Meta's AI Productivity System Continues Scoring the 26 Workers Suing Over Its Scores

OAKLAND—Following a federal judge's July 17 ruling allowing Meta to proceed with the July 22 layoffs of 26 employees who sued over allegedly discriminatory AI performance rankings, the company's Metamate productivity management system has continued to monitor and score the named plaintiffs throughout the legal proceedings, Meta confirmed.

Metamate, which logs keystrokes, screen activity, and application usage to generate employee performance ratings, recorded "below-benchmark output hours" for several plaintiffs during the months they spent on protected medical leave — the same period for which they were ranked in the lowest performance tier and flagged for termination.

"The system is objective," said a Meta spokesperson. "It measures what it measures."

Meta submitted Metamate scores as evidence the terminations were performance-based rather than discriminatory. Attorneys for the plaintiffs noted that every named plaintiff's Metamate score has risen since they began preparing the lawsuit full-time. Three workers who scored in the bottom quartile during medical leave have since climbed to the top half — their highest rankings in two years.

One plaintiff, a disabled software engineer who had been on FMLA leave at the time of her termination, submitted 4,200 pages of supporting documentation during discovery. Her Metamate productivity score rose to 9.1 — the highest recorded in her eleven-year tenure.

Her last day remains July 22.

"The data speaks for itself," the spokesperson said.

Asked whether Metamate had scored the judge's ruling, the company confirmed it had not.

"Court orders do not contain keystrokes," she said.