The former Meta employee assures that Facebook performs ‘negative tests’ where it drains the battery of the phones on purpose.
Former Meta employees have pointed out that apps like Facebook intentionally drain users’ batteries.
This was communicated to The New York Post, where they report that there are so-called “negative tests”, where the company itself drains the battery of the user’s phone to test the new functions.
Negative tests from Facebook
According to George Hayward, a former data scientist at the company, he was fired from Meta for refusing to perform such tests.
“I told the manager, ‘This can hurt someone,’ and she said that by hurting a few we can help the great masses. Any self-respecting data scientist will know: don’t hurt people,” he said.
Hayward was fired by Facebook in November, so he filed a lawsuit against the giant in Manhattan Federal Court.
In the lawsuit, Hayward’s attorney, Dan Kaiser, said that draining the batteries of users’ smartphones can put them at risk “in circumstances where they need to communicate with others, including, but not limited to, the police or other first responders.” .
Meta ‘s terms of employment forced Hayward to withdraw his lawsuit and he had to submit his case to arbitration.
Everyday’s bread
According to Hayward, the company provided him with a training document titled “How to Run Reflective Negative Tests.”
“I have never seen a more horrible document in my career,” he added.
Facebook has long been accused of secretly feeding off phone batteries. There have been news reports since 2015 of the iOS app consuming a large amount of phone battery even when the app is not open.