Facebook Messenger is said to be a massive drain on the battery of some users – intentionally and for testing purposes. That’s what an ex-employee of Meta Platforms, the parent company, claims. He originally even demanded compensation in a lawsuit and talks about how dangerous these so-called negative tests are. They are, so to speak, stress tests and are intended to show how people react and act with apps when something is not running smoothly.
The lawsuit was first reported by the New York Post, a tabloid. Accordingly, George Hayward claims that the messenger should specifically charge and empty the smartphone battery. He considers this to be negligent, because if the battery is empty, you can no longer call for rescue in an emergency. When he spoke to his boss about it, she replied: “By harming some, we can help many.” The case is now before an arbitral tribunal. Because he refused to work on such tests, he was fired. Hence his alleged claim for damages.
Smartphone settings against battery guzzlers
In fact, it has to be said that smartphones display such battery guzzlers. On the iPhone, for example, the “Battery” selection can be found under the settings and below that is a list of which apps account for what percentage of consumption. If an app stands out, that could be noticed. Android also has such an overview – there it is called “Battery” and can even explicitly warn if something is eating up a lot of battery life.
If an app appears to be particularly battery-hungry, this does not have to be due to such stress tests. It can also simply be that one app actually consumes more than another. Instagram with all the pictures, videos and advertisements can hardly be compared to the calendar. In addition, bugs can always be the reason for problems without any intention. Basically, the power-saving mode helps if you are concerned that the battery could drain too quickly. Other options include dark mode for OLED devices or generally dimming the screen, turning off location sharing and forbidding background updates.
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Meta has not yet commented on the allegations of carrying out negative tests at all. Basically, it is not necessarily likely to annoy many users in this way. According to the ex-employee, the test also included training documents that revealed terrible things.
(emw)
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