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Facebook secretly killed users batteries, worker claims in lawsuit

2023-01-30 17:19 by
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Facebook can secretly drain its users' cellphone batteries, a former employee contends in a lawsuit.

The practice, known as "negative testing," allows tech companies to "surreptitiously" run down someone's mobile juice in the name of testing features or issues such as how fast their app runs or how an image might load, according to data scientist George Hayward.

Hayward was axed by Meta in November and originally filed a lawsuit against the company in Manhattan Federal Court. The 33-year-old worked for Meta's Facebook Messenger app which delivers text, phone calls, and video calls between users. In the suit, Hayward's attorney, Dan Kaiser, pointed out that draining users' smartphone batteries puts people at risk especially "in circumstances where they need to communicate with others, including but not limited to police or other rescue workers."

While Hayward said he does not know how many people were affected by the process, he claimed that the company is engaged in the practice because he saw an internal document. This was titled "How to run thoughtful negative tests" and included examples of the experiment being conducted.

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