The move ramps up efforts by Facebook to filter content amid growing criticism of the social media giant for allowing the platform to be used to promote violence and hateful activity. “If we’re going to build a safe community, we need to respond quickly,” chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said on his Facebook page.
The 3,000 new recruits, added over the coming year, will increase by two thirds the size of Facebook’s community operations team, which currently numbers 4,500. “We’ve seen people hurting themselves and others on Facebook -- either live or in video posted later,” Zuckerberg said. “It’s heartbreaking, and I’ve been reflecting on how we can do better for our community.” The additional reviewers will “help us get better at removing things we don’t allow on Facebook like hate speech and child exploitation,” he said.
Critics say the social network has been too slow to react to online violence, and questioned whether Facebook Live -- a strategic area of development for the company -- should be disabled, after several cases in which it was used to broadcast rapes. Zuckerberg said Facebook has been working on better technology that can identify violent or inappropriate content -- and that its efforts to screen for acts of violence appeared to be paying off.
“Just last week, we got a report that someone on Live was considering suicide,” he said. “We immediately reached out to law enforcement, and they were able to prevent him from hurting himself. In other cases, we weren’t so fortunate.”
It was not immediately clear how and where Facebook would deploy the new monitors.
As Facebook approaches a global user base of two billion, it has been grappling with its role as a platform for sharing news as well as calls to violence and political propaganda.
