“Dangerous content”, a new priority for the social network for 2 billion users. Facebook announced on Tuesday that it plans to hire 1,000 people in the UK this year to fight this content.
More than half of these hires, which will bring the group's total workforce in the United Kingdom to 4,000 people, will be dedicated to artificial intelligence, augmented reality but also to software engineering or product design , notably for the Workplace (an online collaboration tool) and WhatsApp subsidiaries, according to a press release.
"A large part of these positions" will allow us to develop "tools and technologies to proactively detect and remove dangerous content from our platform", specifies the Internet giant, which employs around 43,000 people worldwide.
Fight against harassment and threats
The London offices will bring together the teams "in charge of everything from the fight against spam through harassment and threats", on behalf of Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, the statement said.
London is Facebook’s largest engineering center outside the United States, and the group is building new offices in two buildings in the rapidly modernizing area of King’s Cross, where the company's offices are located. another internet giant, Google. The first building is due to open next year.
Internet giants, notably Facebook and Google, are under pressure from many governments to better fight the spread of online hatred, incitement to violence, the praise of terrorism, in addition to false information.
Google and Facebook face the EU
Google and Facebook are notably in the midst of a charming offensive between the Davos summit and the major European capitals where governments like France are considering tightening regulations on them.
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The boss of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, Sundar Pichai, notably called on Monday the EU for a “balanced approach” to regulate artificial intelligence, raising the problem of “deepfakes”, deceptive content generated by an algorithm of intelligence and, secondly, facial recognition technology.
Nick Clegg, a British politician who has become one of Facebook’s main communicators, spoke at Guido Carli University in Rome on Tuesday, calling on governments to regulate the social media sector rather than dismantle it and saying that the group founded by Mark Zuckerberg is ready to "discuss constructively with the authorities".
Continuing his conciliatory remarks, he went so far as to say that he “would love to see the next Alibaba (a Chinese online sales site) or Google emerge” (in Europe) and that it is “entirely possible, especially if legislators and regulators are working to create the conditions that allow tech companies to thrive. ”