According to data scientist George Hayward, a former employee of Facebook, the social media company engages in a practice known as negative testing, which secretly drains the battery power of a user’s cellphone. Hayward claims that Facebook intentionally kills smartphone batteries.
It goes without saying that some apps on your smartphone use more power than others, which hurts the battery life of your phone. A former Facebook employee has now asserted that the social media website deliberately depletes smartphone batteries. George Hayward, a data scientist who previously worked at Facebook, claims that the social media company engages in a practice known as negative testing, which secretly depletes a user’s cellphone’s battery power.
According to the New York Post, Hayward claimed that his former employer, Facebook, purposefully depleted the battery life of its users’ smartphones. Negative testing is the term for this practice. According to reports, the test is conducted to evaluate various app features or issues, such as how quickly an image loads or runs. The worst part about the test, though, is that the user is unaware that it is being carried out on their smartphone. In a lawsuit against the business, Hayward referred to the practice as harmful. Additionally, he expressed concern, claiming that this practice may be harmful.
According to Hayward, “I said to the manager, ‘this could harm someone,’ and she said we can help the greater masses by harming a few.” In Manhattan’s federal court, the 33-year-old former employee filed a lawsuit against Facebook. He disclosed in the lawsuit that he was terminated for refusing to take part in negative testing. He worked on the Messenger app for Facebook, which is used in the same way as other messaging platforms. He continued, “I refused to do this test,” adding, “It turns out that telling your boss, “No, that’s illegal,” doesn’t go over very well.”
According to Hayward’s statement to the publication, he is unsure of the precise number of affected Facebook users. He also mentions that the company has begun negative testing after receiving an internal training document with examples of such experiments, titled “How to run thoughtful negative tests.” He stated, “I have never seen a document that is worse in my career.” The allegations made by the former employee have not been addressed by Meta, Facebook’s parent company.
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