Meta accused of using biased AI targeting for mass layoffs

Twenty-six former Meta employees are suing the company, alleging it used AI tools to unfairly target workers on medical or parental leave for mass layoffs in May, violating federal and state laws. The lawsuit claims Meta's internal AI systems scored and ranked employees without accounting for protected leave, leading to disproportionate terminations. Meta denies the allegations, stating that workforce decisions were made by people, not AI.

A group of 26 former Meta employees is suing the company over claims that it used AI tools to unfairly target workers on leave with layoffs, as reported earlier by https://www.reuters.com/world/meta-used-ai-target-workers-with-medical-conditions-layoffs-former-employees-2026-07-14/ Reuters . In the lawsuit https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28475884-former-employees-v-meta/ document/p1 , the employees allege Meta determined which workers to dismiss based on performance data collected by a “constellation” of internal AI tools, but failed to exclude those on parental or medical leave from its ranking system: The result was that employees who took protected leaves were disproportionately selected for layoff, based on scoring that not only failed to account for their protected leaves, but in effect penalized the employees for exercising their legal rights to these leaves. The layoffs mentioned in the lawsuit occurred in May as part of Meta’s plans to slash 10 percent of its staff /tech/917690/meta-is-laying-off-10-percent-of-its-staff , or around 8,000 workers. Meta’s former employees allege the company used an internal AI assistant, called Metamate https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-ai-assistant-helps-employees-performance-reviews-2025-11 , employee-trained AI agents, internal dashboards displaying AI token usage, and other tools to “score, rank, and select employees for inclusion on the termination list.” The lawsuit accuses Meta of violating federal and state laws preventing employers from terminating workers for taking protected leave. “These claims lack merit and are not based on facts,” Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton tells The Verge . “Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI.”