Globally, Big Tech companies have laid off somewhere around 70,000 workers in the past year. A big number of people have lately been laid off from prominent IT firms including Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Twitter, Microsoft, and Salesforce.

Tesla, Netflix, Snap, and Spotify are just some of the tech companies that have lately laid off staff in the wake of the economy. An ex-Meta employee is suing Facebook, alleging that the company deliberately drains users' phone batteries under the pretence of feature testing.

The former employee added that he was let go because he objected to taking part in the unsafe practice.

Data scientist George Hayward, 33, is rumoured to have helped develop Facebook's Messenger chat programme, according to the New York Post.

According to the lawsuit Hayward filed against the company, he found an internal guidebook titled 'How to run thoughtful negative tests,' which he claimed included examples of studies in which users' batteries were deliberately and covertly drained under the pretence of testing specific app features. Hayward defines this procedure as 'negative testing.'

Quoted by the press: 'I have never seen a more awful document in my career,' Hayward said. I tried to warn the manager that this could injure anyone, and she said that by hurting a few, we could end up helping more people in the long run. 

I skipped the exam. As is often the case, his response of 'No, it's unlawful' angered his superiors.

The former employee says he has no idea how many people are impacted by this tactic, but he suspects Facebook is involved due to an internal training module. 

Hayward originally filed a lawsuit against Meta in Manhattan Federal Court seeking an unspecified amount in damages, but his lawyer advised him to drop the case in favour of arbitration. Hayward insists that he is telling the truth.

Meta claims that people are at risk when their phone batteries are low because they cannot get in touch with authorities like the police or rescue teams.

According to the advertisement, Hayward was hired in October 2019 and then fired in November of the same year. According to Hayward, he was let go because he objected to being subjected to 'negative testing.' Facebook's parent company, Meta, carried out one of the largest layoffs in the history of the internet business, eliminating nearly 11,000 jobs in a single month.