Former employee sues Facebook: the app intentionally drains the smartphone battery

Have you noticed a abnormal battery consumption of your smartphone, especially if you use Facebook? The cause could be Facebook itself: according to a former employee of Meta, in fact, the app is designed for download intentionally the battery of the device.

According to a former Facebook employee, the app intentionally drains the smartphone's battery

Like any other app, too Facebook (e Facebook Messenger) could contribute to drain the battery of a smartphone faster when used directly or when they are left running in the background, using up a significant amount of resources, such as the CPU, the network connection, the microphone, position and camera. However, the speed with which a smartphone tends to download may also depend on the device and the operating system version itself. We are well aware that older smartphones have less capacious batteries and most likely worn out by time, so these devices could in theory download much faster compared to others equipped with larger drives and operating systems with optimized energy consumption.

Either way, according to a former employee di Facebook, the speed with which this app drains the smartphone battery also depends on something else: the will of Mark Zuckerberg's team. This former employee has a name, George Hayward, and was fired by Meta for opposing the so-called negative tests, or the practices that allow technology companies to intentionally drain your smartphone battery of the victim involved for test a new feature. The problem would not involve all Facebook users, therefore, but only those involved in the test – in most cases, the guinea pigs they are chosen randomly.

George Hayward would also file a lawsuit against Meta, underlining in the complaint that intentionally drain the batteries of users' smartphones it puts people at risk especially in circumstances where they need to communicate with others, such as in emergency situations, when they need to contact the police or other first responders. The lawsuit was later dropped in Manhattan federal court because Meta allegedly forced the former employee to argue it in arbitration. According to George Hayward, that accomplished by Facebook is one illegal practice and allows anyone to manipulate a smartphone battery.