A former Meta employee claimed he was dismissed for sharing a public company update with his wife.
In a move highlighting Meta’s increasing crackdown on internal leaks, an ex-employee alleged that he was fired for sharing a company update with his wife—despite the information already being public.
Fired over a publicly available update?
Riley Berton, who identifies himself as a “Staff Software Engineer, ex-Meta” on LinkedIn, described his termination as “incredibly sad, terrible, and so very, very silly.” He suggested that Meta’s strict enforcement of its information-sharing policies has resulted in the dismissal of multiple employees under questionable circumstances.
Berton stated that he shared a section of an internal post from CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Workplace, Meta’s work communication platform, on January 14. The post outlined stricter performance reviews for employees—details that had already been leaked and reported by Business Insider and The Verge.
“It is important to note that this information had already been leaked to Business Insider and The Verge by someone (not me),” Berton wrote on LinkedIn.
While he denied leaking the post to the press, Berton admitted to sending it to his wife, a decision that ultimately led to his dismissal. He argued that if his wife had simply read the post over his shoulder or taken a picture of it on her phone, he would not have faced any consequences.
Suspicious timing of termination
Berton alleged that his termination occurred months after the supposed violation, conveniently aligning with his scheduled performance-based bonus payout.
“I had just received an ‘Exceeds Expectations’ rating for the prior year. Coincidentally, my termination date was set a day before I was to receive a bonus for my outstanding performance,” he said.
He further claimed that similar cases had led to the firing of “hundreds” of Meta employees—some for merely saving internal updates in their personal notes apps. “I am also hearing stories of people who copied and pasted the text of this post into their own Notes apps on their own laptops and were fired because Apple Notes syncs to iCloud,” he stated.
Meta remains silent
Meta has not publicly responded to Berton’s claims. However, company spokesperson Dave Arnold had previously told The Verge:
“We provide regular reminders that leaking internal information, regardless of intent, goes against our policies… We take this matter seriously and will continue to take action as we identify leaks.”
