Meta is facing a federal lawsuit from 26 of its own employees who say the company used artificial intelligence to decide who gets fired, and that the AI had a bias problem. The suit, filed in US District Court in Oakland, California, alleges that Meta’s algorithm-driven layoff process disproportionately targeted workers who were disabled, pregnant, or had taken legally protected medical or family leave.
What the lawsuit actually claims
The employees allege that Meta deployed AI-powered monitoring and performance evaluation tools that factored in productivity metrics and something called “AI-token consumption” when selecting workers for elimination. If you were on medical leave, family leave, or otherwise not producing at full capacity for legally protected reasons, the algorithm apparently didn’t care about the “legally protected” part.
The suit claims violations of three major federal statutes: the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. The plaintiffs are asking the court to halt a round of layoffs scheduled to begin on July 22 and to force Meta to recalibrate its selection criteria so that employees who exercised their legal rights aren’t penalized for doing so.
