Employees at Meta are protesting the implementation of new mouse-tracking software just days ahead of widespread layoffs.

      Flyers depicting the Model Capability Initiative as an 'Employee Data Extraction Factory' began appearing in U.S. offices on Tuesday, accompanied by a petition and a unionization effort in the UK.

      By the afternoon, the flyers were widespread. Meta employees in multiple U.S. offices discovered pamphlets in meeting rooms, near vending machines, and in restrooms, condemning the company’s new mouse-tracking software as an “Employee Data Extraction Factory” and encouraging staff to support an online petition against it.

      The leaflets referenced the National Labor Relations Act and employees' right to organize for improved working conditions, as reported by Reuters.

      This protest marks the first noticeable internal resistance to the Model Capability Initiative—a tracking program that TNW covered last week—which monitors mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, and screenshots on a specific set of work applications. Meta claims the data is used to train AI agents on how humans interact with software and that it operates solely on a few designated apps and websites, not encompassing all computer activities.

      However, this characterization has not been well-received. Meta stated, “If we’re building agents to assist people with everyday computer tasks, our models require real examples of actual usage, such as mouse movements and clicking buttons,” while assuring that “safeguards” are in place to protect sensitive corporate information.

      Many employees, however, according to Reuters, view the program as workplace surveillance rebranded as training data, worrying it may lead to job automation.

      The situation has intensified due to timing. Meta is approximately a week away from its layoffs scheduled for May 20, which are expected to reduce about 10% of its workforce, approximately 8,000 of its 78,865 employees, with additional cuts anticipated in the latter half of 2026.

      CEO Mark Zuckerberg indicated during an earnings call in January that 2026 would be “the year that AI starts to dramatically change the way we work.” Within the company, this statement is now interpreted as a signal regarding which jobs may be included in the dataset.

      The protest appears to be more structured than incidental. The flyers direct employees to the petition, while colleagues in the UK have already initiated a unionization campaign with United Tech and Allied Workers, promoting a website at Leanin.uk.

      Although the campaign is small relative to Meta’s overall workforce, it presents a type of internal cohesion concern that the company has previously managed to evade. The last significant instance of employee dissent was the 2018 walkouts related to sexual harassment policies, which resulted in policy modifications instead of backlash.

      The question of data protection represents another issue. The Model Capability Initiative, as detailed in an internal memo viewed by Reuters, operates on company-provided devices and is presented by Meta as voluntary in principle but effectively mandatory for those using the specified apps.

      It remains uncertain whether this will hold up under scrutiny in regions with stricter employee privacy laws; the EU's existing regulations on workplace surveillance impose stricter requirements for proportionality and employee consent compared to current U.S. federal law.

      Meta's prior internal challenges concerning AI training data have also faced difficulties. Last month, a breach involving the company's data-labeling vendor Mercor endangered parts of its AI training pipeline and led to a temporary halt on some data-related work.

      The layoffs on May 20 are still pending, and by Tuesday evening, the petition was still being disseminated.