Meta employees filed a joint petition with more than 1,500 staff to roar in protest! They fought to narrow the scope of “AI monitoring of keyboards and mice,” making it possible to pause for half an hour each day.

Meta is scaling back its controversial employee monitoring program, MCI (Model Capability Initiative). After launching in April, the software recorded employees' mouse movements, keyboard inputs, and screenshots, used to train AI to operate computers like humans. However, employees strongly pushed back, citing computer lag, battery drain, and privacy violations, with over 1,500 signing a petition of protest.
(Background: Meta scandal exposure: Zuckerberg allegedly demanded monitoring of employee keyboard and mouse records, with responses claiming "no impact on performance evaluations")
(Additional context: Meta employees proposed that if their work were fully AI-automated, the company should provide five years' worth of salary compensation before layoffs)

After more than 1,500 Meta employees signed the petition, the company decided to back down, at least partially.

Meta's Superintelligence Labs Vice President Stephane Kasriel issued an internal memo this week, announcing a series of concessions regarding the "Model Capability Initiative" (MCI).

The Information obtained this memo exclusively, and Reuters confirmed the information on the 2nd.

Why are Meta employees unhappy?

The MCI monitoring system was officially installed on Meta US employees' work laptops starting in April, recording mouse movements, clicks, keyboard inputs, and screenshots, tracking objects across hundreds of websites and applications including Google, LinkedIn, GitHub, Slack, Wikipedia, Atlassian, and more.

The data is used to provide material for Muse Spark, a cutting-edge multi-step workflow system launched by Meta's Superintelligence Labs in April, aimed at training AI models to "use computers like smart people."

Zuckerberg personally stated at a company-wide meeting that the quality of data produced by employees far exceeds that of outsourced annotation teams.

But after the software went live, employees experienced device lag and significant battery drain. Some employees even posted flyers in meeting rooms and vending machines, citing their legal right under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to improve working conditions, and even compared Meta to an "Employee Data Extraction Factory."

Zuckerberg previously clarified at an employee town hall that MCI data "is only used for AI training and does not affect performance evaluations," but this did not quell the backlash, with over 1,500 employees signing a petition.

What concessions has Meta made?

According to the memo, Meta has made four adjustments,

2. Including allowing employees to pause tracking for 30 minutes at any time to handle personal matters
3. Changing data collection from recording specific input words to only recording activity summaries
4. Expanding the exemption channels for tracking, covering sensitive content handlers, remote employees with limited bandwidth, and field workers who cannot easily charge devices
5. The memo also states that "multiple optimizations" have been made to reduce battery consumption on laptops

Meta also emphasizes that currently, only a "very small number" of engineers have access to raw data. But MCI has not been stopped; only its usage has been modified. The mechanism for tracking employee behavior is still in place and remains quite extensive.

Legally, there are no federal laws in the US prohibiting employers from monitoring work computers, and Meta has deliberately limited the scope of MCI deployment to US employees to avoid the strict scrutiny of systematic behavioral monitoring under the EU GDPR.

Notably, Meta is simultaneously laying off about 8,000 employees, accounting for 10% of its global workforce. While mass layoffs are happening, the company continues to train AI using the behavioral data of remaining employees. This pressure buildup is almost predictable in employee reactions.