It is Monday morning. A lawsuit drops. Twenty-six people say Meta didn’t just fire them. They say an algorithm picked them because they weren’t there.
“These claims lack merit… decisions were and are made by people.”
Meta insists. But the filing in federal court tells a different story. Oakland is the venue. The charge is simple: AI tools identified the workers for cuts. Specifically those on protected leave.
Here is the setup. Roughly 8,000 jobs vanished. Ten percent of the total staff. That is a massive swing. Meta used keystroke monitors. Activity dashboards. Performance rankings assisted by code.
The plaintiffs say this system is rigged.
If you take parental leave your numbers drop. If you request a disability accommodation your activity slows down. The AI sees the data. It doesn’t know why the data is low. It just knows you look slow. And in the corporate world looking slow is dangerous.
All twenty-six plaintiffs took some form of leave before the axe fell. Eight women were on maternity or pregnancy leave. Four men took parental leave. One person needed bereavement and caregiving time. Then came the termination notice.
They didn’t fire everyone immediately. That was clever. The layoffs start July 22. Right now the workers still have badges. They still have access. But they are waiting in limbo.
One plaintiff claims a manager was explicit about the danger. Take medical leave and you raise your layoff odds. That isn’t management. That’s entrapment. The lawsuit cites a laundry list of laws broken. The Family and Medical Leave Act. The ADA. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act It feels like a textbook violation.
Disparate impact is the legal term here. Even if Meta didn’t hate pregnant workers the system hurt them. Women are more likely to take that leave. The AI catches them in the dragnet. It’s not malice necessarily. It’s math. Cold hard indifferent math.
Meta rejects all of it. Their statement is smooth. Corporate. They say people made the decisions. Not AI. Just humans using tools maybe?
Why do they feel the need to mention it wasn’t AI then?
These workers want an injunction. Stop the clock. Keep them employed while the case moves through arbitration. It is urgent for them. Losing a job mid-pregnancy isn’t just an income issue. Health insurance vanishes. Stock awards rot away. Some face immigration consequences that could force them out of the country.
Irreversible harm is a high bar to clear in court. They need to jump it fast.
The case raises a bigger question. Are we building tools that automate discrimination under the guise of efficiency? The technology moves forward. The law tries to catch up. Someone might get hurt before anyone figures it out.
