Meta scandal exposed: Zuckerberg demanded monitoring of employee keyboard and mouse activity, responding that it "does not affect performance reviews"

US labor media exposed a recording of a Meta all-hands meeting, in which CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally confirmed on April 30 that the company has deployed a surveillance tool called the "Model Capability Initiative" (MCI). The tool records mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, and screenshots on employee computers to train AI models. Zuckerberg argued that Meta employees are "far smarter than contractors" and that the data would not be used for performance reviews. (Previous coverage: Meta mandates installation of surveillance software on employee computers to train AI models; CTO: No opt-outs allowed) (Background: Meta employees propose: If they can fully automate their jobs with AI, the company should provide five years of salary compensation before layoffs) Meta has recently been criticized by many former employees and even exposed by current staff. The US labor media outlet More Perfect Union exposed an internal recording featuring Zuckerberg addressing employee questions during the April 30 all-hands meeting. In the recording, Zuckerberg mentioned the existence and operation of the "MCI" project. The recording caused an uproar because Meta is simultaneously laying off approximately 8,000 employees, accounting for 10% of its global workforce. The people being monitored and those being laid off could be the same group. MCI, short for Model Capability Initiative, is a tracking software installed on the work computers of US-based employees. According to CNBC, it records mouse movement trajectories, click locations, keystrokes, and periodically captures screenshots. The scope of surveillance covers not only internal tools but also employee activities on hundreds of external websites and applications, including Google, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, GitHub, Slack, and Atlassian. Zuckerberg stated that while the industry currently relies heavily on outsourced personnel for labeling large model training data, the average capability of "Meta engineers" is far higher than that of typical contractors. The operational trajectories of thousands of elite engineers as they solve coding problems and build tools daily are extremely scarce, high-quality training materials. In the recording, he claimed that "AI models learn by observing smart people at work." Beyond coding, the system aims to teach AI how to "use a computer" like a human. To enable AI Agents to master sequences of operations such as clicking dropdown menus and using keyboard shortcuts, the most direct path is to continuously observe the computer operations of high-level users. Meta is attempting to use this to ensure its models' programming capabilities completely outpace OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. Internal backlash has been intense, with many Meta employees describing the project as "dystopian" in internal messages. One engineer wrote in an internal post: "Selfishly, I don't want to be screenshotted because it's an invasion of privacy. But looking at the big picture, I don't want to live in a world where humans are extracted as training data." An internal petition demanding the termination of MCI is circulating, stating that "no company of any size should be allowed to extract employee data for AI training without consent." Facing questions, Zuckerberg guaranteed that no humans would review these records, that sensitive content would be scrubbed as much as possible before data export, and that the data would never be used for performance reviews. However, he admitted that communication had been insufficient and emphasized that the project must remain confidential: "The AI race is too brutal; if this exclusive approach that creates a competitive edge were made public, rivals would copy it immediately." Zuckerberg was blunt: as long as MCI proves it can improve model capabilities, Meta will roll it out company-wide, turning the computer operations of all high-level employees into training data. In a company currently undergoing layoffs, this sounds particularly jarring, as if employees are working hard to make themselves obsolete. What data does Meta's MCI surveillance tool record? MCI is installed on the work computers of US employees and records mouse trajectories, click locations, keystrokes, and periodic screenshots. The scope of surveillance covers hundreds of websites and applications, including Google, LinkedIn, GitHub, and Slack. Can employees refuse MCI surveillance? According to previous reports, the Meta CTO explicitly stated that "no opt-outs are accepted." Although employees have launched an internal petition to terminate the project, Zuckerberg has indicated that it will be promoted company-wide as long as it proves effective.