u2019t alone, either. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is something that a lot of companies are experimenting with, and by experimenting, I mean they are moving forward with it and seeing what kinds of pushback they\u2019re getting from employees, unions, the media, and the public,\u201d Leben says. <\/p>\n
He adds that there is, and has been, plenty of discussion and debate as to where the ethical line is in terms of employers respecting the privacy of employees when they’re on the job\u2014if that line does exist. <\/p>\n
What it really boils down to is whether employers are “treating their employees like human beings with dignity,” Leben says. Absent of that, workers may feel like they\u2019re \u201cbeing treated like children,\u201d and that tracking their computers is \u201cnot being respectful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meta\u2019s practices are likely to be replicated by other companies as workplaces grapple with new privacy expectations in the age of AI.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis kind of monitoring also normalizes a level of surveillance that has historically been directed at gig workers and warehouse employees, extending it into knowledge worker roles and reshaping expectations about professional work,\u201d says Andreas. “It further blurs the line between doing one\u2019s job and training one\u2019s replacement.” <\/p>\n
\n
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