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| Facebook intentionally drained your phone's battery without your knowledge |
Facebook Messenger users have suspected for years that the app drains smartphone batteries, and now a lawsuit filed by a former employee of the company confirms that suspicion.
In an interview with The New York Times, former Facebook data scientist George Hayward claimed that the company asked him to, and when he refused, he was fired.
In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court, Hayward said he was fired from the company for refusing to comply with a practice known as "negative testing," which tech companies use to detect limitations on users' devices.
In the case of Facebook Messenger, the company ran tests to see how much data a user's phone could handle and how much the phone's battery was drained as a result of the process.
In an interview with The New York Times, Hayward said, "I said to the director, 'It could hurt somebody. '" His response was: By hurting a few people we can add a lot. .
A spokesperson for Meta's mother on Facebook denied the allegations, saying only that "Mr Hayward's allegations are unfounded".
Hayward said he believed the company conducted negative tests, including plausible examples, based on a document his manager gave him entitled "How to Conduct an Informed Negative Test."
"I have never seen a more crude document in my career," Hayward told the New York Post.
Hayward's attorney, Daniel Kaiser, told Futurism that the suit will now go to META for internal arbitration.
However, Hayward maintained his allegations in the lawsuit, which included that the company could harm people who rely on Messenger "in situations where they need to communicate with others, including but not limited to police or other lifeguards."
Kaiser told the New York Post that he found Facebook's alleged practices by Hayward "outrageous" and "clearly illegal," and that because the case was placed in Facebook's internal arbitration process, it's possible that Meta could be arrested or at least publicly convicted. . . More details.