Meta employees who sought leave were tagged by AI for mass lay-offs, lawsuit claims
Meta is facing a lawsuit from former employees who claim the company used AI-driven performance monitoring to unfairly target them for layoffs. The plaintiffs allege that the automated systems disproportionately selected workers who had taken protected medical or maternity leave.
Why it matters
This case underscores the growing legal and ethical concerns regarding the use of AI in human resources and automated workforce management.
Dozens of Meta employees have sued the social media company over claims that it used artificial intelligence tools to tag workers for mass lay-offs.
The workers allege that those AI tools targeted them after they asked for protected or maternity leave or disability accommodation.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in the northern district of California , points to Meta’s workforce reduction of about 8,000 employees earlier this year. Meta is the parent company of Facebook , Instagram and WhatsApp .
The suit alleges that Meta used a “constellation of internal artificial intelligence systems”, including AI performance ratings and keystroke- and activity-monitoring data, to pinpoint who to lay off.
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