Facebook intentionally drains users' cellphone batteries, says former employee
The news was recently released that George Hayward, a data scientist and former Facebook employee (now known as meta) alleges in a lawsuit in a federal court in Manhattan and in which he mentions that he was fired in November for refusing to participate in the "negative" tests.
In his lawsuit, the former employee mentions that Facebook could secretly use mobile phone batteries from its users.
This practice, known as a 'negative test', allows tech companies to 'surreptitiously' drain the mobile power system from a person to test features or problems like how fast your app runs or an image loads, according to data scientist George Hayward. .
"I told the director, 'You can hurt someone,' and she said by hurting a few, 'we can help a lot,'" Hayward said.
Hayward worked on Facebook's Messenger app, that allows users to send text messages or make phone or video calls, and is a crucial communication tool in many countries, he said.
Killing a cell phone battery puts people at risk, especially "in circumstances where they need to communicate with other people, including, but not limited to, police officers or officials"
“I refused to take this test,” he said, adding: “It turns out that if you tell your boss: 'No, it's illegal,' the rest is not going to go very well.
If George Hayward's suspicions turn out to be true, Facebook or Meta wouldn't be on their first loss. Sensor Tower in a report published in 2021 reveals that Facebook has trackers on 25% of the most popular websites and 61% of apps.
Facebook provides its business partners with tracking software that they integrate into apps, websites, and loyalty programs. Any company or group that needs digital advertising has no choice but to feed the vacuum. Behind the scenes, Facebook collects this data and tries to match it to your account.
They're located below your name, in a part of your profile that your friends can't see, but are used by Facebook to shape the user's online experience. According to app research firm Sensor Tower, 61 of the top 100 smartphone apps contain Facebook software. Facebook also has trackers on about 25% of websites, according to privacy software maker Ghostery.
After the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook spoke about the illegal collection of data from 50 million Facebook users. For him, It was all about a breach of trust. between the so-called Aleksandr Kogan, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. However, he did not fail to point out that it was also a breach of trust between Facebook and the people who share their data with the site expecting their data to be protected by the social network.
Hayward said he doesn't know how many people were affected by Facebook's negative tests, but he thinks the company got involved in the practice because it received an internal training document called "How to Run Reflective Negative Tests," which included examples of such experiments performed. .
“I have never seen such a horrible document in my career”
Most people probably have no idea that Facebook or other social media companies are capable of intentionally draining a cell phone's battery, said Hayward's attorney, Dan Kaiser.
The lawsuit had to be withdrawn because Meta's employment conditions forced Hayward to defend his case in arbitration. Kaiser says most people have no idea that Facebook and other social media companies can intentionally drain your battery. Commenting on the practice of negative tests
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