Facebook promises to create 10,000 jobs in Europe for the new virtual world

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Page changer: Former British Vice Prime Minister Nick Clegg is now in the service of Facebook - and promises to create thousands of jobs

Photo: TOBIAS SCHWARZ / AFP

The US technology group Facebook wants to create 10,000 new jobs in the European Union in the next five years in order to build the virtual world "Metaverse".

The Facebook manager Nick Clegg announced on Monday in a blog post.

This investment is "a vote of confidence in the strength of the European tech industry and the potential of European tech talents," wrote the former UK vice-premier.

Facebook understands “Metaverse” as a world in which physical reality merges with augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) in a cyber world.

The term comes from the American writer Neal Stephenson, who first used it in 1992 in his science fiction novel "Snow Crash".

Clegg, something like the role of the foreign minister during fills Internet Group, wrote: "Together with partners we develop the

Metaverse

- a new phase of networked, virtual experiences using technologies such as virtual and augmented reality."

No individual company will own and operate this virtual world.

"As the Internet is

Metaverse

are characterized by openness and interoperability."

Europe is extremely important for Facebook, claimed Clegg.

"This is where thousands of employees and millions of companies who use our apps and tools every day contribute to our success." The EU has many advantages that make it a great investment location for technology companies.

The announcement by Facebook comes at a time when the US group has come under great pressure internationally.

For example, at a hearing in the US Senate at the beginning of October, the former Facebook manager and whistleblower Frances Haugen called on politicians to force the online network to be more transparent.

The 37-year-old accused Facebook, among other things, of having known from internal studies that Instagram was damaging to the mental health of some teenagers - but had not done anything about it.

The company also produced negative headlines because a mistake in the network settings led to an outage of around six hours on Facebook and its subsidiaries WhatsApp and Instagram.

che / dpa-AFX