Facebook App Drains Your Phone’s Battery: The Hidden Truth
We all know that social media applications, together with Google services, are the main culprits for excessive smartphone battery consumption. They are largely responsible for much of the energy consumption of our equipment. Recent studies, and others not so recent, have shown that Facebook and Facebook Messenger are often among the most consumed applications on users’ smartphones. However, a recent scenario demonstrates that these “studies” are real, and has an explanation for this situation. A former Facebook employee said the group’s apps could secretly (and purposefully) drain the batteries of smartphones that use them.
This practice, known as “negative testing,” allows technology companies to test certain application features.
George Hayward, is the former employee we are talking about, he was fired in November last year by Meta (after being hired in October 2019 with a six-figure salary) for refusing to participate in the execution of these practices, which he deems incorrect, and has sued the company in federal court in Manhattan, and has now told the whole story to the New York Post: “I told the managers that this could hurt someone and they replied that by hurting a few we can help more people.” Specifically, the data scientist worked on the Facebook Messenger app, which allows users to send messages, multimedia content or documents, and make calls and video calls, becoming a crucial tool for communication in many countries.
In fact, the Messenger application has 1.3 billion active users worldwide, ranking fourth among the most used social platforms. In conversation with the staff of the New York Post, Hayward continued to tell the reasons that led him to refuse to perform these incorrect tests and the scenario that emerged after his refusal: “You refuse to do these tests for them and then if you still tell your boss something is illegal, it’s not very good.”
However, the data scientist was unable to establish how many users were affected by these negative tests carried out by Facebook, but he believes that the company has made a great effort to put them into practice, because he himself received an internal training document entitled ” How to Conduct Weighted Negative Tests,” which included examples of such tests in progress.
Reinforcing Hayward’s words, his lawyer, Dan Kaiser, said: “Most users probably have no idea that Facebook, or other social networks, are capable of intentionally draining a smartphone’s battery. It is clearly an illegal practice. It’s frustrating knowing that my smartphone’s battery can be manipulated by anyone.”
However, Hayward’s lawsuit was dismissed because working conditions at the Meta group forced the data scientist to defend his own lawsuit in arbitration. For this entire case, Meta has yet to respond.
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