A former Meta data scientist pointed out that Facebook system applications can accelerate the consumption of power iPhone and Android phones. In a recent interview with the New York Post, George Hayward said he had been fired by the company last November for refusing to participate in “negative testing” during the development of Messanger.
Image source: Helayne Seidman
It is learned from QASource that so-called “negative testing” allows developers to “compare the expected output with incorrect output” by revealing how the application responds to invalid data. In Facebook’s case, negative testing can be used to see how certain features work and how fast messages load when the battery runs out faster than expected.
Hayward argued that Meta’s practice could “hurt some users” by accelerating power consumption without explicitly informing them, and Hayward defended his rights through arbitration after he was fired. Hayward did not say how many people might have been affected by the negative testing, nor did he say whether the Messenger test had been taken out of beta.
The Facebook app has long been accused of consuming too much power, and a Reddit post from 2020 showed the Messenger app using more power than PUBG Mobile.
