‘Punished without reason’: Mark Zuckerberg's Meta fires employee day before bonus for sharing...

A former Meta employee has alleged that he was fired for sharing a company update with his wife, even though the information was already public. The ex-employee, Riley Berton, shared his story in a viral LinkedIn post, calling his termination “incredibly sad and terrible and so very, very silly.” He also claimed that Meta’s strict crackdown on internal information sharing has led to several employees being fired unfairly.

Berton, who previously worked as a Staff Software Engineer at Meta, explained that the issue began when he shared a part of a post from Meta’s internal platform, Workplace, on January 14. The post was from CEO Mark Zuckerberg and talked about stricter performance reviews for employees. However, by the time Berton shared the information with his wife, it had already been leaked to Business Insider and The Verge, who had published articles about it.

He clarified that he was not the person who leaked the update to the press. "The timestamp on the Business Insider article is around the same time I sent this to my wife, so I could not have been the one who leaked it," he wrote. Berton further stated that if his wife had just looked at his screen or taken a photo of the post, he would not have been fired.

Firing Linked to Bonus Timing?
Berton’s termination happened months after the incident, but the timing has raised suspicion. He claimed that his last working day was just before he was supposed to receive a performance-based bonus. "I had just received an 'Exceeds Expectations' rating for my performance. Coincidentally, my termination date was set a day before I was to receive my bonus," he pointed out.

More Employees Affected?
Berton also alleged that many Meta employees have faced similar dismissals. He mentioned hearing cases where employees were fired simply for copying work-related text into their personal Notes app, which synced with iCloud. "People who copied and pasted text from internal posts into Apple Notes on their laptops were also fired," he claimed.

Meta’s Response
So far, Meta has not officially responded to Berton’s claims. However, in a previous statement, Meta spokesperson Dave Arnold told The Verge that the company has strict policies against leaking internal information and takes such violations seriously.

Recently, reports revealed that Meta had fired around 20 employees for allegedly sharing confidential company information.

With his time at Meta now over, Berton is searching for new job opportunities.