26 employees sue Meta AI for discrimination in layoffs
Meta Platforms is facing a class-action lawsuit in which 26 current and former employees accuse the company of using artificial intelligence systems to screen layoff lists during mass layoffs in May this year, disproportionately targeting employees who were on medical leave, maternity leave, parental leave or who applied for work accommodations due to disabilities. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Oakland, California, on July 13. The plaintiff claimed that in the process of cutting about 8,000 positions (about 10% of the total number of employees), Meta did not rely solely on the judgment of managers, but instead used an internal AI system for evaluation. This system covers methods such as the internal AI chatbot "Metamate", employee activity monitoring data, AI tool usage dashboard, and algorithm-assisted performance ranking. The complaint states that the metrics used include rolling performance ratings, code submissions, productivity data and AI token consumption. The plaintiffs contend that the metrics are "by design" disadvantageous to employees taking statutory leave because data cannot be accumulated during leave, reduced output is recorded directly as a decrease in performance, and Meta does not exclude protected leave time from assessments. Plaintiffs described multiple cases: A female scientist received a layoff notice two days before production; an engineer was demoted after taking time off for an injury, with managers attributing low performance to "work interruptions." About half of the 26 plaintiffs had taken leave for caregiving or pregnancy-related reasons, including eight women who had taken maternity leave and four men who had taken parental leave. The plaintiff claimed that this practice violated many laws including the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, and requested the court to issue an injunction to suspend the July 22 layoffs and conduct an independent audit of Meta's layoff selection process. A Meta spokesperson responded that the relevant accusations were "unsubstantiated and not based on facts" and emphasized that the company's organizational decisions "were and are made by humans, not AI."