Meta Faces Lawsuit Over 8,000 Layoffs as 26 Workers Allege AI Targeted Disabled Staff
Updated
Updated · Ars Technica · Jul 14
Meta Faces Lawsuit Over 8,000 Layoffs as 26 Workers Allege AI Targeted Disabled Staff
3 articles · Updated · Ars Technica · Jul 14
Summary
Twenty-six former Meta employees sued in federal court, alleging the company’s layoff process for 8,000 workers singled out disabled staff and employees who took protected medical or family leave.
The complaint says Meta relied on internal AI systems—including Metamate, activity-monitoring data, AI-token-usage dashboards and algorithmic performance rankings—to score and select workers for termination.
Those metrics allegedly penalized people whose output was reduced by disability or interrupted by protected leave, because they could not accumulate the same productivity, ratings or AI-usage data as other employees.
Meta rejected the claims, saying workforce and organizational decisions were made by people, not AI, and calling the allegations meritless and unsupported by facts.
Reuters said the case appears to be the first lawsuit against a major U.S. company challenging the alleged use of AI to conduct layoffs.