Facebook Messenger Can Knowingly Deplete Your Phone’s Battery For Feature Testing, Meta’s Engineer Confirms

Whether you like to use it or not, Facebook Messenger is one of the most loved messaging platforms we have today.

The popularity doesn’t seem to be going down the drain, anytime soon. But did you know its parent company is not particularly known for looking out for the best interest of its own users?

Meta’s track record for putting such people’s interests at the top of the list is little to none. Let’s not forget a great many controversies that come associated with the firm too.

Do you recall the Cambridge Analytica scandal and also how many watchdogs are now targeting Meta for conducting huge security breaches? So as you can see, Meta might be looking at users in a different light altogether.

The news comes as an ex-data scientist for the firm called out the platform for draining users’ batteries knowingly. This is for the sake of background feature testing. And toward the end of it all, it just puts you in a not-so-great position to hear such behavior.

George Hayward is not shying away from such claims and is now informing lawmakers about how Meta fired him. Now, his lawsuit claims that Facebook’s parent firm relieved him from all of his duties after he did not wish to take part in any form of negative testing.

This is another term reserved for the likes of computing bad data to platforms so that it ensures greater functionality when used in an improper manner. For now, Hayward’s objection on the matter was not linked to this particular practice only.

Instead, it had to do with how Meta handled the whole situation. For instance, when the firm opted to negative test the app on a user’s phone, the end result would be extreme battery drainage.

Battery life is a huge deal for some people and they really do take such matters very seriously. And unprecedented drains seen on their device means they’re left in a position where making emergency calls or contacting loved ones at distressing times is near impossible.

Hayward mentioned during a recent interview with the New York Post how the major issue here had to do with how many users were not aware of the truth regarding the company’s negative testing.

But it does not stop just there. Meta loves to supply employees with plenty of guides and handbooks on how it feels is the right way to conduct such negative tests, giving real-world examples.

This is clear proof of how Meta loves to perform such tests on a routine basis and adores dedicating bigger teams to carry out such tasks too. And when he approached his seniors on the matter, they did not like what he had to say.

He claims that he did not like the idea and even refused to conduct such tests and the end result ended in his contact with the tech giant getting terminated.