{"id":1089291,"date":"2026-07-14T20:00:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T20:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1089291\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T20:00:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T20:00:18","slug":"meta-accused-of-using-biased-ai-targeting-for-mass-layoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1089291\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta accused of using biased AI targeting for mass layoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

A group of 26 former Meta employees is suing the company over claims that it used AI tools to unfairly target workers on leave with layoffs, as reported earlier by Reuters<\/a>. In the lawsuit<\/a>, the employees allege Meta determined which workers to dismiss based on performance data collected by a \u201cconstellation\u201d of internal AI tools, but failed to exclude those on parental or medical leave from its ranking system:<\/p>\n

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The result was that employees who took protected leaves were disproportionately selected for layoff, based on scoring that not only failed to account for their protected leaves, but in effect penalized the employees for exercising their legal rights to these leaves.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The layoffs mentioned in the lawsuit occurred in May as part of Meta\u2019s plans to slash 10 percent of its staff<\/a>, or around 8,000 workers. Meta\u2019s former employees allege the company used an internal AI assistant, called Metamate<\/a>, employee-trained AI agents, internal dashboards displaying AI token usage, and other tools to \u201cscore, rank, and select employees for inclusion on the termination list.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawsuit accuses Meta of violating federal and state laws preventing employers from terminating workers for taking protected leave. \u201cThese claims lack merit and are not based on facts,\u201d Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton tells The Verge. \u201cWorkforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of 26 former Meta employees is suing the company over claims that it used AI tools…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1089292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3163],"tags":[323,1942,8175,598,12,46,326,53,16,15],"class_list":["post-1089291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-labor","tag-meta","tag-news","tag-policy","tag-tech","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116920111908838298","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1089291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1089292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1089291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1089291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1089291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}