Meta scales back Model Capability Initiative employee tracking tool after staff backlash, adds pause and exemption controls
Meta $META employees pushed back on a tool that logged their keystrokes and mouse movements, and won concessions. After flyers and a petition citing US labor law spread across offices, Meta is adding controls letting workers pause the monitoring for up to 30 minutes and request e
Meta $META is scaling back an internal monitoring tool after weeks of employee pushback. The system, called the Model Capability Initiative, was introduced in April to capture how employees use their computers, including keystrokes, mouse movements, clicks and navigation through software menus, with the goal of teaching AI models how humans perform office tasks. Staff objected on several fronts. According to Neowin, workers complained the tool consumed so much data that home internet usage spiked, in some cases burning through a month's quota in days, and that it drained battery life. The backlash escalated quickly: flyers appeared in meeting rooms, on vending machines and in restrooms across multiple US offices, directing colleagues to an online petition. Both the flyers and the petition cited the National Labor Relations Act, which protects workers organizing to improve conditions. In response, Meta is introducing controls that let employees pause the tracking software for up to 30 minutes and request exemptions, and is rolling out optimizations to address the data and battery complaints. The episode is a reminder that AI training pipelines increasingly run on data collected from people, including a company's own staff, and that consent and resource costs are becoming workplace flashpoints.