Meta Worker Loses Job For Sharing Publicly Available Info With Wife; Here's What Happened

Berton claimed that hundreds of Meta employees had been fired for similar reasons, with some losing their jobs simply for storing internal updates on personal messaging apps

Last month, Meta revealed plans to lay off nearly 3,000 employees, particularly those with poor performance ratings

Source : Unsplash

A Meta employee, despite being a top performer, lost his job after sharing internal company updates with his wife—information that had already been widely reported in the media. Riley Berton, the employee in question, stated that he had received an "exceeds expectations" performance rating for the previous year and was set to receive a bonus, only to be fired the day before it was due.

In a LinkedIn post, Berton, whose bio now reads "Staff Software Engineer, ex-Meta," shared that Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg had announced plans on Workplace, an internal platform, to be more stringent with underperforming employees in the upcoming review cycle. However, this information had already been leaked to Business Insider and The Verge by an unknown source.

He explained that he shared part of the internal post with his wife, which ultimately led to his termination. Berton said that he couldn't have been the person who leaked the information to the media, pointing out that he informed his wife at the same time Business Insider published the article.

Check The Post Here

He wrote, "The timestamp on the BI post is right about the time I sent this post to my spouse so I can't have been the "leaker" or harmed the company in any way. If she had read the post over my shoulder or if she had taken a photo of the post with her cellphone, I would not be writing this. If I took my laptop to a reporter and let them take a photo of the post, I would not be writing this.”

Berton claimed that hundreds of Meta employees had been fired for similar reasons, with some losing their jobs simply for storing internal updates on personal messaging apps.

He wrote, "I am also hearing stories of people who copied and pasted the text of this post into their own Notes apps on their own laptops and were fired because Apple Notes syncs to iCloud."

Last month, Meta revealed plans to lay off nearly 3,000 employees, particularly those with poor performance ratings. CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged the decision, stating that the company aimed to "raise the bar on performance" and quickly remove underperformers.