In a bid to improve safety on its social media site, Facebook has announced that it would employ 1,000 more London-based staff.
Facebook’s head of global affairs and communications and former UK deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg made this announcement while delivering a speech delivered in Rome.
“Last spring, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined four areas where he believes smart regulation can make a real difference: harmful content, election integrity, privacy, and data portability.
“In these areas and others, we are keen to engage constructively with policymakers. We have not only long accepted the need for new regulation, but we are also impatient to get going. Everyone agrees the internet needs new rules. We want them, just as you do. So let’s get to work.”
Speaking on the usefulness of hiring new staff, the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg explained that increasing the company’s London workforce by 1000 people would help address the challenges of an open internet and develop artificial intelligence to find and remove harmful content more quickly.
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The Facebook COO expressed her excitement in hiring additional people in the United Kingdom, saying the country is a leader in innovation and creativity.
According to Sandberg, when hired, the people would help Facebook build the tools that help small businesses grow as well as to compete with larger companies and create new jobs.
In addition, as reported by AFP, Facebook said that it was increasing the number of staff at its largest engineering hub outside the United States to more than 4,000.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson welcomed the idea, saying that, “the UK is successfully creating both homegrown firms at the forefront of cutting-edge technologies, such as artificial intelligence, whilst attracting established global tech giants like Facebook.”
