Meta is facing a significant legal challenge as 26 former employees have filed a lawsuit alleging that the company used an artificial intelligence algorithm to determine who would be terminated during mass layoffs. According to the complaint, the internal AI platform known as "Checkpoint" failed to distinguish between legally protected leaves of absence and a lack of professional engagement.
The Checkpoint Platform and Allegations
The plaintiffs, a group including engineers, researchers, designers, and managers, claim that Meta utilized AI to evaluate staff based on opaque productivity metrics and the use of large language model (LLM) tokens. The lawsuit asserts that this process disproportionately affected employees with disabilities, as well as those who had taken maternity, parental, or medical leave.
Nearly half of the plaintiffs state they were fired after utilizing legally protected leave. One anonymous manager involved in the suit, who reportedly had direct access to the AI platform, claims the system failed to separate legitimate leave from poor performance, effectively using protected absences as a negative evaluation factor.
Meta's Defense
Meta has categorically denied the allegations. A company spokesperson told Reuters that human resources and organizational decisions were, and continue to be, made by humans rather than artificial intelligence. Despite this denial, the lawsuit seeks to block the layoffs of the 26 employees, although according to Reuters, individual lawsuits may be required due to existing legal agreements signed with the company.
