Riley Berton, a former Staff Software Engineer at Meta, claims he was dismissed for sharing information—already public—with his wife, just one day before he was eligible for a performance bonus. Berton described the experience on LinkedIn as “incredibly sad, terrible, and so very silly,” sparking wide debate on workplace data sharing norms.

Berton explained he forwarded an internal post from CEO Mark Zuckerberg about stricter performance reviews to his spouse on January 14. However, by then, the details had already surfaced in Business Insider and The Verge. “The timestamp on the published articles coincides with when I shared the post, proving I couldn’t have leaked it,” Berton insisted.

He also argued that had his wife casually glanced at his screen or snapped a photo, he wouldn’t have faced termination. More concerning, Berton alleges he’s not alone—hundreds of Meta employees, he claims, have been fired under similar circumstances, for innocuous sharing with spouses or saving notes on personal devices synced to cloud services.

Calling the company’s clampdown a “witch hunt,” Berton highlighted Meta’s aggressive leak investigations. Recently, Meta dismissed 20 more employees linked to confidentiality breaches and signaled additional terminations.

A Meta spokesperson reaffirmed their strict no-leak stance, stating that sharing internal content, no matter the intent, violates policies.

Berton’s case underscores the tense divide between personal relationships and corporate confidentiality, especially within tech giants.