Petition against Meta's employee training data collection for ML models

rreasonableklout about 4 hours ago 42 commentsRead Article on mcipetition.com

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Discussion (42 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

foltik•about 2 hours ago

It’s a bit hard to feel sympathetic here. Those signing this petition actively enable and profit from one of the most pervasive surveillance networks ever built.

Funny how much easier it is to tolerate something when it only affects other people.

tdb7893•34 minutes ago

People uphold a million cruel systems every day, their sort of hypocrisy is so common I've found it just to accept that it's how humans work (especially in a situation like this where their paycheck requires them to not see all the privacy problems they all support). I know I'm hypocritical about a bunch of stuff in my life.

Your perspective might be the more reasonable one but the way I see it, the hypocrisy is frustrating but it's sort of like getting mad at a dog for barking through a fence (dogs gonna dog) so I personally don't find it hard to be sympathetic still.

compass_copium•12 minutes ago

...it's the intrinsic nature of the programmer to have no scruples and work for the shittiest company that can employ them because it offers a big paycheck?

w4yai•2 minutes ago

Basically, yes.

ianm218•about 2 hours ago

I find Metas work very unethical but me but I think they should have basic workers rights still. Like yes what Meta is doing is legal and it’s at will work, but this level of surveillance feels like something the law didn’t really anticipate.

foltik•about 2 hours ago

I don’t disagree. It’s dehumanizing, and they have a legitimate complaint. In almost any other context I’d be on the side of the workers here. I just have a hard time seeing Meta employees as innocent or helpless bystanders.

jakelazaroff•21 minutes ago

Yeah, this is very much a "leopards ate my face" moment.

siren2026•about 2 hours ago

> I think they should have basic workers rights still

You make it look like they are underpaid poor manual workers.

Those are people that chose to make >500k$/year by joining a company that is known to be one of the most toxic tech companies. Mos tof those people had probably multiple offers ad decided to optimize for money besides anything else. I have a hard time to feel sympathy or petition for their "worker's rights"

xboxnolifes•about 1 hour ago

The thing about workers' rights, is that they are rights. They don't go away when you get paid more, and they apply to everyone.

gacgacgac•about 1 hour ago

Workers are workers. We have so much more in common with one another than we do with the capital class.

Turning against a worker because they are doing better than another worker is giving in the divide and rule.

Historically, this is exactly how factory owners tried to get the white and Black workers to schism rather than unionize.

Workers deserve workers rights, and we should have solidarity towards all workers.

tibbar•about 2 hours ago

This feels overly cynical. My long-time friend took a job at Meta (over equally compelling financial alternatives) because the manager pitched the team and growth prospects well. (Meta turned out to be quite disappointing on these fronts. I never heard money as an important factor for joining or for leaving.)

In general, the kind of people who get an offer from any particular big tech company probably can get similar money elsewhere, so it's unlikely to be as big a factor as you suggest.

avaer•about 2 hours ago

Presumably the employees didn't ask for this, now they have to choose between accepting this and not having a job.

You could argue they knew the company was horrible when they signed the deal with the devil, but this kind of bait and switch isn't the typical employment relationship; there is room for some sympathy.

codemog•about 2 hours ago

We’re supposed to have sympathy for techbros making half a million or more a year because.. they have to have their computer use monitored? Not even getting into the numerous list of unethical behavior of meta..

What a bizarre timeline..

wahnfrieden•38 minutes ago

The workers deserve better conditions without full accountability for leadership's decisions.

If Meta's workers were organized enough to improve their conditions, they could organize to shift company mission and tactics. They are nowhere near organized enough.

cyanydeez•about 2 hours ago

at this point though, its approaching chattel and slavery.

dylan604•about 2 hours ago

Did you honestly just compare getting paid large six figure salaries in comfy workspaces with spoiled children like perks to slavery and expect people to accept your premise? You look foolish if you're joking and you're a fool if you're serious. Either way, not a good look

thin_carapace•about 2 hours ago

why should i feel bad that people are treated like slaves because they chose to do the bidding of a supervillain? those people made the decision to sell their souls and act as conduits for evil. personally I'd rather focus on the other people affected by supervillains ... because there are billions of us and we didn't choose to be treated this way.

jeltz•33 minutes ago

Because if we don't then the rich can divide and conquer. We need to stand united, even with the Meta techbros.

btbuildem•about 2 hours ago

Petition? What do you think this is, a democracy?

All* corporations are dictatorships, and you're disposable machinery in one.

Irony is off the charts here, given what you helped build.

*not Mondragon, but like, pretty much all.

dylan604•about 2 hours ago

What does a petition have to do with democracy? They are not suggesting putting it to a vote. They have a grievance with authority and are attempting to show how widespread that grievance is with signatures of those aggrieved.

tdeck•about 1 hour ago

Also historically something like a petition seems to always be the first step in any kind of pressure campaign. It's a relatively low stakes (but not completely risk free) way to count support.

cmoski•about 1 hour ago

Surely anyone working at Meta sold their soul long ago. Do yourself a favour and quit.

mattoxic•about 2 hours ago

Sure if you've signed this you've have added your name to a list, while someone in HR has added your name to another.

disqard•about 1 hour ago

Yup, Dilbert's "easiest round of layoffs ever".

nbardy•about 1 hour ago

Signing this sounds like a good way to get fired. Executive in corporations gets to make the decisions. Employment is at will, if you don’t like it you get to leave otherwise you’re not fulfilling your contract

tdeck•about 1 hour ago

People who are focusing on whether we should have sympathy for Meta employees here are missing the point.

Meta employees have some of the strongest bargaining power in our industry. This particular imposition is undesirable to almost everyone. There is no upside in it for employees.

Therefore, if Meta employees can be forced to accept it, everyone will be. And you'd better believe that there will be a flood of companies happy to set this up for your employer at your workplace.

That's why, as someone who wouldn't consider working at Meta for ethical reasons, I'm hoping this pushback succeeds. A win for Meta here throws the floodgates wide open. A loss helps put the brakes on a bit.

Furthermore, collective action that starts like this (and keeps pressure up) is much more effective than a bunch of individuals quitting their jobs. That's why employers would much prefer the latter when they're up to no good.

phyzome•about 2 hours ago

Try unionizing rather than just asking nicely.

dccoolgai•about 1 hour ago

It's so hard to do that but it's really the only way. I had this idea that tech companies should organize _each others_ unions. Like Google employees should organize Meta's union and visa versa so no one is "sacrificing their career" by doing it.

wolvoleo•about 1 hour ago

Or living in Europe where workers have actual rights.

4fffs•about 2 hours ago

The only right course of action for Meta Mates is to eventually be hired by other firms who then squeeze everything out of them. Repent your sins and all that.

Soz but zero sympathy if you chose to work there.

JSR_FDED•22 minutes ago

Quoting Zuckerberg on Meta’s code of conduct is hilarious.

dvt•about 2 hours ago

> Indexing by search engines is fully suppressed by robots.txt

Ah yes, the companies that have ignored robots.txt to scrape your website for 20+ years will now not totally, most definitely not ignore (wink wink) polite requests to not use your data for AI training. Also, haven't Meta employees been complicit in getting teenagers addicted to social media and violations of PII until they got caught?

Respect goes out to mathematicians and their Leiden Declaration, which is an actual level-headed approach given the complexities of AI training and usage.

supertroop•about 2 hours ago

If I was Mark my answer would be “or what?” These people already work at a vile company. Which means they sold out already. If what mark does to other people doesn’t bother them they probably won’t have the backbone to leave if he says pound sand. “Oh it’s ok if you do it to other people just not me.” Get bent.

tdeck•about 1 hour ago

If this is what you get for selling out, just imagine what those of us who didn't sell out can expect? People sell out in order to get better conditions for themselves. Furthermore, this monitoring only strengthens Meta's ability to effectively surveil the rest of us.

irishcoffee•about 2 hours ago

Oh man, a petition. Now stage a walk out, maybe a protest. They’re all equally effective.

supertroop•about 2 hours ago

If you think walkouts or protests don’t do anything, you might want to brush up on history. Or maybe discover it. Google is your friend. I mean everything from suffrage to organized labor to civil rights in the US was the result of massive coordinated action. You do know that right? Maybe even read up on Gandhi, or more recently French labor protests.

refactor_master•about 2 hours ago

> Google is your friend

But really, it's more like tolerated business partner, right?

soundworlds•about 2 hours ago

I've been using Kagi for the last year, and it is like an actually helpful business partner.

Even if you use another one, we need to break the myth that Google is the only option out there.

irishcoffee•about 2 hours ago

If you think they’re effective in this current day and age you should also read the news.

Thanks for the sermon though.