Hey Meta workers, are you getting paid for those keystrokes?

No longer content to subsume https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg5vjqdm1ypo">recognizable intellectual properties, the majority of the ihttps://commoncrawl.org/">ndexed internet and books (https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/03/libgen-meta-openai/682093/">basically all of them), AI will apparently now begin devouring its own workforce.

A report in Reuters https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/meta-start-capturing-employee-mouse-movements-keystrokes-ai-training-data-2026-04-21/">alleged that the keystrokes, mouse movements and clicks of Meta's workforce are to be captured for the purposes of training AI — something the company's communications department was happy to confirmed as accurate!

In a cheery missive, a company spokesperson told Engadget that "If we're building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them [...] we’re launching an internal tool that will capture these kinds of inputs on certain applications to help us train our models."

All this leads one to ask the obvious question: hey, what the fuck?

The nature of at-will employment in the United States is such that your boss https://www.ncsl.org/labor-and-employment/at-will-employment-overview">basically never needs to explain why your job duties change, but it's rarely so sweeping, so brazen or so unavoidably tied to the reminder that you are being surveilled at a frighteningly granular level.

Gross!

Installing keyloggers on someone else's computer in a non-work setting can often constitute a criminal offense (hello https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-9-48000-computer-fraud">CFAA!) and it's frankly weird we allow this sort of thing to happen in the workplace at all.

But in this case, there's at least some possibility this data may eventually be used to https://medium.com/codetodeploy/i-trained-the-ai-that-replaced-me-56febbba942a">replace the exact people currently strongarmed into making those clicks and clacking those keys — or as https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2026/04/15/snap-blames-1000-layoffs-on-ai-and-these-companies-have-done-the-same/">a thin excuse to lay a lot of them off.

It's not as though the data underpinning large language models is worthless.

Ill-gotten information has been the subject of exorbitant https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=c813ae39-7d58-41cb-ac66-ad830606ceef&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=e039f8df-ab77-4360-a11b-8d4533a8af3f&featureId=text-link&merchantName=The+New+York+Times&linkText=settlements&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5ueXRpbWVzLmNvbS8yMDI1LzA5LzA1L3RlY2hub2xvZ3kvYW50aHJvcGljLXNldHRsZW1lbnQtY29weXJpZ2h0LWFpLmh0bWwiLCJjb250ZW50VXVpZCI6ImUwMzlmOGRmLWFiNzctNDM2MC1hMTFiLThkNDUzM2E4YWYzZiIsIm9yaWdpbmFsVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnl0aW1lcy5jb20vMjAyNS8wOS8wNS90ZWNobm9sb2d5L2FudGhyb3BpYy1zZXR0bGVtZW50LWNvcHlyaWdodC1haS5odG1sIn0&signature=AQAAAYsG9A1xWsw_Y1Aa2EcmB8omo48uCumG7hOdVmOr3Sol&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2025%2F09%2F05%2Ftechnology%2Fanthropic-settlement-copyright-ai.html">settlements and many https://www.engadget.com/ai/warner-bros-discovery-is-suing-midjourney-for-copyright-infringement-035850831.html">pending https://www.engadget.com/ai/three-youtubers-accuse-apple-of-illegal-scraping-to-train-its-ai-models-181028745.html">court https://www.engadget.com/ai/encyclopedia-britannica-sues-openai-for-copyright-and-trademark-infringement-164747991.html">cases with considerable sums riding on their eventual judgements.

If Meta thought it could obtain this sort of data from its estimated https://marketing4ecommerce.net/en/daily-active-users-meta/">3.5 billion combined users instead of its https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/META/meta-platforms/number-of-employees#google_vignette">comparably paltry body of employees without it immediately reading as the single most invasive chapter in a laughably long history of move fast, break things, and never admit to the mess, wouldn't it just... do that?

Technology has progressed so far, yet people continue to really hate feeling taken advantage of.

And that sort of thing is https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=34e37b9c-8975-48da-aa39-df8bcd5badc3&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=e039f8df-ab77-4360-a11b-8d4533a8af3f&featureId=text-link&merchantName=CNBC&linkText=still+bad+for+business&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy5jbmJjLmNvbS8yMDI2LzAxLzI2L3Rpa3Rvay11bmluc3RhbGxzLWFyZS11cC0xNTBwZXJjZW50LWZvbGxvd2luZy11cy1qb2ludC12ZW50dXJlLmh0bWwiLCJjb250ZW50VXVpZCI6ImUwMzlmOGRmLWFiNzctNDM2MC1hMTFiLThkNDUzM2E4YWYzZiIsIm9yaWdpbmFsVXJsIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuY25iYy5jb20vMjAyNi8wMS8yNi90aWt0b2stdW5pbnN0YWxscy1hcmUtdXAtMTUwcGVyY2VudC1mb2xsb3dpbmctdXMtam9pbnQtdmVudHVyZS5odG1sIn0&signature=AQAAAVhEe-nPk-3p1xwH_uy0tNHY0P8nCHCoIA2OirG9ep2k&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnbc.com%2F2026%2F01%2F26%2Ftiktok-uninstalls-are-up-150percent-following-us-joint-venture.html">still bad for business.

In a https://shopping.yahoo.com/rdlw?merchantId=7212db91-cd64-4c1b-ab0d-1d1c998f089e&siteId=us-engadget&pageId=1p-autolink&contentUuid=e039f8df-ab77-4360-a11b-8d4533a8af3f&featureId=text-link&merchantName=time&linkText=fragile&custData=eyJzb3VyY2VOYW1lIjoiV2ViLURlc2t0b3AtVmVyaXpvbiIsImxhbmRpbmdVcmwiOiJodHRwczovL3RpbWUuY29tL2FydGljbGUvMjAyNi8wMy8yNi93ZS1tdXN0LXByZXBhcmUtZm9yLWFuLWFpLWJ1YmJsZS1ub3cvIiwiY29udGVudFV1aWQiOiJlMDM5ZjhkZi1hYjc3LTQzNjAtYTExYi04ZDQ1MzNhOGFmM2YiLCJvcmlnaW5hbFVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vdGltZS5jb20vYXJ0aWNsZS8yMDI2LzAzLzI2L3dlLW11c3QtcHJlcGFyZS1mb3ItYW4tYWktYnViYmxlLW5vdy8ifQ&signature=AQAAAbopnjxLHISxRyVGmmu-XTUEJvYdHkxaX7YqvQqbJvM2&gcReferrer=https%3A%2F%2Ftime.com%2Farticle%2F2026%2F03%2F26%2Fwe-must-prepare-for-an-ai-bubble-now%2F">fragile economy floated by https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2026-ai-circular-deals/">rampant self-dealing and the shifting moods of a few very rich weirdos, even the mere mention of AI's relentless forward march to annihilate its own creators can make a shoe company's stock pop, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmarkman/2026/04/20/how-39-million-shoe-company-allbirds-turned-in-to-an-ai-company/">however briefly.

Maybe that's why Meta was delighted to confirm the broad details of the Reuters story, yet declined multiple requests to comment on if workers can opt out of this surveillance, or if they are being compensated in any way for their data.

I, for one, would still love to know!

Do you work at Meta and want to talk confidentially?

I'm @amarae.60 on Signal.