Magnificent irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs

Meta, the company built on watching everything its billions of users do online so it can keep them clicking on ragebait and targeted ads, is reportedly now installing surveillance software on employees’ work computers. Newswire Reuters reports that Meta management sent staff a memo informing them that they’ll soon run a new …

[billdehaan]

They did the meme

"I never thought the leopard would eat my face", sobs woman working for the Leopard Eating People's Face company.

[An_Old_Dog]

Re: They did the meme

I've seen people do this sort of thing before: a denial mode which overrides logic.

I'm guessing this comes from a worldview in which they are the center of the universe, and that ${DEITY} or good luck will protect them from Bad Things, because, after all, they are special.

[billdehaan]

Re: They did the meme

Oh, obsolutely.

There was some political pundit who went apoplectic at a rival a while back, because the rival had called someone a Nazi. The rival was therefore horrible person, a racist, a sexist, and everything else bad under the sun. She demanded that he be fired from his job, be banned from the social media site, and be cancelled.

Then people started snooping in her posting history. They not only found numerous examples of her calling someone a Nazi, they found that she used it with far less justification than the person she was demanding be cancelled.

Her response was a master class in narcissism. She explained to the stupid people who complained that she was "being edgy", and therefore her use of the term was perfectly acceptable, but that when other people used it, it proved they were racist.

She literally said that the "universal" (her word) rule that proved her rival was racist didn't apply to her, for no other reason than she believed it didn't.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: They did the meme

And we don't even have to ask the topic...

[T. F. M. Reader]

Keyloggers???!!!

So, no more "reasonable personal use" (I've had this in every contract or policy since forever), no more occasional personal email, medical appointments, checking bank balance, etc.?

And that's before we even ask how they will manage not to grab and record cleartext passwords, even work-related ones, even from the command line. Opportunities for abuse will be endless. IT never asks for passwords. I suppose AI never asks, period.

And then spies and criminals won't even need to install and hide a keylogger. They'll just need to compromise the "official" one that operates in the open. Given the recent revelations of AI vendors' attitude to security I don't imagine it will be very hard.

[simonlb]

Re: Keyloggers???!!!

I'm not sure I'd be a good training model for an LLM as I usually create multiple iterations of an email starting from shouty and sweary and then progressing by steps to composed, lucid and 'corporate' enough to be sent. If they also turned on the microphone and listened to the ongoing commentary I have running throughout the day it might make them think I have one or two 'issues' and need some form of support. Some days I don't even know myself so fuck knows what an LLM would make of me.

[Aladdin Sane]

Re: Keyloggers???!!!

It would make an outlying datapoint. Probably.

[gv]

Re: Keyloggers???!!!

One reason to run Linux on your work laptop is to avoid this type of nonsense. However, corporate IT has evolved to no longer allow admin access, lock down the BIOS settings, etc., so it's now no longer feasible.

Current employer doesn't even allow Firefox, so all personal stuff is done on the mobile phone.

[Wellyboot]

Re: Keyloggers???!!!

personal stuff is done on the mobile phone. !!!!

Swapping Meta snooping for Google snooping.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Keyloggers???!!!

Google might well be snooping on work machines too, so it's a case of choosing the lesser of two evils (and the one you have more control over!)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Keyloggers???!!!

Or working in a more developed and modern country where such monitoring is explicitly forbidden by the law.

[Someone Else]

Re: Keyloggers???!!!

Choose neither!

[gv]

Re: Keyloggers???!!!

You are assuming that I have not deployed countermeasures for both...

[JoeCool]

Re: Keyloggers???!!!

No, swapping Employer snooping for non-employer snooping

[FrogsAndChips]

Re: Keyloggers???!!!

Edge is officially the only authorized browser, but Chrome and Firefox can easily be installed "for development purposes". Guess which one I do my personal browsing from.

[that one in the corner]

Re: Keyloggers???!!!

> Guess which one I do my personal browsing from.

Dillo from source or unzipped "portable" build?

For some odd reason, the audits (back when I was working) never seemed to ask about executables that didn't use "an installer" but were still perfectly functional.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Keyloggers???!!!

Because you do believe a company can't monitor your Linux or macOS work PC? Especially one lile Meta, or Google - which actually fund a lot of Linux development?

[gv]

Re: Keyloggers???!!!

Macs are managed by IT, so assume the same as Windows. However, at this stage it's not worth the hassle, hence the use of a non-corporate device.

[Burgha2]

Re: Keyloggers???!!!

I've never had the choice of OS on a work computer, as a humble user.

That's over a 30 year career.

[that one in the corner]

Re: Keyloggers???!!!

> So, no more "reasonable personal use"

Not at all. They are counting on everyone to continue (ab)using their work computers as much as always.

How else will the "AI" learn how real people use computers?

[Claude Yeller]

You are a cog in the machine

I get the eerie feeling Meta don't want to augment human employees with AI agents.

It feels much more like Meta want to augment AI agents with human "cogs".

The pre-civil war plantation work culture is still alive.

[Anonymous Coward]

The pre-civil war plantation work culture is still alive.

Too many in the "land of the free" remember fondly the ol' times whey you could buy and sell human beings, and regret Lincoln stopped it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The pre-civil war plantation work culture is still alive.

The people "remembering" that are likely okay with that sort of thing because they wouldn't have been among the "slave" (i.e. black) group first time round and take for granted it'd work the same way again.

They forget- or most likely never knew nor cared- that many white people in America once operated under indentured servitude which was only a step or two above slavery.

Then again, the fact it *was* still a step or two above is likely all that would matter. It's obvious that many racist white Americans would still happily screw themselves over with a setup like that if it meant they could still look down on black people and treat them as slaves. As LBJ once said:-

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

[45RPM]

I’m glad I don’t work at Meta. Then again, I don’t think Meta would employ me. I may work in IT, but my thinking is still very analogue. My preferred, and most used, notebook still has pages - and needs to be replaced when it gets full. Capture the keystrokes on that ya buggers!

[SnailFerrous]

"My preferred, and most used, notebook still has pages - and needs to be replaced when it gets full. Capture the keystrokes on that ya buggers!"

That's what the company issue Meta AI Ray Ban spy glasses are for. There is no escape.

[45RPM]

But would I have to wear them?

[Bebu sa Ware]

Meta AI Ray Ban spy glasses

I handled a pair for the first time a few weeks ago. The local electrical store had them on display with a bit of string attached to stop them walking. They appear to be selling like… fresh dog turds. So perhaps the string was redundant. ;)

I had laboured under the mistaken impression that these devices projected an image on the back of the presumably semi·silvered lenses to give a heads·up type display.

I was disappointed (not really, dog turds remember) to find no such facility. They are no more than a tiny glasshole spy camera embedded in the frame and some input devices in the arms of the frame. I suspect noise cancelling ear·pods are cleverer technologically.

[Cris E]

We'll see how well the Meta Ray Bans do trying to read my handwriting. It's so inscrutable that there's a good chance even I won't be able to tell if it was interpreted correctly. My writing is so bad these days that it acts as an impetus to get on those tasks quickly before I forget what I was thinking.

[An_Old_Dog]

Capture the Keystrokes on that [Paper]

Hmm, that would be done by ceiling-mounted (or built-into and disguised-as clocks, pencil-sharpeners, coffee-makers, etc., AI-connected video cameras, "monitoring workplace activity to optimize HVAC efficiency."

[Suburban Inmate]

Re: Capture the Keystrokes on that [Paper]

Or even in the pen?

[that one in the corner]

Re: Capture the Keystrokes on that [Paper]

Sigh.

To own a proper pen that also digitises has been a dream of mine for decades: scribbling notes in the lecture series we still attend and having them available for sharing (you'll have forgotten the subject matter before I get around to inputting it myself - lawd, I hate copy typing).

Many, many such devices have been put onto the market since the 1990s, often using special pads printed with locating marks, sometimes with other, more complicated, methods. But all falling short of being, well, useful. Practical. Not tied into the latest proprietary scheme. Including nowadays, of course, the obligatory 'Phone App (not guaranteed to work on your 'phone for more than three months).

One could think that a company the size of Meta could actually manage the engineering to create such a peripheral, even if only to spy on their own staff. But considering how much they spaffed on all the Meta-crap you know they can't.

The best alternative so far has been the Palm Pilot - before HP stuck their oar in and buggered up Graffiti. Sigh.

[EdSaxby]

Same as you. I was beginning the think I was a museum relic lugging my paper notebook around to meetings etc. It is non-permanent storage, and I just throw the notebook away when its full, but its just the way I work.

[43300]

Slight tangent here, but do others agree that Onenote is utterly shit? It didn't ought to be difficult to design an onscreen notebook (and many have managed it quite competently), but Onenote feel like it was designed by someone not familiar with the concept of a notebook.

Plus its random lengthy syncing delays make it very frustrating if trying to use on more than one device.

[xyz]

It's all a bit shit really...

All this hoo-ha so "an agent" can find a discount on something or book you a flight. Not really noble endeavours given the amount if water, power and construction effort involved.

[Like a badger]

Re: It's all a bit shit really...

In the case of Meta, there isn't even that slim payback of consumer savings. Just more clickbait, misinformation, and advertising.

[druck]

Re: It's all a bit shit really...

There isn't any savings for the consumer, it will just be a stitch up between the AI maker and the vendor paying to direct the agents it's way.

Even if it wasn't, the cost of the transaction overhead when using AI would even make American Express blush.

[retiredFool]

Re: It's all a bit shit really...

I expect what is really going on is hoovering up the data to set the max price based on individual. JetBlue is being investigated. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/lawmakers-question-if-jetblue-is-using-personal-data-set-ticket-prices-2026-04-21/ Nirvana for corp's is to be able to squeeze the customer for the absolute maximum on an individual basis. And somehow convince the mark they got the best deal of everyone.

[cd]

Re: It's all a bit shit really...

It's not about money; a morally-retarded man-child dork is still trying to understand humans, and since he isn't one, is unaware of what an ass he is.

And of course, like most of the people causing strife in North America, he's of European descent. The continent that was trafficking slaves to NA in the first place.

[nobody who matters]

Re: It's all a bit shit really...

"All this hoo-ha so "an agent" can find a discount on something or book you a flight........."

I really don't want to believe that you really think this all begins and ends with marketing/advertising, or indeed that it is limited to 'just' training AI. .

I am sure you realise that the data harvesting goes much further than simply training bots to help you spend your money.

Please say that you do understand that. Please.

[Cris E]

Re: It's all a bit shit really...

There are almost certainly deeper malign dreams out there, but most people are going to see lazy, rapacious retailers grabbing the lowest hanging fruit and not making much effort beyond that. Eventually they'll offer to help you vote or invest or sell your parents' organs, but for now they'll just aim for an extra $39 per plane seat.

[Richard 12]

Illegal outside the US

So any AI thus trained will be even more US-centric than they are at the moment.

Making it useless for any non-US customers, other than those whose business is to scam US businesses.

Is that really what they want?

[blu3b3rry]

Re: Illegal outside the US

Just imagine the level of USA-esque corporate bullshit its going to ingest....

[Michael Strorm]

Re: Illegal outside the US

This is Meta/Facebook. "USA-esque corporate bullshit"- i.e. the one-way pseudo-Libertarian assumption that they should be able exploit their market dominance without repercussions and take for granted that they are- is *already* baked into their DNA.

[RobDog]

The irony is delicious

For a guy to object so strongly to having his picture taken and used, whose main business was based on scraping pictures from face books, is breathtaking in its hypocracy.

[nobody who matters]

Re: The irony is delicious

hypocrisy ;)

[Joe W]

Re: The irony is delicious

dunno, I actually do like the term hypocracy...

[Neil Barnes]

Re: The irony is delicious

Government by hippopotami, surely?

[DrewPH]

Re: The irony is delicious

Are we sure it's not hippapotamusses?

[sedregj]

Re: The irony is delicious

Govt by horses (hippo. means "river horse").

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

Re: The irony is delicious

Hypo- (as prefix), under or below. Government by the underneath (apparently, by arseholes).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The irony is delicious

Hipocracy looks a good new word for Zuckerberg, he built his power on hypocrisy.

Lately I'm reading articles about how social network "degenerated" - as if they weren't designed as such from the scratch - the problem is not the very business model, it's the "algorithm" (only one, of course), that with time "degenerated", and it could be replaced by a better, friendlier algorithm designed to improve mankind for the better good.

(written by journalists who probably are so dependented on Facebook & C. they'd need a rehab if they can't have it anymore)

But just look at Zuck's history to understand they were born to exploit people - yet his "reality distortion field " about the hypocritical "connecting people" did work.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: The irony is delicious

dunno, I actually do like the term hypocracy...

I like a nice glass of hippocras :-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocras

[Michael Strorm]

Re: The irony is delicious

Remember Zuckerberg complaining that "Everything I say leaks" in... a leaked meeting audio?

Yeah, exactly. As one person said...

does that suck, mark? is it not fun to have your privacy violated? do you feel uncomfortable with people knowing things about you that you’d rather they not know? tell me more about how much you value your security and privacy, mark.

[Oliver Mayes]

Now they won't need a whole team of developers to lose $70 billion on pointless projects, they can have an army of agents losing them that money every day.

[Oh Matron!]

Liberty, once lost, is lost forever

That it all.

[ChoHag]

Re: Liberty, once lost, is lost forever

Not for ever. The French invented a device for getting it back.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Liberty, once lost, is lost forever

I reckon the old equipment would work again with a bit of oil and polish.

[nobody who matters]

Re: Liberty, once lost, is lost forever

"Liberty, once lost, is lost forever"

"Not for ever. The French invented a device for getting it back."

Well, they thought they had at the time, but nowadays they are probably not so sure that it was an entirely sucessful exercise in the longer term ;)

They thought along similar lines in Russia in 1917 and look at how that turned out!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Liberty, once lost, is lost forever

They didn't use it in time for Roberspierre, Marat and a couple of Napoleons.

Bolshevik coup d'etat wasn't against the czar, was against the far more liberal Kerensky's Russian Republic....

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

Re: Liberty, once lost, is lost forever

It worked as designed for Maximilien Robespierre. In Marat's case, his cleaning lady made it unnecessary. As for Napoleon, lots has been said about the rest of Europe's point of view, but domestically he made a point of maintaining the ideals of the revolution.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Liberty, once lost, is lost forever

The three boxes of democracy are:

The soapbox.

The ballot box.

The ammo box.

I'm hoping we will fix things before getting to box #3.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Liberty, once lost, is lost forever

Not for ever. The French invented a device for getting it back.

Err... the Guillotine was a not invented by the French - the Halifax Gibbet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Gibbet) is one of the earliest recorded use of an actual guillotine-like device - Olly Cromwell forbade its use as "excessively cruel".

The French adopted it precisely because it was a machine and so didn't need to be paid, take holidays or suffer from inconvenient bouts of conscience. And any peasant is able to pull a handle to activate it

[Pascal Monett]

Re: Liberty, once lost, is lost forever

I seem to remember a citation along the line of : "every now and then, the blood of patriots is needed to ensure that Liberty and Democracy is ensured".

I hope I'm not too wrong on that account.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they should do the same in return to the management that put this in, then they'll find a bunch of overpaid, over-hyped, underachievers who more than likely should be part of the next tranch of redundancies.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, the C-suits will be exempted. They are more equal than others, like Animals Farm pigs...

[retiredFool]

I imagine the C-suite minimizes computer usage. You know the equivalent of a paper trail is a bad thing in court. Verbal conversations that are not recorded are so much easier to dispute. Look at the most recent Patel allegations. Drunk fbi director with no paper trail to prove he was in the office. But then lack of a trail doesn't prove he wasn't there.

[Anonymous Coward]

there is so much wrong with US presidents emplying their own in very high positions like these , not only a conflict of interest but none of the allegations like Epstien (minimal so far)/the shootings of innocent civliians by ICE/keeping highly confidential documents at home/insider dealings/political profiteering will get investigated. It's a shambles of a system. One thing for sure all the losses before office will be profits in the billions for him and his clan

[Bebu sa Ware]

OpenAI last year announced “Operator”

and guess who are the "Things^†."

This nonsense rapidly approaching such a surreal nightmare.

_{†Operators and Things}

[Withdrawn]

Training

to be a paranoid cog in a surveillance machine. Will metas models see this as the default worker behavior?

[Pascal Monett]

Yeah, sure

Because Meta's employees count as part of the "social network".

[DrewPH]

A small measure of justice (or karma, take your pick) for choosing to work for Meta.

[nobody who matters]

At least they have a choice over whether they work for Meta - the rest of us get the sticky fingers of Meta probing our online activities whether we like it or not due to them being embedded to a lesser or greater degree into almost every web page you encounter..

[running with nukes]

To the keyboards!

Sun Tzu: “Make your way by unexpected routes and attack unguarded spots.”

Poison the LLM training data with Vogon poetry.

[nobody who matters]

Re: To the keyboards!

That's nowhere near bad enough - remember, Vogon poetry was only the third worst in the galaxy. Where is Paul Milne Jennings when we need him.

[that one in the corner]

Re: To the keyboards!

Going by Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings these days.

[nobody who matters]

Re: To the keyboards!

I felt that perhaps we needed the real thing rather than the fictional version ;)

[Alan_Peery]

Data stream useless without attention tracking

I generally scan across multiple parts of a GUI before I interact with any part of it. Only tracking the click/typing doesn't replicate this, even the AI is doing text/image matching to find the right part of the GUI to click on.

So when is Meta issuing the special glasses to watch the eyeballs of their employees?

[An_Old_Dog]

Ray-Ban Meta Glasses (Gen 3)

Ray-Ban Meta Glasses (Gen 3) will also have cameras on the inside of their frames. Lack-of-eyeball-tracking-surveillance FIXED!

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

When you work for a member of the American Billionaire Fascist Coalition, you really can't expect to have any "rights". You're lucky they don't insist on installing it on your home computers as part of the terms of employment. Zuckerborg hoovers data far beyond what Google ever did. At least Google kept their hoovering focused on the advertising market; Zuck knows no such bounds.

[Anonymous Coward]

So...

Is the spyware running in Zuck's system? If not then head for the exit ASAP.